Providing Value: Lessons Learned

I also meant to see if this thing works cool so I am JC I own my own company that's not that important right now it's got a lot of uh teachable moments for me in business and experience but I've got a pretty interesting past my USMC veteran I know vet sex sponsors big where's my veterans where's my Marine Corps veterans Ur that's about 15 years out of service right there y i i can I can gauge that response 30 minutes it would have been loud and proud but got some miles on us as information uh system security officer for a defense industry based uh company a defense contractor that's pretty much a government mandated position uh lot of learning experiences

there been a cyber security consultant that's kind of my my now I've learned so much value in the Consulting world where my Consultants at a lot of this might seem second nature uh students I've been a student oh yes this is for you this is for you this is 20 15 20 years of my life experience condensed into like three teachable moments been a trainer if you're going to Black Cat we're teaching a course I'm teaching one my wife Snow's teaching one check us out I also formerly ran the vault at s con gave that thing up had like five years in it we've we've passed the torch and we're going to try and bring hopefully something new to S

conon we'll see we'll see what happens co-founder of social engineering community who's been the Defcon keep your hand up if you've been to the social engineering Village yeah my social engineering Village yeah that's awesome I love it if you haven't been and plan on going to Defcon come see us this is an amazing event I guarantee you'll love it uh and to humanize myself I'm currently learning to scuba dive that's slightly terrifying so the first question is how did I get here well with a little bit of Pope magic if you don't know who Pope is he is a legend in and of himself in his own right and his own way if you haven't met

Pope you're not going to meet him today because apparently he's in Singapore for that reason if you have Twitter because that's all I know he's on please tweet him tweet him if you like this presentation or tweet him if you hate it and you think it's stupid or if you don't have an opinion just tweet him all the same Pope is one of those people that's very well connected he knows all sorts of people and he invites them for different presentations invites them for Keynotes this happens to be one of those situations where I am I forget what I was doing I was minding my own business and I get a phone call and Pope's like

hey what do you think about keynoting for bsides I was like all right so you've officially ran out of people so here I am I said yes and and here I am I had one question for Pope I said that's cool but what's the theme because I'm very big into the theme right a keynote is not a technical talk a keynote is to be inspiring it's to set the stage it's to you know really build on the theme and he's like theme is bsides the theme is show up all right well we're we're going to fix that I guarantee by the end besides 2024 will have a theme you're welcome Bryce so my first story starts in the

Marine Corps steel sharpen steel back in 2005 I joined the Marine Corps I don't know what the hell I was thinking but it seemed like a good idea at the time that decision got challenged back and forth for that four-year Enlistment I stand by that it was the best decision I've ever made in my life i' do it again in a heartbeat probably do a few things differently but for the most part I do it all the same in 2006 after boot camp after Marine combat training you go to your your school what it is you're actually going to do for me I was going to be a filled radio operator how did I find that out well they don't tell you

till like the last minute and I'm going there and they're like hey you're going to be a filled radio operator I said what the hell is that and I I kid do not the guy looks at me he's like you know those war movies I was like yeah it's like you know the guy running around with the antenna to get shot first that's you I was like [ __ ] all right yeah questioning questioning decision number one so off to com school I went in com school or formally called filled radio operator course you're taught all sorts of things everything from Radio etiquette I got so lucky I was like a a year lat a year after they phased out Morse code

or else I'd have to learn Morse code we learn radios we learned signal propagation we learn antenna design I can make an antenna out of the ground wiring in a building if I had to you learn all sorts of weird stuff but we learn about this antenna called the OE 254 this is the Workhorse of radio and the Marine Corps it may have changed this is a little dated but I I bet this thing is still around the oe2 54 is in omnidirectional antenna this thing can stand up to 33 ft tall yeah if you look at that picture where's my picture look how tall that antenna is it's it's unwieldy what you don't see is uh two

sets of guidelines one near the top four guidelines per set and another one in the mid to try and Wrangle this thing it is this nasty wobbly Beast we stands up to I think 90 M an hour you got some ranges it's beautiful olive drab uh it comes in a million pieces if you look at the pieces of this thing it is nasty to work with it comes in this unconventional tote bag thing that leaks Parts comes with its own Mallet you'll see all these all these little pieces you'll see these uh little Rings right here you'll see a little stake right here you'll see some bigger Stakes it's this whole Affair to set up they recommend that two individuals

