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Before our takeoff in Minneapolis, the flight attendant announced that this was the newest aircraft in this airline’s entire fleet and on one of its first flights.

All was normal during takeoff. The plane had climbed and leveled off at altitude. The flight attendant was in the aisle, just emerging from the forward galley.

Without warning, there was a blinding flash of light, right where she was standing! She seemed to disappear and was replaced by what looked like an orange fireball.

Everything happened at once. All the lights went off inside the cabin. There was an ear-splitting BOOM! The seats launched upwards with a powerful jolt.

Passengers’ minds raced. Did a terrorist plant a bomb in the cargo hold and now we were all going to crash? How long does it take to dive seven miles straight down? Do we have a chance to survive? Calmly, my thoughts were of our family and how I would miss getting to help them, as well as how much I’d miss getting to help organizations protect their networks – the two missions of my life.

I expected to feel the heat of flame and the smell of smoke, but there was none.

Instead of diving, the plane stayed straight and level.

The lights in the cabin came back on. The flight attendant was getting up from the floor.

The man in the seat next to me announced, “We just experienced a lightning strike under the nose of the jet.”

We all turned to look at him. Interesting choice of words – he used the word experienced, rather than the word survived. He went on to explain that he was from London, and his firm built many components for this new jet.

He started explaining: In the past, planes were made of aluminum, and getting struck by lightning was no big deal. The lightning usually travelled around the aluminum hull of the plane and exited without causing any problems.

New jets replace aluminum with carbon fiber since doing so can shave more than 10,000 pounds of weight off a jet.

But, carbon fiber doesn’t conduct electricity, so a lightning strike would make a plane explode into flames. To overcome this, the aircraft manufacturers embed a conductive metallic mesh into the carbon fiber, and the mesh will conduct the electricity from lightning around the fuselage.

Just like in cyber-security, a computer must be protected to achieve survivability.

Akin to the metallic mesh pressed into carbon fiber on new aircraft, computers and networks must be protected.

The wire mesh you use needs to be making sure to keep up to date with the most recent critical security patches, use technologies like click-to-play, uninstall non-essential programs, and make sure users use standard (not administrative) local user accounts.

Once you protect your network, it is possible that security strikes will be thwarted and the event may even go unnoticed. Similarly, maybe some lightning strikes go unnoticed. But not the strike that night – there was still a bright beam of light, surround sound, and a tooth jostling bump.

Please forward this to anyone you know who might benefit from knowing that, just like metal mesh inside modern aircraft protects against lighting strikes, there are important steps to protect computers from cyber-attacks too.

The post The Jet Seemed to Explode appeared first on Foster Institute.

She became so tired and lethargic that I determined that one of the best thigs I could do was stop letting her pediatricians care for her; so, I rushed my 7-year-old angel to an emergency room at a different healthcare system. Tests revealed that her body was on the precipice of shutting down. Her body was going into shock, perhaps irreversibly. The ER physician explained that, even with immediate medical intervention, she might die. I had no idea how hearing those words would feel to a parent. Like a sledge hammer hitting one’s chest. The doctors admitted her to the hospital immediately.

Today marks her fourth day the pediatric unit at the hospital. I just gave her a big hug, and she smiled and said, “I love you Daddy.” Were it not for the IV in her arm, it could have been a normal evening. After giving that sweet hug, she snuggled up with my wife in the hospital bed, and fell asleep.

She is going to be ok. But, had I continued to adhere to our health system’s pediatricians’ advice, that hug would never have happened, and her sleep would have been eternal.

How is it that a huge medical system, with 10 million members and more than 180 physicians, could do such a poor job? If a doctor has a computer in the examination room, and a tablet everywhere they go, does that make them a competent physician? Does the technology help them do their jobs, or get in the way of taking care of their patients?

Another experience: Two weeks ago I encountered a CEO who has tossed his smartphone and gone back to a flip-phone. He is not the only CEO making this move. He says the smartphone technology slowed him down. He didn’t need the frustration, and is fine with all the ribbing he receives from his peers about being a technology Neanderthal.

Perhaps he possesses the uncommon wisdom to know when to use, and not to use, technology.

How often do salespeople, especially those in the field, lament that being forced to use technology for all aspects of their role hurts their ability to sell productively?

Have you ever encountered an organization that spent a ton of money on a new ERP that was supposed to be amazing, but they ended up abandoning the ERP project later at an incredible expense?

Have you ever heard of a company so debilitated by ransomware that they could not run their organization until they recovered from the attack? Should your organization be that dependent on technology? Yes. In some businesses, it is practically mandatory to be that reliant on technology.

Being reliant on technology is a big part of doing business.

But it is time to reconsider the wisdom of relying on computers, the cloud, and other technologies for every process in your organization. As the CEO pointed out, this not only applies to the organization, but to individuals as well. Just because there is an app for that doesn’t mean the app is a better way to do things.

I encourage you to make another New Year’s resolution: Identify where technology truly helps, and where it impedes, your organization’s effectiveness. By all means, continue to use technology where it serves you well; be the best at utilizing the technology. And, be courageous enough to go against the technology trend, where appropriate.

Challenge your executives to identify the effectiveness of using every program and process in your organization. Definitely keep technology that serves you, and ditch the rest. Those actions may lead to some of your biggest wins in 2017!

Please forward this to anyone who you feel will benefit from stepping back and examining which technology serves them, and what doesn’t.

The post How My Daughter Almost Died This Weekend & a Resolution Recommendation for You appeared first on Foster Institute.

Problems that are visible, and problems that are invisible. The IT professional knows they need to do both.

An example of a visible problem would be if users were unable to send or receive e-mail attachments. That’s visible, people are frustrated, and IT professionals are expected to fix that.

An example of an invisible problem is that perhaps your network’s servers do not have a functioning anti-virus solution. This problem, fairly common because of resource availability and performance, is “invisible” since there is a good chance that nobody knows outside of your IT team.

Now, throw into the mix the fact that most IT professionals are so busy they will never get caught up.

So, executives, what do you do when you are faced with choosing, if you can only pick one, to fix something that is visible, or invisible? IF you want to be appreciated, or avoid getting criticized, you will work on the visible.

Then, when the servers get hacked, everyone wonders why. Be sure you have the discussion about visible vs. invisible tasks now.

That is how.

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