Information Sharing... part 3/3

This is the third part of a three part post. I started with "you don't know what you don't know" moved to "pick one!", and now I'm moving into sharing of information.

I built, and now operate a cyber information sharing organization. While I can give you a 100% guarantee that I've not gotten it 100% right (yet), I know from recent feedback that every one of them enjoys the broadened situational awareness and each and every one has improved their security postures. They share cyber analysis, stories, and data. More than that, the vast majority now run 24/7 security operations centers who look for and act on data coming from the information sharing environment and each other! Sharing information helps the tactician identify and act, it helps the manager allocate resources on the most pressing issues, and it helps senior managers measure themselves against baseline. Best of all? It makes you safer by knowing what the other guys are seeing and allows you to take advantage of strengths/skills in other organizations that you may not be able to fill yourself.

Bottom line? If you're not talking to your peers, you're already two steps behind in this cyber environment.

So where can you go?

Immediate thoughts:

• SANS Internet Storm Center has been around since Y2K (I was there! I was one of the first watch standers keeping vigil and maintaining comms during the transition). The Storm Center is one of the better places to share information, although data can be time-late. The ISC is a free service offered by SANS.
• The Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACS) represent nearly every segment of industry and are operated through membership fees. One issue I have with the ISAC structure is the requirement to anonymize all submissions. This results in the loss of ability for an analyst to actually ask questions of the originator.
• Red Sky Alliance is a newcomer. I've watched from the sidelines and offered a bit of pro bono consulting in the past couple of weeks. I also sold them a trademarked name and domain ;) I like the idea. The thought is real time sharing of information in a private setting with a trusted membership and a small cadre of back-end analysts to keep things moving. Again, Red Sky Alliance will be operated through membership fees. I don't believe the company has the site operational yet, but there is a video and demo site running and I know they've been signing on Founding Members. I'd expect to see them go live sometime in November of this year.
• The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) and Government equivalent (GFIRST) have also been around for a long time. I was an early member of FIRST during my days as an analyst at the Navy's Fleet Information Warfare Center in 1996, and again as the head of Cyber Threat Analysis and Intelligence at Northrop Grumman from 2007-2009. FIRST hasn't changed much. They require an up-front inspection of your security operation, issue a PGP key, and let you participate in multiple lists. I'm not convinced FIRST has kept up with the times in terms of information dissemination but they get the word out and do share information.. and they offer a pretty cool technical conference!

In many worlds, the phrase "publish or perish" rings true. Many careers have been made and lost on the publish or perish paradigm. I'd suggest publish or perish is also going to hold true in information security as we move forward and APT threats become more and more ubiquitous. Publish, talk, compare notes with your peers and others. Don't be afraid to go outside of your peer group for information that you may not have been exposed to.

Talk, publish, listen, compare notes, protect your environment. 

JLS

Pick a standard and stick to it

Over the course of the last 15 years, I've watched information security grow and mature as a practice. One thing I've come to realize however is that the process end of the infosec business is more important than ever - especially in light of the new APT landscape.

Here's the story of two companies:

Company A and B are Global Tech companies.. Four years ago both companies were worth approximately $16B each.

Both companies suffered APT attacks over the course of the last four years.

Company A stuck their head in the sand hoping it'd go away.

Company B developed world class process using ISO for their infosec guidelines. They participated in information sharing with their peers, built a SOC, practiced response. The company created amazing process, practiced them, measured everything and fine tuned them until they got it right. When the attacks hit, they were prepared. The global organization is now wired for information security.

What happened?

Company A is still alive, but struggling. They lost the lions share of their stock value!

Company B is landing contracts all over the world, teaching others how to do best practice information security.

Who would you rather be? Not Company A you say? Take the following lessons learned and and go do it starting today!

Great information security organizations invest in three things...