two marines can set this up in 15 minutes that's you know when you when you think I see a couple nods like yeah that's that's that's fast I don't know if I could do that that is fast if you do it this way once I left Comm School graduated second in my class which let me pick wherever I want to go so I chose sunny California I got to the fleet and there I figured out what we do if we're not deployed we train we train hard and we clean that's it we train we clean if you ever wonder what somebody does in the military I can speak for the Marine Corps you train you

clean that's it sometimes you don't train so well and you clean harder you ever mop in a rainstorm the parking lot it's it's it's a very endearing Community we train for about six months before we deploy the reason is because you want that practice you want that muscle memory you want that repetition right so here I am new to the fleet and I start hearing this phrase steel sharpen steel right really it's this program of mentorship in the military to keep Young Marines who are super cocky have technically disposable income because everything that's important is paid for because Uncle Sam doesn't trust an 18-year-old kid and it's really to keep you from getting married right and making bad

hasty decisions jokes on them I got married between uh Comm school and MCT to my beautiful wife Stephanie buying a vehicle tons of predatory loans I think there's a uh I think the standard APR for a car right outside the base it's like 35% 40% which if you're an uneducated young adult man you will sign that because that Mustang looks cool uh getting out of debt because you purchased a 1999 Mustang at 40% APR you have some debt deployment Readiness making your family's good to go there's a lot of a lot of core reasons why they came up with this program but it didn't stop us from really utilizing this name that the the really cool name that it was to

train each other to make sure your standards are at my level so even though it had this this formal point this formal type of mentorship we abused it so that we held you to our standards if I can do something better faster stronger than you there's no reason you can't and so okay I'm I'm learning my first run in with that is the OE 254 I thought I was hot stuff just left Comm school I know everything second in my class we're going out to the field to test and and test the new guys and I'm looking around I was like where's where's the bags where's all the bags where's all the parts where where's

half the antenna and they're like what are you talking about so in order to set up an OE 254 in our artillery battery there's a couple step process that you do after you get your antenna the first thing is you strip out the important bits that's the feed cone that thing in the first picture on the right hand side and then there's elements that's all the little metal bits there's three metal bits to one antenna element so you have to screw those together that takes time and then you have to screw that into the feed cone there's six of those that go into the feed cone that takes time and then you stick an insulating pole which is about like a

twoot stick into that feed cone and that is the core antenna everything else is in support of getting it up in the air which we came up with a or I should say they came up with a much better way next you'll see camet poles if you ever see a classic picture of the military deployed you'll see tanks you'll see artillery you'll see whatever but they're under these big camouflage nets we call those Cami Nets and those get essentially laid out and then stake down and hoisted up with these poles these poles come in 4ot sections our trailer in the military was like 10 feet so theoretically I can take two of these bad boys together duct tape it and I've

got an 8ft Mass section something really interesting happens I want to think that's like military Contracting Forward Thinking the diameter of the inside of these pipes perfectly fits the insulating tube of this antenna so of course Marines right if it fits it ships it's that easy right if it's not supposed to go together it shouldn't fit together we don't have time to think so these marines take two of these sections together so they're ready and these are rigid aluminum they're not flexible they're thick they're heavy and they've got essentially all of this stuff pre the and uh the elements are already screwed together they just need to be adapted to the feed cone and the last thing we do

is we steal engineering sakes from the Army I didn't press anything okay just won't walk over here anymore

test we steal some engineering stakes from the Army if you haven't seen them these are things that hold Constantino wire the big circle barb wire there's little notches on them steel if you aren't familiar is the Strategic transfer of equipment to an alternate location don't think we just Rob people we're we're just moving it so we seal some Army uh some Army engineering stakes and now what we do is we have uh essentially in our in our team we had four four marines that were dedicated to antenna building and they would run around with these big hammers these big tube hammers that drive the stakes in and they we had six antennas to set up

and they would drive these Stak akes into the ground with two marines they just slam this thing down and they'll get a stake in in about 30 seconds it's pretty fast we Jam about four or five of these 8ot sections however High we want together and then we slap the insulating tube that you attach to that uh feed cone somebody's screwing in the elements and then you raise it like a big flag pole up against the engineering sake and here's where the ingenious part comes from and this is why you won't ever see OSHA in in the field or really on a deployment we duct tape the crap out of that thing to the engineering stake and

