Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Forward PLUS a reading list for the budding CISO in your family. Joy! - What I am reading 12/23/2104

Quartz - Why the US government should learn to fail fast like Silicon Valley -

savvy public sector leaders need to map the intended effects of their planned actions, then test crucial assumptions early on, keeping an eye on attendant risks. As they execute plans, their teams need to continually collect and examine data—and draw conclusions from what they glean. At the end of every project, they need to specify what they have learned and ensure the lessons are shared not just within a given agency or office, but more widely across the public sector.

This sounds good, but government planning and spending, by law, don't work like that.  Most programs are codified to operate in a certain way, contracts bind you into a certain path and money once allocated can only be spent on it's intended target.  It would be nice if those rules were more flexible, but they aren't.  I think the solution is for government to take on smaller easier to manage projects and complete them on a compressed schedule while working towards completion of a larger well thought out goal.

Washington Post - U.S. economy grew at a rate of 5 percent in third quarter, the fastest in more than a decade -

With oil prices falling, consumers are saving hundreds at the pumps and have more money in their wallets. That’s helped fuel an uptick in consumer spending, which coincides with a year of robust job growth. Economists think the run of good news could spill into the fourth quarter, paving the way for the sharpest U.S. expansion since the recession.

I expected that falling oil prices would drive some economic expansion, just like I have maintained that it was rising oil prices that caused the housing collapse, but I don't believe 5%.  That sounds too  much like made up Chinese numbers. 

Vox - Low oil prices are good for 42 states — and bad for the other eight -

the picture is different for eight states that rely heavily on oil production: namely, Alaska, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma Texas, Wyoming and West Virginia. Lower oil prices means less revenue — and, in places like North Dakota or Texas, could force shale producers to scale back their drilling. (Oil-producing states with diversified economies, like California, are much less vulnerable overall.)

I think in the long run Shale Oil will turn out to be more resilient than the authors thinks it is, but even if there is some decrease in production it's presence should have somewhat of a stabilizing effect on crude oil prices.  

Dark Reading - The CISO Holiday Bookshelf -

1.  @War - The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex

2. Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon

3.  Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door

4. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

5. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous

6. SCADA and Me: A Book for Children and Management

7. Say Anything: How Leaders Inspire Ideas, Cultivate Candor, and Forge Fearless Cultures