Pwnie Awards Entertain, Warn Posted by Joe Franscella, 7-27-2012 Being the director of an IT security PR and marketing practice comes with privileges, among them — getting to attend Black Hat each year. For the past four, I’ve had an opportunity to learn about what the latest trends are, how they are going to impact [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella, 1-3-2011: 2011 is here, and for those of us in the mix so is RSA Conference 2011. Many of us have already been working with clients on their plans and pitches for the event and the veterans among us know that by now we should be focusing in on what our [...]
Posted by: Joe Franscella, 7-30-2010: Las Vegas, NV – After two days of Black hat I now see the relationship between that event and DefCon. Black hat seems to be the place where IT security vendors try to convince the world that they can protect the Internet, whereas DefCon attendees clearly — whether they say [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella, 6-7-2010: My college days are long behind me, but through the years I have still managed to keep a few extra pounds on by caving to my late night Big Mac cravings, here and there. This seemingly harmless guilty-pleasure is probably something I will never shake (no pun intended). What can [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella, 3-17-2010: Trainer Communications’ PR and marketing professionals were, again, all over the RSA Conference, myself included. This year was especially exciting as the amount of client’s we were representing there increased 300 percent over 2009 and this year we conducted two surveys for our clients PacketMotion and Brocade and helped our [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella — 1-27-2010: RSA Conference 2010 is here, that’s especially true if you’re in PR and you have an information security client that’s contracted with you to raise awareness for them at the show among media and bloggers. If you’re representing McAfee, Symantec, Cisco, RSA (EMC’s security division) or another mega IT [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella – 12-28-09 – The appointment of Howard Schmidt to the position of White House Cybersecurity Coordinator is further indication that President Obama’s administration acknowledges that effective cybersecurity can mean the difference between life and death. The administration should look at cybersecurity in this way, after all, cyberspace provides criminals and terrorists [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella, 12-7-09 – 2010 is around the corner and it’s every account coordinators favorite time of year — Editorial Calendar time! For those of you out there in IT security PR, here is a QA with SC Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Illena Armstrong that sheds some light on the SC Magazine ed cal process [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella, 11-17-09 – Anyone who’s ever brought a client in front of Mike Rothman for a briefing knows two things: 1.) Prepare the client to tell the truth; 2.) Prepare the client to hear the truth. Although a lot of times clients don’t realize it at first, the toughest briefings — which [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella – 11-3-09 – Nobody loves to get angry at Microsoft Windows more than I. At least a few time a day, I am annoyed over bells and whistles that pop up unannounced and uninvited, ticked over apps that just decide to stop responding or swearing while trying to find emails I [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella – 10-14-2009 – The other day I received an interesting email: B a n k of America Notification [ ref id: 837644 ] Dear B a n k of America member , You have (1) new security message from B a n k of America SiteKey: – Please click on the [...]
Posted By Joe Franscella The last thing any good general wants to do is go to war with untrained soldiers. Could you imagine devising a clever strategy and then deploying soldiers on the battlefield who don’t know the difference between a muzzle and a breach? The results would be disastrous. Imagine you are a CMO, [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella I’m not big on press releases or announcements that start off by stating “… is pleased to announce …” But, I gotta say that in this particular case I really am pleased to announce (on Security Heavy) Trainer TV, my firm’s video contribution to the IT, marketing and public relations spaces. [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella About nine months ago, I had a phone conversation with Bob McMillen of IDG to better understand what he looks for in a news story. During the course of the call, the topic came up of just how many Information Security vendors there are. I don’t have an exact figure, but [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella A while back, I tweeted: The more someone claims to be a social media expert the less of one they become. The message’s implication was clear: so many people are claiming to be “social media experts” that deciding whom to engage to help you position your company and products on social [...]
Posted by Joe Franscella I’m a big fan of Web 2.0 video. I love that Web 2.0 empowers anyone with a video camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily share their perspectives with the world and it truly is living the dream for me to get paid to produce corporate video for the [...]
Posted by Mary Van Zandt The IT industry never ceases to amaze me! During the dot-com era I was working at Sterling Commerce and my charter was to market the company’s first security products. At that time, many believed that if you were perceived by your buyers as a brick and mortar company you had [...]
