New Package! AND Improved Taste!

Companies should concentrate on being secure instead of looking secure

October 17, 2007 — CSO — Consumer goods is a funny industry. Occasionally you get a relatively new product (various Swiffers being one adopted with great enthusiasm in my household), but mostly you get tiny incremental improvements. In fact, the more strident the marketing, the greater the likelihood that the actual change is quite small (Pringlesnow available in SNACK SIZE!!).

As I mentioned last month, CSO is now five years old, and weve celebrated by remodeling. This issue of CSO is a mix of new product and new packaging.

Youll still find long-standing favorites: the Briefing section (Page 17); its humorous back-page companion, Debriefing (Page 48); and the ever popular Undercover column (Page 44). And of course our feature articles, which provide in-depth exploration of the subjects and tasks most central to your job.

New stuff includes Join the Discussion (Page 8)with roughly a dozen security pros blogging on CSOonline.com, we wanted to bring some of the lively debate into our pages and invite you to join in. Weve also created a new section called Toolbox (Page 12) to do a better job of providing you with guidance in evaluating, purchasing and implementing software, equipment and services; this months edition covers the relatively new category of tools known by the unfortunate moniker data leakage prevention. Freelancer Mary Brandel offers great practical insight into these tools; I think youll find Toolbox extremely useful.

Historically, our magazine has presented the point of view of the practitionerthe vast majority of our articles are based on interviews with CSOs and CISOs who oversee the security function in private or public organizations. That will continue to be the case, but weve now added the Industry View column (Page 46) to draw directly on the expertise of the many smart analysts, consultants and vendors working in security. Youll find additional Industry View columns on our website.

One lesson from consumer goods marketing is the importance of appearance. Our whiz-bang art director, Steve Traynor, has taken the opportunity to refresh and sharpen CSOs presentation. I hope that you are as delighted with the results as I am.

The aim remains to make CSO not only informative, engaging and easy to read, but also of such quality that it reflects the importance of the profession. You should feel confident that if you present CSO articles to your CEO, he or she will be impressed.

Have we hit the mark? Let me know. I think we have, but after all, my opinion doesnt count for much. Its all about the consumer.