    •    People
    •    Process
    •    Technology

People: My tale of two companies is very similar to another as told by Alan Paller of SANS. Alan talks of the "Story of Two Agencies".  I've seen it a couple of times. In short, he talks of two teams, both hit by APT actors. One team had solid technology but didn't have operating guidelines, training, analytic curiosity, or direction. The second team had basic technology with a highly trained, very curious team with practiced incident response processes... who do you think faired best? The second team of course! The team stopped the attacks with minimum damage, shared indicators with their peer community and was able to quickly implement controls to stop future attacks. Team one was completely owned. I hear this story repeated at least weekly, and heard it again today from companies I've been working with for the last couple of years. 

Process: Great process leads to great results. It's that simple. Information security teams who know what to do under 90% of the circumstances they will encounter -and have practiced those actions operated under the premise (a military phrase) "command by negation". Command by negation means that during conflict commanders can do whatever needed according to predefined rules/processes and have a pre-specified deep, practiced understanding of how they must execute. Information security teams must also have this same pre-specified deep, practiced understanding of how they must execute, and must not allow variance in process during times of attack. Pick your infosec model. ISO, NIST, ITIL, whatever.. just pick one. Then build your organization using sound process around one of these models. Do it right from the start. Get management buy-in, find your early wins, and don't stop normalizing the way you do business.

Technology: Tools and toys don't cut it. Knowing how to get the most out of your current tools by understanding exactly where they fit in your strategy, and as importantly where your gaps are, are critical. Find places where technology can replace repetitive manual processes (SE/IM, manual correlations, lookups, etc.), and leverage your people where they're strongest -analytics, response, operations.

How do you create a mature organization that can survive the fog of war created by persistent threats? By creating an organization who knows what to do every time. Plenty of options exist today... ISO, NIST 800, or ITIL are great places to start. For my day job, I 'matured' my organization by using the Capability Maturity Model Integration Services provider model (CMMI-SVC). Over the course of the last two years we undertook an aggressive process engineering and training agenda. When we started this undertaking, it took my team over 44 days to perform a single triage analysis of an APT event. Today it takes less than five and we're heading quickly to 72 hours with added automation.  For me, the recognition that we were a service provider of information security analysis services (we do only APT analysis in a public/private information sharing organization) lead me to the belief that process was every bit as important as the technologies used to manipulate data, and that if I didn't have people curious enough to work the process, nothing else matters. My team will fail. I've also watched CISOs in some very large organizations (approx 60 of them) go through similar process engineering exercises. Those who picked a standard (for information security) and implemented solid, repeatable process around those ISO, NIST, ITIL, etc., practices, are FAR more successful at battling APT today than those who don't. Don't be fooled into thinking you can survive without it. You can't. APT actors practice solid command and control and process. You must as well.

 More next time!
JS

On Information Sharing... Most companies don't know they've been had!

I saw an interesting piece of text from Mandiant the other day. It was prepared for testimony (I'm presuming to Congress) discussing APT. It went something like this...


“More than 90 percent of the breaches Mandiant responds to are first detected by the government, not the victim companies.” (Kevin Mandia, CEO of cyber security firm Mandiant Corp., in prepared testimony).

Dozens (probably more) examples prove this statement. Search the news. Generally companies fall into two main categories when they find out.. denial, or they fight. Denial rarely works, and fighting it results in rapid escalation. Regardless, your business is in danger.

So what's a company to do? Start thinking strategically. Come up with a plan for mitigating current badness already in the environment, WHILE maintaining business operations, AND planning for future strategies for minimizing or mitigating future attacks, AND ensuring you'll be able to operate in your new-found understanding that your networks are now untrusted.

This is where we start thinking about steps two and three in my previous post...

2.  Build solid process (for operation and incident response). Pick a model and stick to it.
3.  At this point you MUST start talking to your peers, and others. You wouldn't try and sell a product without knowing what your competitors (peers) are selling (what sells, and what doesn't). Why would you try and implement strategy without knowing how well your chosen processes will work (what works and what doesn't, before you spend any money!).

For now, start looking around... there are lots of public sources of information.. SANS, NCFTA, FIRST, and a newcomer, RedSkyAlliance.org. From a government assistance perspective DHS/US-CERT.

Be prepared. It's not a question of 'if', or 'when'. It's 'what are you going to do when someone tells you there's a problem?'

More next time.
JS

On Information Sharing...

