Harsh Truths Sold with Humor

"There could be no definition of a successful life that did not include service to others" - George H. W. Bush

There are just some people that have figured out the meaning of the quote above. Let me introduce you to one of those people on Day 2 of Engage and Inspire: Allan Alford, the hero (host) of The Cyber Ranch Podcast.

Allan grew up an old school hacker in middle school, the son of a mainframe "cyber" security professional. I don't mean he liked puzzles. I mean he was into war dialing with his friends and hacking into things he might not want known about, just to see if they could do it. Laws being nonexistent at the time and what not.

"Sharing" games between friends was quickly replaced by girls as he reached high school and the hacker persona was left behind to chase more "interesting" pursuits. But Allan never gave up his IT chops and put them to use so effectively that he was awarded the opportunity to attend Harvard as a student between his junior and senior years of high school. Yeah, he was (is) that good. So good, that he just spent years studying everything under the sun, Van Wilder-style, until he finally threw it all together into a liberal arts degree.

But what really stood out from the interview, regarding this point in his life, was how he became a MOO Master. Yeah that's a MUD "Object Oriented". I will let you young guns look that up. Allan was passionate about Point MOOt, his Texas MUD, and it sounds like pretty successful too as he got highlighted in Wired magazine. When you get a chance, maybe ask Allan about his MOO. I assure you, he will be happy to elaborate.

The most successful part of Allan's career, so far, definitely occurred at Polycom where he constantly moved up and was directly involved with making the security aspects of their product line very profitable and valuable, initially for their government customers and then for the whole product line. These efforts were recognized one day by a new CIO and promoted to the first of many CISO roles he has held in his career. It was the long trips he took into Polycom's offices in Austin, from his home out in the country, that led him to listen to 4+ hours of cyber security podcasts per day and thus leads us quickly into his current community engagement efforts.

Allan's first forays into podcasting came by way of temporary replacements of missing guests and hosts, but that quickly turned into a series of vendor-focused shows and then a multi year foray with David Sparks for the Defense in Depth podcast series. Side note: Go listen to David too. We still love him.

Now Allan finds himself delivering one of the best cybersecurity podcasts on the web; golden voice, and down-home-style making his show easy listening. (Personal opinion included there) He puts together these shows for the community to stay abreast of new developments in cyber, learn more about how cyber works, and find out about the CISO tradecraft, He measures the value for each show more from direct engagement and feedback than the numbers game or follower count, which I am sure many of us appreciate.

As we were wrapping up, we got to the real heart of Allan's efforts. I asked him if these things he does really 'move the needle'. He said they certainly can and he feels as though he can go to bed at peace if he made a dent in the wall. (The one he was banging his head on trying to make a difference) Then he offered,

"You win the game if people come out and say THAT guy made a difference in my life."

There it was. Not fame. Not fortune, but a true influencer. One that brings meaning, to this journey that we are on. I always knew that was what Allan was about, but getting him to say it got easier from this point in the conversation. He offered up an old Boy Scout theme with this next line,

"Leave it better than you found it.?I want the entire security industry to be better because I touched it."

He continued passionately,

"Sometimes the harshest truths of what we do can only be sold with humor. I offer everything I do with a great deal of energy and a modicum of humor. Humor can knock down walls and cultural barriers. It allows you to insert real communication. I want to use my podcast as a platform for the voices that don’t have one. There are a huge number of guests that have a great voice but not a stage to sing on."

Do you need to know anything else to know that you should be following Allan and The Cyber Ranch Podcast? I don't.

Thanks Allan. You're a real world cyber hero. Yee ha!