what takes us about four uh 15 minutes out of the bag doing it the right way takes us when I when I got to this unit probably three minutes or so to do one antenna really fast so let's break down the numbers with our team uh where you you have four Marines task to raise antenna six antennas 15 minutes in antenna two marines per antenna you do it buy the book it takes approximately 45 minutes to get these things up our way which is not the official way but we could get away with it because unlike infantry we always had trucks because we were artillery we could haul more stuff we could take these camet

poles we could pre-assemble pre-stage things we were able to get them up in about 8 minutes six antennas that's huge all because we came up with a better idea now who cares right you got to the fleet you got to your artillery unit oh don't step over there somebody already figured this out what's the point well I didn't stay there forever something really interesting happened in 2007 for some reason I don't really understand the the need for it or the history of it or what whatever the Marine Corps decided to stand up an individual battery which is very rare this battery was essentially deactivated and they in 2007 reactivated it 312 doesn't exist but they stood up

the 312 India battery and they assigned it to I think 110 none of that matters it's all just hierarchy stuff but this is a brand new battery meaning there is no old dogs anymore there is nobody waiting to receive you and yell at you and Haze you and Har I mean motivate you teach you support you steal sharpen there's nobody there so me a handful of uh my other Comm Marines from our artillery unit get sent over to help stand up this unit in preparation for deployment on the 15th Mew later in 2008 this is where it gets interesting they send other radio operators other wiremen other Marines from other units and people knew from Comm school

so we had a mix we had people from Comm only units we had people from infantry we had people from pretty much we were the only ones from artillery so we're the only ones that have ever done C for artillery going to another artillery battery when we get there I don't want to say it was new it was new to us there's all of our gear in the bags just like in Comm school so there's the Young Marines that are just out of Comm school there's the ones from uh uh the regular com shops from infantry they're like oh cool I know this right we'll get this up gunny in you know 30 40 minutes tops and

we're like what the hell are you talking about 10 minutes in your slow and they're looking at us like we're crazy like no no watch this hey you go get the camet poles hey I need two rolls of duct tape watch this and me and two other guys showed them our way from another artillery battery this became sop and it's only because it was taught for me now where uh taught to me from that previous battery so we're over there educating them and here you can kind of see that insulating tube that's that's what'll actually go inside the cam uh the camet pole and goes up we changed what was going to be presumed to be the the SOP for this

artillery battery that would have been doing it the hard way in my opinion the wrong way but more importantly the slow way and that's going to become important when I get into the next lesson this was awesome this made us look like Geniuses and the thing that really pisses me off back in these days I didn't like smartphones were barely a thing like you flip phone the Moto Razer was like the the tech right so cell phone videos for Better or For Worse didn't really exist I only have one picture of these things and again there's no guidelines right there's nothing to really like tune and keep it straight but I do have one picture of me

and a guy from one of the com shops and you can see our little half hazards you see three of the six and there they are just taped to an engineering sake just hanging out you can see some of them got a little bit of a gangster lean but there they are and that is probably the the most proud we were out of that uh out of that first fi do where we're we're essentially showing hey look how smart we are and now our efficiency went up so much more than what was originally thought possible the question is is what do you know how many people have been to more than two jobs good we're experiencing life how many of

you brought something from the old job to the new job how many did that purposely and willingly how many realize maybe they should like say hey here's a new way yeah that's fine that's that's okay right because sometimes you don't realize hey I have value I have a different way of doing it where are my three Consultants at there's not a lot of them there's something really interesting you'll see in the Consulting world because pollinate like a bee you go from company to company company there's something I noticed that's very interesting it's a little disparaging and I'm sorry but we'll find we'll run into people that have been 10 20 years into an organization and they are indoctrinated

when you're 20 years into an organization there is the way and that is the only way and these people are very very usually very hard to move over to a new way of thinking it's interesting so having that I don't want to call it fresh blood but but new Talent come in you'll get you'll get new perspectives so when you're interviewing when you're hiring when you're bringing a new Talent make sure not to Rob them of that experience make sure to Showcase it show what other Alternatives you have because it's valuable I promise you now uh Bryce are you still here I didn't think so all right I'm pretty sure he used chat GPT to make his

images so did I it's pretty cool I got a question for the audience this is where we're going to get into some participation pieces who here knows what Disney and the Marine Corps has in