Going to tell you.. I'm a long time straight stick IT guy, gone Intel/Information Warfare then Information Security (for the last 15 years or so?), and I've not had so much fun, nor realized the value of Information Sharing until my last three years running an information security sharing organization wrapped around a CERT and Analysis shop. I'm not going to take a lot of time to tell you what that is. You can check out my bio and look at the web page; rather I'd like to take a moment and tell you about the value proposition I've come to realize over the course of my tenure.

Not a day goes by without a new story in the news depicting company losses from (ahem) Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) - a term coined by a guy named Greg Rattray several years ago during his active duty career. At the time, the term APT seemed pretty spot-on. Since however, those APT threats have become far more ubiquitous, and now I'm more convinced they should be called  Omnivorous Persistant Threats --OPT. Malware, computers beaconing, and bandwidth consumed is becoming more common than not, and most importantly, the vast majority of companies don't even know they've been successfully attacked!

I'm here to tell you, the most valuable information security lesson I've ever learned has been learned in the last five years --INFORMATION SECURITY PRACTITIONERS MUST STOP LISTENING TO VENDORS AND START TALKING TO EACH OTHER. Vendors want to sell you stuff. Your peers are working hard to stop the same attacks you are. More importantly, the threats change as your ability to protect yourself changes. Even the most sophisticated shops lack the 100% capability to foil every attack.

I'm preparing to speak at a conference for healthcare CIOs. I'm going to give them three words of wisdom:

1. Most companies attacked by APT don't know it until someone else tells them they've been owned.
2. Pick a standard infosec model, implement solid processes,  do it well, and don't shoot at protecting everything. Protect that information most important to your organization and build solid controls around the rest.
3. Talk to your peer companies. They're getting hit with the same things you are. Lone wolves starve in the cold. The packs survive.

More next time. I've got to update the block list in my UTM.

JS

ISC(2).. really? REALLY?

You HAVE to check this out:

ThinkTank: Building a Better Mousetrap – Tracking and Catching the Cyber Criminal

It's a talk by RSA and Capella University on catching cyber bad guys.

I'd be happier with lessons learned from RSA. Any chance of that? Probably not. It seems RSA isn't talking, rather continuing to market. I'd rather have them simply own the issue, and come clean on how they are remediating (and winning back the trust of their customers).

JS

Carbon Black

I've had the opportunity to test a new-comer to the forensic market, and while young, I like this product.

Carbon Black is developed by a company called Kyrus. Can't tell you where these guys came up with the name, other than it's taken from Greek mythology for luck and opportunity. In this case, I'm not convinced there's any luck involved, but more opportunity and simple smarts.

Carbon Black is a two piece application --client and server; the server currently hosted and operating in beta as a SaaS with the client loaded on my Bambi Windows 7 machine in my lab. Push a client to your machine, and CB identifies the host, reads running processes, and begins to look for file changes and modifications. It took an initial reading from Bambi for an upload of about 30Mb, but after the company realized I was pushing a thick milkshake through a tiny straw (their rate limiting) and opened up the bandwidth, all went well.

So it's been running for a couple of weeks. I just rechecked and yes, lots of files modified --many I'm sure from the AV running on the machine, but what's nice is it auto generates the hash values of the modified files, libraries, etc., to allow fast correlation to known bad guy files. While not perfect, it shows promise. There's no noticeable performance hit from the client and the server side operates quickly and without glitches.

I've got a few invitations left. If you're interested, leave me a comment or shoot a note over. I'll push one out.

Good stuff. I'm not a real fan of SaaS for security tools. Can't wait to see the final enterprise product where everything resides inside the environment.

Any questions, leave me a comment.

Jeff

Hey Southwest Air! Please! Charge me bag fees!

So here's my gripe...

I fly SWA almost every other week between MHT and BWI. Been doing it for about six years now.

SWA just changed their (ahem) reward system, and it frosts my butt. Here's why:

SWA used to require 8 round trip flights for one reward. One reward is one round trip. Credits were earned by paying for a flight. For each flight segment (a one way flight). Therefore, if I were able to book a $69 flight, it counted as one segment. More often than not the flight was at least $100, and in most cases I booked business class (I generally arrive minutes before the departure time. Business class gets me right on.. SWA has really become my subway!).