Susan Trainer, President of Trainer Communications, receives the 2009 ‘Best Agency to Work For’ SABRE award from Paul Holmes in New York City. Trainer Communications, the premier provider of integrated marketing and high tech public relations services that create global market leaders, today announced its selection as the “Best Boutique PR Agency to Work For” [...]
On a recent bi-coastal media and analyst tour, Trainer Communications caught up with Secure Passage executives in between briefings and they validated the importance of having Trainer’s marketing and communications professionals on their side. Trainer Communications, the premier provider of integrated marketing and high-tech public relations services that create global market leaders, today announced that [...]
I have 45 minutes left before he press room at RSA Conference 2009 closes. Just want to take a few minutes to point out a few highlights I’ve experienced over the past four days. Found threatpost.com to be quite intriguing – I think its good news for the news industry that corporations are stepping in [...]
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – RSA CONFERENCE — Secure Passage today announced that its man-on-the-street survey at RSA Conference 2009 revealed that there is no consensus about spending for IT security. When asked if the downturn in the economy would have negative, positive or no implications for security budgets, the more than 100 respondents were nearly [...]
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – RSA CONFERENCE — Secure Passage today announced that its man-on-the-street survey at RSA Conference 2009 revealed that 72 percent of respondents have not deployed any virtual firewall technology. The survey further reveals that adoption is hindered by a lack of consensus as to the definition of a virtual firewall, increased management [...]
It’s almost time. Next week I will be heavily immersed on behalf of clients and my firm, Trainer Communications, in all things RSA Conference 2009. I am especially excited about the social media activities we are executing for my client Secure Passage. Over the course of event, they are meeting with several key journalists, bloggers [...]
In 2008, according to Royal Group Services, a data breach damages indemnification provider, 35.7 million identities were compromised and 18 million records were stollen from financial services companies. The company, which specializes in PCI DSS insurance services, further reports that in ’08 companies paid an average of $202 per breached file and that the total [...]
Network World’s Ellen Messmer took the electric grid hacking investigation a few steps further with a great piece today – How serious is threat to power grid? Depends who you ask. In it, she asks a number of experts from different facets of the technology spectrum what their chief concerns are regarding the news of [...]
In 1997 I was working as a communications manager for a major West Coast power company. The first two weeks on the job were spent getting oriented with the company, position, how power flowed from generator to end user, and, finally, on how California’s energy deregulation legislation was opening up countless opportunities for independent power [...]
What are the sure signs that a category is no longer just a buzzword? 1 – Thought leaders in the space form organizations dedicated to it; 2 – Mainstream writers take it on as a beat. Just this week Network World writer Tim Greene announced he’d be switching his newsletter focus to Cloud Security. In [...]
Is Twitter’s breakneck growth causing a backlash? So goes the title of an interesting CNN article about how Twitter participation growth brings on the “Fail Whale” image more often these days. Twitter users who have experienced down moments know the image pops up during these times. To quote the article: The conversational Web site, which [...]
Anyone remember Lee Iacocca? He was the son if Italian immigrants most notable for turning around Chrysler in the 1980′s. He rose to popular fame when he became the point spokesman on all Chrysler TV commercials and then later became even more famous when President Reagan appointed him to head the Statue of Liberty renovation [...]
RSA Conference 2009 has a particular feature I am especially interested in attending, the Innovation Sandbox. On Monday, April 20, the Sandbox will provide vendors that aren’t necessarily exhibiting with an opportunity to demonstrate their products during a half-day session. To me, breakthroughs in technology are the most exciting feature of my job, one of the reasons [...]
Just when I thought the toughest part of blogging would be getting hosting set up and learning the Word Press content management platform, it hit me – the writing, oh yea, fresh content. Luckily, I have a passion for writing and security, there is never going to be any shortage of security related content to [...]
Over a year ago I accepted a job at Trainer Communications, a Marketing and Public Relations firm managing foreign and domestic accounts for private and public companies. It is a fantastic place to work – more about that in a later post. I was hired into the Security Practice and was not sure what to [...]