common let's get them you got one right here you got another one right here man military which one STI stick around man stick around we might both like crayons if you're looking to bribe my favorite flavor is blue but anybody else what about the mission yeah now it's obvious right oh yeah Marine corps's got Mission military's got Miss Air Force has a mission might be to sleep until 9: but we got a mission we we we'll fight we'll play we got a mission this is the really interesting thing the Marine Corps more specifically artillery because that's what I cared about has a mission this is right out of the technical manual you can see there at

the bottom you can Google it you can Google our whole you can actually pull the PDF of artillery operations you want to learn artillery operations top to bottom we publish it knock yourself out page one paragraph one sentence one it starts with the mission now if you read this right it's it's it's kind of lengthy the mission of artilleries furnish closed and continuous fire support by neutralizing destroying or suppressing targets that threaten the success of the support unit kind of open-ended to accomplish this Mission artillery has the following responsibilities blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Marines are not smart we're not we're not we have too much to do to be smart we got to be fast

we got to be efficient for that reason we typically don't memorize all this we memorized the first bullet why because it was the shortest and it made us look smart right I can recite the mission right and you Google oh [ __ ] that is the mission he doesn't know the mission provide timely close accurate continuous fire support that was it when you're in the Marine artillery unit every action you do better be in support of this anything else and you're wrong you're doing it wrong so when we showed up day one and we're cutting your time down from 45 minutes to 8 minutes we are supporting the mission we are becoming more Miss Miss ready more

Mission effective because the key there is timely that means when we roll into a position it's it is a circus there's people raising guns there's people aiming the guns it's a whole charade there's all these math calculations and fire Direction control we're a small piece yeah we're the people that get shot first in fact they put us over on something called antenna Hill because when the enemy sees the antennas that's what they shoot first so they push us over like lepers and then we deal with that but our goal is to to get communication up you get communication up fast you're getting fire missions fast provide timely close accurate continuous fire support anything you do

better be in support of that it's that easy Disney also has a mission I love this picture if you ever rode Tower of Terror by your uh with with one friend in a tuxedo this is what consulting's all about this was at ba systems as part of their sales thing right they rent it out like Disney World so it's ridiculous Disney has a mission think about this for a second the mission of the Walt Disney Company is to entertain inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling that's it everything you do at Disney better align to this in some way shape or form anything else you're detracting from the mission you're doing

accounts better support this Disney goes a step further and this is a really interesting thing to think about Disney goes a step further and they have something called the brand promise and you already know about the brand promise because it's kind of ingrained with big high-profile Brands think apple right when you think apple apple Steve Jobs has never come out and guaranteed you something he never promis anything but through their action through what they've given you come to expect expensive you come to expense a beautiful UI same thing happens with Disney you hear it referred to as the happiest place on earth when you come to Disney when you see a Disney movie when you see

Disney anything you have an expectation that's Disney making good on their brand promise they go through and they write their brand promise and that's what they teach their employees Disney does something really interesting and I got to learn this Disney has a whole Institute where you can learn Le from them their business things I've I've been able to take some of their training one of the things they talk about is being off Mission but on brand sometimes you have to deviate from the mission in order to maintain the brand you I guarantee if you have any social media if you watch Instagram Facebook Tik Tok whatever you've seen this this is a classic Disney park

situation where the little kid will lose the balloon the balloon cost like $15 parents are pissed kids pissed the squirrels next to them everybody's pissed right and you will have the employee come over and hand another balloon what does that do it keeps everybody happy you'll have stories where a a kid a kid soils himself right you will have a cast member escort him over pull off clothes from the rack and just give it to him why because it builds on that promise that you will always be happy here and guess what happens to that family gets that that gets taken care of like that what do they do it's interactive they come back again

they come back again which is the purpose of the company to be profitable so I'm going to ask you what's your mission think about that for just a second who's not employed you still got a mission now I like my inverse questions because it tells me the one person that's really unfair to pick on everybody else says they're employed everybody else is a target no no no no no no what's the mission at your company I know what what is this is it boss back there no no no that's all right that's all right Mission at your company that's all right anybody Mission at their company look around right now no no keep your hands up keep please please please I'm

not going to call on you but look around no don't don't no no stop it you're late to the party that I will call on you now don't try and get credit right there's not that many hands and I'm not calling you out so much as maybe I'm calling out your employer maybe I am calling you out what is it that you are doing to support that company's Mission we're a little disconnected there that's one of the biggest stories or one of the biggest lessons I can give you to Value right what you're doing has to support that company Mission Bryce kind of kicked it off with hey this is all about moving up right you want to move up in your career