Ok, so we went from 'buy one flight get one award segment'. Get 16 and earn a free round trip.

SWA has now moved to a point system, whereby every dollar spent earns a certain number of points. For example, my last round trip cost me $371 (up from $282 six months ago). For $350, I get roughly 4400 points (where'd that number come from?). To earn a round trip between MHT and BWI, I now need 21,600 points each way or pay $180 per segment.

So SWA, let me understand better. For the purchase of a $370 round trip I get 4400 points, but to purchase a $370 trip with points I need 43,200?

Please, charge me bag fees! I'm going to have to start flying USAIR ($218, with a short stop in Philly)!

Sorry SWA. You're pricing yourself out of my wallet.

Jeff

Final HKS post

Morning all.

I'm back at work, but wanted to take a moment and chat about a couple of things:

1. This experience was easily the best training I've ever had.

2. On my first day back, I was asked if I wore my new lapel pin to show everyone I went to Harvard. I answered back that I wore the pin to remind me of what I'd learned.

3. I have new tools in the toolkit. I have reminders in a Harvard logo'd binder on my desk next to my monitor, so when I need a refresher, it's right there. Inside I placed a few of the most important tools I'd previously lacked, with my handwritten notes from class.

That's it. I'm posting the remainder of the pictures:

 Steve Kellman's comic

 During my walk back to Soldiers Field.. my last night

 The gates into the dorm courtyard

 My study group

 Dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club

 Jeff, Paul, Nat and Mike

 More inside the Harvard Faculty club

 The walk from the Faculty Club.. Wrapping up on St. Patty's day. 

This was the start of a great night!

 John Harvard - do you recognize any of the faces in the

stained glass? I'll give you two of them.. Nixon, John Lennon

 The RedLine -- the second St. Patty's Day event. For those

who rode the bus from the Faculty Club, the bus dropped

everyone off here. Some stayed, some went back to the dorms for

some well needed rest. Obviously I didn't go back just yet!

 Me with Simon and Ibrahim

 A night of well mannered frivolity!

 Melancholy moments on my final walk to the dorm.

I'd just left the Friday 'reflections' class; a new graduate SEF.

 When it was nice, the walk along the Charles was the best.

 ...including the view of the woman's rowing teams!

OK all. That's it.

Harvard, out.

Wrapping it up at the Kennedy School

It's Thursday afternoon, 3:45 and we've just wrapped up our final class.

That means roughly 120 sessions of 45 minutes crammed into four weeks. Most professors used 90 minutes and taught two. Regardless, it's been a hell of a journey. Today we wrapped up by 3:30, and don't have any readings for tomorrow, but we need to pack out and be ready to check out of the dorms by 9:00 tomorrow morning. Unfortunately we have final sessions and reflections starting at 8.

...four weeks. I'm going to tell you, this is a life changing experience. Everything about the program is first class. It's hard to explain how these guys do what they do, but the program teaches leadership, history, personal accountability, lessons from the Presidential offices (from people who advised the Presidents), and more. In addition to the coursework, they really do everything possible to immerse you in the higher level thinking and culture of Harvard. Again, hard to explain. I'll do my best in actions when I return.

Besides the coursework and culture, one of my friends suggested I bring extra bourbon for the study groups at night. We used all of mine, and more from others. During the Balcony Summits, we solved world hunger, the crisis in the Middle East, we've fixed Israel, and know how to best assist Japan. Does anyone by chance have Hillary's phone number? I'm sure she'll want to know what we've come up with!

OK all, probably one more post tomorrow with pictures from tonight... final dinner, business attire at the Harvard Faculty Club.

Jeff

Tuesday morning.. week 4

Well, we're in the home stretch! It's Tuesday morning and I'm wrapping up my readings for the day and getting my case study prepared for the after-SEF project I'll be working on with my group.

It's been a hell of an experience! We wrapped up last week with a trip to the JFK library, but only after a week of reading, case studies, reading, and more case studies. The schedule is been hectic. They keep us busy from 8AM to early evening most days, with one study groups before class in the morning and many times dinner speakers.

