An "Event-full" Year! At the end of last March I announced that the website atltech.events went live - bringing you the curated list of technology and technology-related events happening here in Atlanta.

@atltechevents.bsky.social is a year old!

It's been a resource for the Atlanta community to find out what technology and technology related events are happening.

Plus the latest E. B. Spoke - The Podcast episode is live - details inside.

And always a bit more!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/event-...

Culture is Key Culture ensures the right people are doing things the right way. Every company has technology (whether Information (IT) or Operational (OT)), and all technology has risk, so every company has technolo...

Culture is key to a successful IT/OT program.

Here's my thoughts on why:

www.linkedin.com/pulse/cultur...

Keep your IT vital, not vulnerable. Do you ever focus on what the customer wants to hear, and not what they need to hear? If you want to know how I can help you get SOC 2, do an OWASP Maturity Assessment, verify a cloud app is secure, o...

Jumping straight to the audit doesn't always make business sense.

Sometimes you have to build strength across key pillars. When you do, the audits will come naturally.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/keep-y...

Move Fast and Break Things? As long as those things aren't laws..

Idea -> Product -> Company

Which one is the hard step traditionally? How about now?

Find my thoughts on the topic in this week's "Week In Review"...

Check it out, vote in the poll, and hang out at an upcoming event!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/move-f...

90-Day Compliance Fitness Program... What's your take on 90 day fitness programs? Do they work for more than 90 days? Or do you fall back into the old habits before the program began? It's March 1st, so for everyone who had a New Year's ...

Want to get fit fast? Have a fit IT compliance and security program?

It will take more than a 90-day program. It's a lifestyle change - just like personal fitness.

You might still want a coach, though!

In this week's "Week In Review"...

www.linkedin.com/pulse/90-day...

Multiple Persona Security There was a time when we had a single email address, and we used it for work, school, home, and more. And we might even have used the same password on multiple online services.

Tuesday is the 1 year anniversary of the Atlanta Cybersecurity Meetup!

Last week had two great events too!

Check it out - plus what "Multiple Persona Security" means to me!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/multip...

Two One-Year Anniversaries! In case you missed one or both of my posts this past week, February is an anniversary month for two of my cybersecurity initiatives: Atlanta Meetups and ComplianceXO! Both of these ideas were launched...

February is a double cyber anniversary for me - both the monthly meetups and @compliancexo.bsky.social were started a year ago!

Read this week's "Week In Review" for more about that, and more about upcoming events!

Hope to see you there!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/two-on...

Perseverance is Resilience While the number of alerts and attack attempts might not be higher, I know I've seen an increase in those I speak to in my network. I've seen a few more phishing attempts slip through the filters as w...

Survival against a threat means to first evade, second defend, and failing those: rebuild.

Whether an animal in the wild or a business facing cyber threats... the goal is the same.

Resilience is a key part, but perseverance is the key.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/persev...

Labeled Data : Secured Data Congratulations! You've added AI to your business. It's going to make you more efficient, insightful, and competitive as a business! (Ignoring the current rate of AI project failure.

Treat your new AI agents like you'd treat a third-grader - they're both enthusiastic, full of knowledge, and unfiltered in sharing it (or making it up as needed).

Hope you stay warm and this week brings what you need it to bring!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/labele...

Resilience at every level Us cybersecurity people like to talk about resilience. We know, no matter how good your security and defense plan is, stuff's gonna happen.

We got some ice... but still have power (at the moment).

How's the winter storm treating you? Are your plans and preparations working?

www.linkedin.com/pulse/resili...

Independent Concerns If you saw my posts for the week, I focused a lot on the different parts of successful IT risk management, compliance, and security programs. One of the key points was the need to have separation betw...

Good IT risk and security management depends on independence in vendors and programs.

Check out my thoughts and more in this week's "Week In Review"...

www.linkedin.com/pulse/indepe...

Let's Connect! It looks like "Lunch Club" ran out of vapors. The site seemed to be running on autopilot the last year or so, but everyone knew it would eventually stop working if something didn't change.

Office hours, meetups, and more...

All in this week's "week in review"...

www.linkedin.com/pulse/lets-c...

Card Collecting or Genuine Connecting? You can't help people if you don't meet them. And you can't help them if you don't know them better than a passing "nice to meet you" at a networking event.

You can't help people if you don't meet them.

But do more than collect their card. Build a connection!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/card-c...

Grow into '26 PHEW! 2025 was a year..

Are we ready to grow together in the new year!

We've built a strong community together in 2025, through events and more, and together, we will face the the new year!