what better way to to provide better value for the company than being in alignment with their mission the next story I have is a great story it's one of my favorite stories it's Snow's favorite story it's the pencil Story the pencil story I move out of the the brain cord now I'm in the uh the dod Contracting World um at this point I'm doing something that I think is providing value I'm doing an action and this is where I get my first Mentor this is a a groundbreaking experience because I get pulled aside I get told hey let me let me teach you a little something young JC we're going to get on the Soap Box

real quick who here is a mentor those of you that put your hand up what do you get back from your Mentor mentees that's that's my point right there I'm not going to call you out but you raise your hand like like like I don't know in my opinion this is my opinion this is my soapbox rant that's not a mentorship that's you teaching a mentorship is a two-way street there has to be something in it for you to care enough there has to be some type of reciprocity something that gives back or else you're just you're you're you're conducting a coaching session right a mentorship you really have to get into their head know where they are

would that be fair think about that I see a lot of people like oh I'll be your Mentor why why what am I to you to two-way street I don't have time for this but this this is this is one of my big hot buttons everybody wants to be a mentor let it happen Let It Be informal Let It Be organic let somebody that knows a little bit more about you help you out and then you return the favor right work together collaborate this one essentially pissed him off so he called me up young JC I got a story to tell you and that is the story of the pencil he said young JC imagine if you will a table and everyone

around the table and that table is slightly crooked to the point where if you put a pencil down it will roll off the table young JC and he is very adamant about the young JC part what you are doing is you are reaching out and you are grabbing that pencil right before it falls and you're putting it right back I was like what are you talking about he's like what you're doing is you are stopping everyone from seeing a bigger problem you you're fixing the symptom you're not addressing the problem and the problem isn't yours to address this doesn't make any sense until you see it and the first time I saw it was at a company where I was friends

with the IT Help Desk Manager me and him best friends I did a lot of work with their it team and so every once in a while I'd have to work late and I would routinely go over there maybe asking for something stupid a cable a drive whatever I needed something something there was usually one person working something happened recently at this company where three of their it helped us out of their like eight or nine left they all they're all friends they all talked they all got some startup job do an IT great for them right took off 30% of their Workforce what these help desk individuals did was what you just had three people leave

your team what do you do now you're working three jobs now these are hourly employees before California did their weird employment law where everybody's salary they're hourly employees you have to request overtime they're not doing it they don't want to get inundated with all the requests so they've all decided you know we'll stay 30 minutes an hour extra overtime to play catchup while they while they hire right so I'm sitting there I come in again to to get some more gear one night and there's like six of them there I was like the hell are all of you guys doing here what's going on something big it's like no the the three dudes left so we're just catching

up on tickets and and they're having a great time right I think I saw a beer right they're just cruising through just knocking them out I was like huh that's interesting next day I go over and and they're doing this for like maybe a week maybe two weeks I go over to the it manager again I like hey man you know like all your dudes are staying late right knocking out tickets he's like what the hell are you talking about this is one of the this is a California company right so we're on board shorts at 4 p.m. and off to the way if you didn't do it in the morning and he's like what are you talking about I was

like yeah check this out stick around and sure enough nobody left at five o'cl they all stuck run and he got up he's like what are yall doing say oh we're catching up on tickets they weren't planning on backfilling those positions why the work was being done they were picking up the pencil you have to be very careful as you give the lesson as you look at what you're doing is valuable are you actually doing what you should in support of the mission where you're expected to support or are you doing the wrong thing and taking the wrong eyes off of a problem this was a crazy story to learn and I I I think I use this story about

like once a week when I talk to people this is one of my favorite stories because it's one of those things that doesn't quite make sense until it happens to you till you see it I guarantee how many here see the pencil at their workplace yep how many of you just out curiosity of those hands didn't realize that that was a pencil Fallen and you were not showcasing where the actual problem was maybe you're addressing it honestly yeah yeah and that's that's such a hard part right because now you're conflicted right the dichotomy of you know do I do my job do I go the extra mile or is this sabotage that's where that open

communication's going to come in that's where you have to have those value conversations hey make sure you know this I'll do this once I'll do this twice we need to raise this don't just do it out of the goodness of your heart silently so I've said it a couple times what the hell's value