Last night was Jeff Frankel. Jeff was an economic advisor to Clinton. While I didn't necessarily appreciate the message (he was very doom and gloom), nor the slant (he blames everything on everyone but Clinton), it was still interesting having him here, speaking to us over dinner. An interesting thought though... 1/5 of our current budget goes to pay for interest on money borrowed from the rest of the world to pay our bills. I've not confirmed the number, nor audited our budget, but if this is right, it's amazing that we can continue to operate.

We discussed the current budget mess and the continuing resolutions. He told us that even if the planned cuts went through, it accounted for only 6% of the current issue (with the implication that it wouldn't do much good). I'm a bit concerned by this. I had a woman who worked for me in a startup a few years back. She was my most junior person -an intern from a local college. When we started running out of money in the end, she requested to not take a paycheck. She told me "it takes a lot of drops of water to make an ocean, but every one counts.". 6%? That seems like it'd pay interest at least don't you think?

OK, now for more fun topics... pictures of the JFK Library and dinner. We had a great time!

General Odiermo, HKS Forum, Cyber...

I had the privilege of getting one of the very limited tickets to see General Ray Odiermo speak tonight.

Gen O is the current commander of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, VA. He's an impressive guy to hear speak, but more fun for me was that he speaks very passionately about Cyber!

I am a cyber guy, and work by day at the DoD Cyber Crime Center, and being the only cyber pro in my class at the Kennedy School, found this to be incredibly good stuff.

So this guy has got to be 6'5" and as broad as a bull dozer, with a rack of ribbons that pushed his combat infantry badge WAY up on his shoulder, but he speaks of Cyber like it's the next front. He's informed, smart, well spoken, and his last word on the subject --after speaking for almost thirty minutes --was that cyber is the thing. My classmates all looked at me, knowing I was the only cyber guy int he class, and knowing that I also am not afraid to speak, and they knew --we're working hard in this area. I don't talk much about what I do in class, but many know of DCISE and read our products. It's an amazing thing. Many of my classmates have even commented about how much is going on in the area. My roommate -a former P3 pilot and now Navy civilian commented that every high ranking official that comes through speaks of CYBER!

It's a good time to be a geek, and Harvard is creating in me a self-aware, bigger thinker.

I hope to be in this game for a long, LONG, time!

Jeff

Tuesday

Wow. Long day. Two case studies in Negotiations just took it out of me. We started in our "Extended SEF' groups at 8AM with classes on building teams and negotiations all day, ending with Joe Nye. Joe spoke about his book "Soft Power", hitting on global implications of the media, policy issues (i.e.: China's sensorship of the media), India, and finally, cyber.

While interesting (actually great talks) by the end of the day, after two fairly heavy interactive case studies in negotiation, and then Joe, my head is full. Thankfully we have a light reading assignment for tomorrow. I need the sleep.

That's it for now. I'm taking advantage of the light assignment and heading down!
Jeff

Saturday class! Wuhoo!

I'm a little late in posting, but wanted to get my pictures transferred over from yesterday.

So yes, we had class on Saturday. The day started with the remaining discussions of the Federalist Papers (it was kinda dry to have them read to us, but a great topic none the less). The discussions were all surrounding our founding fathers thoughts when they framed, and then tried to ratify the Constitution. The papers were actually a marketing piece put together to try and get New York to ratify the Constitution. It worked! Before heading out for a field trip, we had another class teaching politics in the federal government. The class flew by. As you might imagine, everyone had thoughts on politics. The resulting conversations made the class just fly by!

Noon brought lunch, and then we caught the "Yankee" buses for guided tours of Lexington (remember the shot heard around the world?). The minute men hadn't aged well, but were VERY good.

