An eclectic IT career: Mayo Takeuchi

After a couple of vacations to a country under lockdown due to the novel coronavirus, my first experience taking a SANS course , a bout of (regular strain of) flu, and some consistently busy work weeks, I'm back with yet another analogy. In looking up a reliable reference page to link to describe the jawbreaker candy , I discovered that in the regions outside of North America they seem to be called gobstoppers. If you can't be bothered to follow the above link, here are some salient excerpts: Gobstoppers usually consist of a number of layers, each layer dissolving to reveal a differently coloured (and sometimes differently flavoured) layer, before dissolving completely. Gobstoppers are too hard to bite without risking dental damage (hence the name "jawbreaker"). [snip] As gobstoppers dissolve very slowly, they last a very long time in the mouth, which is a major factor in their enduring popularity with children. Larger ones can take days or even weeks* to ful

Those who know me personally may be aware that my main extra-curricular, spanning a full decade starting at age 11, was playing the viola in music ensembles which ranged from the intimacy of quintets to the power of 80-piece orchestras. In fact I'd taken piano performance the most seriously (read: via private lessons for eight years with a reputable teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Music) so I never became as proficient in viola. In contrast to the years-long solitary struggle that comprised my endeavour to passably interpret several Beethoven sonatas, a few of Bach's keyboard works, and a Chopin mazurka or two however, my most vivid memories at school are social, involving becoming acquainted with compositions by actively collaborating with my fellow musicians. My love for "classical" (more accurately, baroque to early romantic era) music continues unabated, and a desire to perform has now been channeled instead into haunting the Musikverein and Konzerthaus -

After nearly two whole months in this Cyber Security Incident Responder role, I remain amused by the universally expressed sentiment from every new person I meet. Specifically, that they're pleased to make my acquaintance, but sincerely hope our interactions are short-lived and that they wish to never need to cross paths with me again, as representative of all people in my role. On the one hand, as a self-professed deep introvert , making cold contact with complete strangers on a daily basis is a draining ordeal, despite my extensive experience with many types of colleagues and clients. What mitigates the fatigue is that firstly, most of the people I interact with are experts in their disciplines, which I appreciate both in principle, and from the delightful side effect of learning a surprising amount about what they care about professionally and what processes they follow. Secondly as they are almost always embroiled in a stressful situation, they appreciate my presence as guid

As stated in my recent posts, I've made another career switch. This time, I'm dipping my metaphorical toes into the increasingly mission-critical area of most businesses: that of cyber security. The new look that I've applied to this blog, that of a darkened forest, is an analogy that I find apt. In broad strokes, most people are aware of its existence, yet few have explored it to find the diversity of the elements which comprise it.  Being such a neophyte myself I count myself as especially fortunate, to be in a team where there are already experts I could call upon, where we have the potential to leverage powerful, industry-leading tooling, and in an environment where every employee is called upon to actively protect not only our own data and assets, but those we are entrusted with by our clients.  In fact, it was immediately apparent that one has no choice but to take this role seriously if only because my employer's clientele consists mostly of organizations t

During my period of career turbulence - which actually began as far back as 2014 if my retrospection is correct, but officially began in early December of 2017 - one recurrent talking point that my employer's CHRO and CEO both expounded upon was how they sought resources who were (not their words, I'm being succinct) emotionally intelligent and mentally flexible . Another trending topic from both the HR and economic viewpoints, particularly in North America, seems to be that of how millennials are contributing increasingly to the creation of a " gig economy " - seemingly voluntarily jumping from contract to contract. In both cases, it helps to possess a curious nature: learning curves, be they academic or social, are best scaled when one inherently enjoys the process of acquiring knowledge and then applying it. However, the bigger mental challenge might, in my opinion, be to keep an unflagging sense of optimism about impending change. We may speak to it, but actua

Those of you familiar with my LinkedIn profile , not to mention my prior post from early 2018, would not fail to notice that the stability I'd enjoyed in the field of SEO consulting showed signs of being disturbed. Specifically, I took a scenic detour into the realm of (the IT sense of) Ontologies and Taxonomies. Recently, my spouse asked me how I'd describe the post-SEO role I'd held for 12 months. Promptly, I replied that my mission was to extend and develop a set of ontologies that would serve as the framework for taxonomies both used and potentially useful to my employer's Marketing division. At this point, it would be helpful for me to step back and put that in less abstract terms, I'm thinking. While most people are familiar with taxonomies from taking a unit of animal species classification - where we heard of things like Phylum and Genus, there is a vital need for such entities in categorizing and managing every type of content. Furthermore, not all ta

Despite resolving to attempt smaller, more frequent blog posts a few years ago, I'm back after another multi-month hiatus with this one. Due to the rarity with which I've been updating this blog, Google has de-indexed all but three of my pages on this site, but actually that's not the main reason for this newest piece of content, which is perhaps more personal than is typical of this blog. Over ten and a half years ago, I chose to make a lateral move (for a manager who kindly took his chance on me), and due to circumstances , I am once again in a situation where at least organizationally, moving has become necessary. Moving great distances, not only physically but professionally and culturally, has been something I had been willing - and able - to undertake in the past. My CV, which lists a career history spanning Toronto, Boston, and Dublin (and my initial move States-side for third level education) attests to this. Lately however, my reasons for not uprooting myself (