anybody that's a great way value with cost you're able to do that now because of of capitalism back in the day in the feudal markets you would have to trade chickens for potatoes and then value was a huge mess now with cost right everything kind of has a centralized value right money right so value can be cost it can also be time because time is

money oh that's that's a good one the perceived value beaut is in the eye of the beholder that's a great point I think I think both of you are correct correct right it's it's cost and it's perceived cost it's it's all relative what's the cissp cost lot of time a lot of money what's it worth what's the value of it here's here's the important question you didn't think about this yet and we had a conversation earlier this this uh young individual is getting a cissp tomorrow I believe soon soon what's the value of it why why do it I've been told that I need it I didn't ask who told you I asked what's the value of it

I know will it let's let's ask the audience this this is what I love about Community raise your hand if it'll show you know what you're talking about and help you get jobs I see a lot of this did anybody when they told you that say it'll get you some jobs get you HR after that you might be on your own what if you could who's a real cissp nut like a guru like who believes in it and that's fine I am I am it's a huge it's a huge certification it's hard right there's not a lot of people have it what happens if you can sit there and explain what the value of the cissp is to the

organization if you can say hey I can differentiate myself from other individuals other candidates because I have a cissp and you know what that means it means I'm trained in these body of knowledge I've been certified by a third party organization ation that I know about this let's talk about this how are you all doing Access Control when you terminate a user what are we doing and you start having a conversation based on those bodies of knowledge that's where the value comes in that's what we were just talking about the perceived value right the gumping right behind you cisp doesn't mean crap to you but the stuff that you can translate and show value to the

company that means something to the hiring manager that means something to Who You'd report to to be able to articulate in that direction Fair points on on value is that fair so we talked a little bit about cost I talk on Roi so you have Roi your return on investment when you do something you have to have a return I'll be honest there's no such thing as selflessness that's one of my soap boxes everyone does it for a selfish reason now granted some people get a joy of giving back I am one of those sickos that love public speaking I like getting up here yelling calling people out I have fun with this this is my

entertainment I love talking I love training uh that's what I'm getting out of this when you ask hey what's that guy getting out of the deal I'm enjoying this I'm enjoying the connections I'm enjoying maybe tossing my company logo up here there's always there's always there's always a selfless or a selfishness piece to it nobody ever just gives to give right at a at a very minimum piece you're giving to feel better it makes you feel good I've never met anybody that has a good answer to this of how selfless they are there's always Roi for the young student here that's going to get the CSP the ROI on doing all that training yeah you're gonna be

the focal point of this conversation doing that training taking the time spend that money it's not a cheap certification student on a budget that sucks that's that's a commitment right the value the return on investment is that you get past HR somebody said back there you might be able to talk competently right there's there's a return at least you hope there's a return right you just saw a lot of maybe not the right way the understand is the other thing and this is where's my students at this is my huge one for students when you sit across from a hiring manager flip the script everybody's always interested hey I'm gonna go to this company I'm gonna

be a data analyst a security analyst I'm gonna get paid Buu bucks this is gonna be awesome no what are you going to give my company what do you bring to my table what's your value proposition it's perceived value like the gentleman said here what are you going to bring my company how am I going to I'm a where are my nonprofits at not you Bryce yeah exactly most companies are for-profit you either have to grow my top line or you grow my bottom line you either bring me business you give me stuff to sell welcome to consulting or you reduce my expenses you bring in some cool security stuff that and I'm just got to pick on

you because I'm I've terrorized this young man you bring me some stuff that's going to reduce my insurance premium right what's the value proposition you bring and a lot of people don't realize that when they go into their first job what is it that I'm going to give this company when you start talking in that manner when you start looking at from their perspective and showing how you're going to make their life better either the top line or bottom line which that's all business cares about that's how you stay in business you're going to be Leaps and Bounds Beyond a cissp I double dog guarantee it all all day you talk business you understand your value

proposition it's game over and the last thing is commit to continue Improvement you're here that's a commitment you're here for Roi this is your time who did who paid this out of pocket I know it's it's it's a lot of money that's you want to return on this this is your time time is money you could be doing something else we're not going to do economics time is money the there's a cost of whatever the ticket is anything else that you have to pay for what what are you getting out of this hopefully a lot from my presentation hopefully a lot more from the more technical presentations how is that value going to sharpen your team