We got a great history lesson by these *ahem* young minute men, and then jumped back in the Yankee bus for a guided trip to Concord where we were met by the local historian, and our professor, Steve Keller. Steve had the best stories, and took us to Minuteman State Park and Walden Pond. We got a in a bit of hot water at Walden Pond because the snow limited the parkability of those big busses. It was actually kinda funny. When accosted by the short rotund woman in brown, who needed to know who to write the ticket to, he gave another professor's name (Pete Zimmerman). She was happy. We were allowed to leave. Concord was great. Below are two pictures of the monument. The park was covered in heavy melting snow making walking on the trails wet and muddy. Many of my classmates were wearing sneakers, so we didn't go far.

Dinner was at the Colonial Inn.. This is actually the original home of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but obviously dated before him. The Colonial Inn has been operational for over 300 years, and was one of the prime meeting places in Concord, MA. I think the waiter lived through the entire thing, but in the end, it turned out he'd only been with the Inn for 20 years. Regardless, he had the history lesson down pat and kept the wine flowing freely. After dinner several of us retired to the front porch for cigars before getting back on the Yankee Bus for our trip back to Soldiers Field.

Tomorrow brings our first day of negotiation class. I'm here to tell you folks, if you ever get the opportunity to come to SEF, DON'T turn it down. These guys know how do it right. This is the best training I've ever had!

Jeff

Friday... one more day to go before the weekend!

Yes, we have class on Saturday. Two case studies and then a historical walking tour of Lexington and Concord. Why you ask? We're in the modules where we're learning about the framing of the government. We spent time this afternoon in discussions of the Federalist Papers after a morning of organization building and a case study on navigating Fed politics. The lunch speaker today was Shelly Metzanbaum -the Associate Director of OPM's Performance Management program. Interesting stuff.

It was a good day. Dinner was to be in the Penthouse dining room with a guy dressed as James Madison, talking about the papers and framing of the Constitution. I bagged out. I ended up with a massive sinus headache about 2, so I figured I'd try and kick it before the walking tour and dinner out tomorrow. I held out until after the final class before dinner, then headed back.

Tomorrow should be another great day. Going to head to bed early and try and kick this headache.

Jeff

Harvard Cyber Security Symposium

Broadcast live today from 12-6:30. I'll be in class, but an interesting roundup of panelists.

http://harvardnsj.com/live/

12-1:          
"The future of the Internet" (lunchtime debate) Jonathan Zittrain, Stewart Baker

1:15-2:45:  
Privacy concerns in cyberspace: Kevin Bankston (EFF), Dr. Joel Bremmer (former NCIX), David Hoffman (Intel), Susan Landau (Harvard)

3:00-4:30:  
Defense and Deterrence in Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare: Steven Chabinski (FBI), Duncan Hollis (Temple Univ), Martin Libicki (RAND), Noah Shactman (Wired Mag), Eric Rosenbach (Harvard)

5-6:30:       
Keynote: Steven Bradbury (DA Atty Gen, DoJ)

Enjoy!
Jeff

Harvard.. Thursday week 2

Almost half way through the program. Today was a little shorter, but even with the shorter day I ended up a little late this morning. We had a light reading day, so I spent the morning sitting at the kitchen table in the dorm reading forward. Coffee and case studies; the breakfast of champions! About 8:30 I realized I hadn't showered, was engrossed in a case about revamping the MTA, and it was time to go. By 9:00, I was FROZEN from the walk (14 deg F plus a heavy wind) to school (maybe just under a mile??).. headed straight for Dunkin Donuts and then in my seat by 9:10.. not bad, but still, I want every minute I can get out of these people and the program!

Today was a fun treat. I met with the Sr. Researcher for the Minerva project. Minerva is a DoD funded collaborative project between Harvard Kennedy School and MIT's computer science program. The program topics have a familiar ring, except for one very interesting piece (at least through my lense!). They're focusing on cyber in the horizontal as it relates to International Relations. What a concept! A DoD funded cyber project that actually considers international relations issues! I've been asked to present. Likely going to talk about challenges in the heterogeneous global corporate environment --all unclas and should add value. From my perspective, it's also a two slide talk that will last about 45 minutes, so it should be perfect. One benefit here is they use very little in the way of PowerPoint. I'm finding more value in the blackboard discussions than being preached at through PowerPoint. I'll likely do the same thing.. two slides, two sets of graphics; no text.

