rant

A week or so ago, I was contacted by email by someone working at a company who had developed a game. The game where used as part of the promotion of a security event. They wanted me to put a link from my blog to the game in order to promote the event.

The request was polite, and I decided to take a look. I did try the game, but saw no immediate connection to my blog, and decided against promoting it. And I had the courtesy to inform the someone (above).

I promptly got an answer, with some explanations; and quite a few ways I could implement the game anyway. Now, I am a professional sales guy myself, so I do appreciate a certain level of persistence. And being in the polite mood, I told the someone I would spend a few days to reconsider, and that I just might change my initial point of view.

And I did reconsider.

I thought that ok, I could make a quick post on the game, even sharing with you all how I did not have the patience (or skills???) to complete the game myself.

Unfortunately for you and the game developer, this individual (Jenny is her name), did not have the patience to wait. Or perhaps she thought I would not reconsider.

I do not not know, nor do I care.

So what did she do to piss me off like this? Instead of waiting, and accepting my supreme control of my blog, she decided to post a link in a comment. To me, that is SPAM!

And her actions pisses me off enough to do the following:

1. remove the comment/spam - done!

2. send an email to her explaining the fault - done!

3. write and post this post - done!

Yes, I admit, I most likely overreacted. Yes, it did help. I might have achieved the same calmness by walking around the block a couple of times, but then you would never know, would you?

And yes, I do have a very narrow definition of spam - unsolicited mail/comments. And I am the supreme decision maker when it comes to what I find unsolicited.

So you are selling something, and want me to cover it? Leave it to me to decide whether or not it will show up on my blog, duh!

 

This post is edited - I have made a huge mistake - thinking Michael Farnum to be Marcus Ranum. Wow - that is a mistake not even sleepless nights may explain! I have edited the post to reflect the correct name.

 

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Michael Farnum, a superhero of security, is having a hard time with people not recognizing him as the authority he is. Of course, after around 20 years in a business where whatever he says and does is hailed upon, it must be easy to get cocky. Guess I need to do a Security Profile on him to see if he really is.

So - Michael had a problem with Douglas Schweitzer's blog post describing bots. And as the helper Michael is, he jumps in and immediately explains that Douglas is mistaking, and then describes a bot as it should be. Of course this starts off a fire.

All this was brought to my attention by Michael posting his frustration on his own blog today. It turns out in the post someone posted a comment on the Douglas story, telling Michael to turn away, since he has not

"written any computer security books "

This should get a gun like Michael to laugh out loud. It sure made me do that. Especially since the comment is made on his own blog!

And I did not laugh only because there are people out there who do not know Michael . But to see Michael actually fire up as he does because someone out there actually do not know about him!

So Michael - the lessen for you and the rest of us is simple. It is not about writing a book - it is about branding. You may write a lot of books, and you might not. If no one knows your name, you are nobody. And to David, you are obviously a nobody. And to impress David, it takes a book!

Imo, there is no need to get angry and fire yourself up just because there are people not recognizing you as the security expert you obviously are to many others. It should wake you up - it might be time to revise your marketing and branding strategy to the changes in the market space?