Happy New Year to all, and I hope this week and this new year bring what you need.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/grow-2...

Here's to longer days (together)! Happy Winter Solstice! It's Sunday, December 21st, the shortest day of 2025. From here on out, the remaining days of the year will only be getting longer, all the way up until the summer solstice in J...

Happy Winter Solstice and Happy Holidays to all who celebrate this week!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/heres-...

ISO 2026 Topics ISO: In Search Of, not International Organization for Standardization As 2025 comes to a close, I've got my eye on what opportunities to share thoughts and knowledge in 2026 may come my way. And I'd l...

What should we talk about in 2026?

www.linkedin.com/pulse/iso-20...

From Thanks to Growth I hope you saw my various "thank you" messages this week - to partners, clients, the community, and more. We're in this together, and together, we can make many things happen.

What are you planting now to bloom next year?

www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-t...

Infighting Serves the Adversary In the world of cybersecurity and IT governance, risk, and compliance, I too often see people who want to argue about how one standard or another is bad, and the only true path is the approach they pr...

Here's this week's "Week In Review" - check out last week's event and December's Holiday edition!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/infigh...

Unprompted Thoughts Sometimes I need a prompt to get started. A question to answer, a problem to solve.

Ever had a thought and you didn't know where it came from?

Congrats! You're a human and not an AI.

Read this week's "Week In Review" for my unprompted thoughts...

www.linkedin.com/pulse/unprom...

Can I Have Your Money? Did you mean to start our relationship like this? Those who know me know I do a lot of networking. I meet a lot of people who have their own businesses they're trying to grow.

When you're networking, how you introduce yourself matters.

Do you offer a gift? or a grab...

My thoughts, and more, in this week's "Week In Review"

Also - November 17th is the next Atlanta Cybersecurity Meetup! I hope to see you there!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-i-...

Good Hygiene: Whether in food or cyber If there's one thing we can take for granted, both food and software have bugs in them. For food, it's typically microscopic bacteria or molds that are just waiting for a chance to bloom.

Food safety and cyber safety have one thing in common: fewer bugs is better.

As we wrap up Cybersecurity Awareness Month with a food theme, we explore those parallels.

Also, check out for photos from the last meetup, and thoughts on more topics!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/good-h...

The One That Got Away Fishing has long been associated with tall tales (or should that be tall tails?). No matter how big a fish you caught today, the one that got away was even bigger.

What does the Patagonian Toothfish have in common with phishing?

Read this week's "Week In Review" for the answer!

Plus, updates on events, past and future, and always something more!

I hope to see you Tuesday at the next meetup!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/one-go...

Pair your password with a side of biometrics Continuing our Cybersecurity Awareness Month culinary adventure, we know people still aren't using Multifactor Authentication (MFA) everywhere they should. Personal accounts, legacy systems, and more ...

What goes into a good meal? Some say "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" - I say you need a couple of good side dishes.

And so too does your cybersecurity.

Check it out and more in this week's "Week In Review"!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/pair-y...

Spice Up Your Cybersecurity Awareness I don't know about you, but I'm tired of watching the same old videos telling me to not click on phishing links. And I get to watch them twice - once in selecting them and second in doing the training...

This week's "Week In Review" takes us down a culinary journey to cybersecurity awareness.

Check it out here:

www.linkedin.com/pulse/spice-...

3 years of Week In Review! Today is the 156th edition of E. B.

It's crazy to think this is the 156th Week In Review.

I started it out as a way to capture what was on the mind the past week, and haven't stopped yet!

I look forward to the next years ahead with all of you!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-year...

Episode 13 - Experimenting at the Edge of AI is out - give it a listen on your favorite podcast app or here:

ebspoke.substack.com/p/episode-13...

Celebrate Yourself I've talked about self-promotion in the past, but sometimes talking up your accomplishments isn't enough. It's all well and good to say "hey boss, you know that client that doesn't have problems? They...

Have you celebrated yourself lately?

www.linkedin.com/pulse/celebr...

Director of Experience My promotion to Director of Software Development was to go into effect August 16, 2001. I had convinced the CTO my contributions were more than that of a “Senior Software Architect.

It's time for the week in review!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/direct...

A Theme of Books Podcast Guests + A Book of My Own

I'm excited to share my first book is now available!

Read about the journey on my Substack:

open.substack.com/pub/ebspoke/...

Labor of Love There's no such thing as "paid time off" for the entrepreneur. The only paid vacation days are the ones when you work.

What's your "labor of love"?

And check out all the multimedia from the week - a book, a video, a podcast, and live events!

www.linkedin.com/pulse/labor-...