The day, again, was AMAZING. I can easily declare Gary Orren is by far the best professor I've ever had. I can declare that without even thinking. Gary teaches persuasion. It's a baseline program before heading into negotiation next week, but just the fact that I've now been through six sessions of the mechanics behind good, persuasive communications is something I've never had. Gary gave me new tools, and believe me, I've already started practicing in some of my emails. 

Tomorrow is another lunchtime speaker. It's on the agenda as 'special guest'. Not sure what that means, but it seems to mean that HKS doesn't want to advertise the fact that high profile guests will join us at lunch. So more tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the surprise!

Ok, time for bed. I took about thirty minutes tonight to watch some mindless television and do some reading for pleasure. I took care of tomorrow's readings this morning ;)

Jeff

It's been a hell of a week...

It's just after 10PM. I had a bourbon and cigar on my porch with my roommate (a retired Navy P3 pilot/Commander) and we just found out a classmate was selected for AF Brig General! What a night. What a day.. all of them, just packed.

Anyway, Breakfast at 7, study group from 8-9, and classes every 90, minutes until finishing with dinner and a movie that will be the subject of tomorrow's first class. Reading more case studies than I've ever read before. For tomorrow, it's a civil war case on dealing with communications/persuasion of a mutinous unit.

I've been trying hard to network as best possible with the limited free time, so tomorrow it's the Minerva project --a joint Harvard/MIT program on cyber in international relations. Additionally, have a speech on increasing the tax on cigarettes designed to practice our new persuasive speech frameworks.

This is a great education.. a once in a lifetime experience.

Ok, off to bed. I'm exhausted and have to be up and in by 8:30 tomorrow. Getting a break.

Jeff

Sunday night.. heading into week 2!

Just left Spangler. What a great place. It's the main building for Harvard Business School. The Kennedy School folks share the facility for food since the graduate dorms (apartments) are all on the HBS campus on Soldiers Field Road.

Anyway, tonight was preparing for a role playing exercise to take place on Thursday morning. I'd mentioned a class on persuasion last week. This is by far, the best class to date.. and I've only been here a week! This is probably the class I needed most, but there are more coming. This week is three more sessions on persuasive comms this week, plus (as if there needed to be a plus!) we start on negotiation! I"m telling you, these guys give us nuts and bolts 'how to' lessons to actually do better communications, and anyone who knows me will tell you it's an area I could do better. I'm filling my toolkit with everything these guys will give me!

So, favorites? Gary Orren on persuasion. Ron Ferguson taught us how to tear apart ANY statistical analysis with fool proof tips to looking at stats with a critical eye. Pete Zimmerman talks of strategy and planning, and although I see myself as a pretty savvy strategist, this guy makes me look like a rank amateur. Steve Keller is on for tomorrow for our second session on building solid performance management plans. Bottom line, this place is cool as hell!

Re the forum? Last week it was Eric Cantor and William Perry. This week we're told it's a 'special guest'. I'm told they only book three days in advance, but it's well worth sitting in seats obviously engineered for college students before the experience the middle aged spread, but it's totally worth it.

Ok all. More to come. This is a once in a lifetime experience and I've got work to do to make sure I make the most of it... although tonight did include bourbon and cigars with my new friend from the UN. He's a political analyst for the the Secretary, and is a terrific conversationist. Does this mean I've been worked over? Probably. It's a good thing I only know about broubon and cigars!

Jeff

Harvard.. Thursday

So today was probably one of the best (BEST!!!) lectures I think I've ever heard in any course.. a day full of a 43 year professor (the one who taught Obama!) talking about communications and persuasion. Gary Orren had us for a full day, with a full framework for better targeting and framing communications to persuade others (voluntarily) to change course. WHAT A DAY.

Better? It was topped off with two speakers at the Forum (Agora -- a food market by day, speaking pulpit at night)... unfiltered Q&A. Eric Cantor (http://www.majorityleader.gov/) talking on the budget. The talk was terrific, but HIV activists protested at the end and were walked out. Regardless, an incredibly civil session! Finally topped off the night with a lecture from William Perry. What a day!

Jeff