your friends your individual projects you yourself where does it all come together now Bryce talked about this a little bit he's like hey the future the future's coming right we're gonna have more jobs more jobs more jobs I'm going to tell you a very silent story about the beauty of AI in automation this has been going on for a decade it's going to be a silent story it's going to be a short story in six parts

are jobs increasing for the fast food industry are they what kind of jobs there's transitions in place and welcome to value is the value you bring going to be the value that you can bring 10 years from now is the value what where's another student I've picked on these two students too much where's where's my next student what are you going to school for

to do what yeah welcome to the hard question nobody nobody prophecies you with that one right what are you gon to do with that electrical whatever they'll hire you for right how are you going to protect yourself from being replaced by aient documentation that's fair one of the things that you'll notice we we saw this in New York and and they they started doing articles on it is uh hostess at at restaurants are being replaced by Zoom sessions where there's an offshore individual essentially at a zoom screen at a monitor that will handle your order handle uh hosting you they're they're essentially offshoring hostesses at certain at restaurants right so don't be too confident that

everything's guaranteed right start future pacing how is this going to survive right when you think cyber security cool I'm going to be an analyst yeah what are you going to analyze in 10 years what are you when all the algorithms are there and have fixed this how are you going to differentiate yourself how are you going to sharpen yourself how are you going to bring more value which welcome to the bside Salt Lake City 2024 theme providing value as you go out these doors and you go to your other sessions I want you to ask yourself the hell is he talking about what about four what point is she making that I'm going to use how is this going

to provide value to me it's mean right I'm not saying D it in a judge mental way I'm saying do it in a way that challenges yourself what are you doing with this information why are you there how are you going to bring it back to your team how are you going to sharpen them how does what you're listening to who's going to another session right after this how's that session going to align to your company's mission to your personal mission that's what I want the theme to be figure out how this all works together how this makes you better in your role in your position wherever you are in life in in the big

picture now my last story is going far and this is going to be a pretty quick story snow and I for some reason decided to make a village at Defcon there was a need for one we put in an application and for some reason they trusted us and now we have the social engineering community at Defcon this thing is a behemoth this is where one of the business lessons I learned from a from a uh another Mentor in another business program told me this African proverb and it stuck with me if you want to go fast go alone go by yourself you'll get there faster but if you want to go further you need to go with more people you need to

go with more than just yourself and that's where snow and I was able to build the social engine Community not because of what we knew we knew a couple things but we needed amazing volunteers to help us with the logistics I really wish Pope was here he brought not just his own expertise but he brought his network connections that we were able to Leverage and bolt on to that if you've been right how's the AV awesome it's a just flat it's awesome right that's not me that's Pope saying Hey JC I need 10 grand here Pope here's 10 grand and he did Lord knows what with it but it just works and that's where that trust and

that value is and this is what Bryce talked about you have to have that networking you have to have those connections jobs sharpening right getting better skills that's where this type of event comes in this is how how I got to I'm gonna skip over this slide because I just talked about it this is how I got to this position right I assembled a team I do very little well that's not really true but I I don't do nearly the Lion Share that I thought I would have to do I was able to spread load it and it has been the most rewarding experience because I let people shine where they can shine and that's the trick now how did I get here

right here here magic this started because of Ian the intern back at that defense company Ian who is right next to Dan Kaminsky this is at a uh my first Afterparty at an information security Community uh information security conference toron in San Diego uh I didn't know anything about it I knew security I was doing forensics back when we called AP1 China but I didn't know anything about Defcon I didn't know anything about the I didn't know anything about this community right I didn't get it he introduced me to it he took me to my first small conference conference like this he introduced me to other people he introduced me to people like Dan yeah amazing brilliant people rest

his soul but I wouldn't be anywhere if I didn't trust an intern who I thought I was mentoring I thought I was helping him and he helped me in the biggest way possible by introducing me to a community and I've been able to grow and give back and for that reason and for the reason I asked you all to move up closer I'm going to give you the same gift he gave me I'm going to ask you now if you'll please get up I ask you if you by yourself introduce yourself to the person next to you I'm going to stop talking I'm GNA come network with you for the remaining amount of time I want

you to introdu don't pack up don't go up talk to the person next to you you got an Air Force guy right here look at this Air Force guy hey Air Force guy yeah talk to the Air Force guy fun isn't it talk to each other there we go I like this this is here's the one that came up introduce talk make those connections