Government Technology Magazine's cover story for July 2008 described the challenges posed by millennial workers. Here's a short excerpt from the end of article Younger Employees May Bring New IT Security Challenges:
...[Samir] Kapuria thinks coaching younger employees on the security environment as it relates to Web 2.0 and existing risks might be a better approach than leaving things to IT policy alone.
[Dan] Ross agrees that training all employees as security officers would also mitigate risk. He referred to this approach as "part of the most modern way of thinking about security...."
After reading that excellent article, you may be asking: OK, so how do we do coach younger employees? How do we train them - when they already know plenty about the Internet?
Over the past six years as Michigan's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), I've had a few "aha" moments regarding work, but they rarely come when I'm on the job. One inspiring situation eventually led me to write a book. Really.
The date was May 27, 2006. I sat in the Calvin College Chapel in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and watched my (millennial) nephew Sam offer his wedding vows. "I take you Michele to be my wife for the rest of our lives. I will be faithful to you, loving you with my every thought, word, and action. I commit myself to this marriage. I will love and serve you ..."
Michele reciprocated with her wedding vows to Sam, the congregation and God. The wedding moved me. While all eyes focused on Michele, I remembered the similar vows I made to my wife Priscilla in 1989.
After that wedding, the importance of helping the 21st-Century "good guys" traverse cyberspace with integrity became somewhat of a personal obsession. As I led computer seminars and gave speeches at conferences around the country on responding to global security threats with "Cyber Best Practices" and "Ten Things that Keep Me Up at Night," I realized that the real Internet cultural change at home and work required digging much deeper into personal values.
I thought about the friends and colleagues I knew who had lost marriages or were struggling in numerous other ways as a result of poor cyber ethics. Yes, many made bad decisions, but was there more we could have done? What happened to those promises that people made when they interviewed for the job or signed acceptable use agreements? Could we have warned staff that online activities at work will certainly affect their reputations, careers and important relationships? These were "good" people who passed background checks and seemed to have it all together.
I asked around, and my colleagues all over the country saw similar business trends in the public and private sector. Many of our best and brightest, some graduate-degree trained, were getting into personal online trouble that negatively impacted their business. What was going on? I started rethinking the role of our office and my job.
As I spoke with large numbers of recent college grads about their goals, ambitions, and hopes, one thing became clear: Millennials value their integrity. Some used different words, like trustworthiness, but everyone I spoke with was looking to make a difference in the world, to have authentic interaction on talented teams that exhibit honesty and integrity.
Could this be an essential key to interacting with the next generation? Was this just "talk" or something more important? I was curious, so I did some homework.
The conclusion of this story will appear later this week.
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