Jack Dorsey: Running a business idea - applicable to IT security?

What does this post have to do with security? Well, we will soon see it. Stanford University's entrepreneurship corner is one of those reasons why Internet is, even just for this, a great invention. From your screen at home or from our smartphone or mp3 player, we have access to lectures given my current entrepreneurs.

One of the latest lectures is the one given by Jack Dorsey, creator of  twitter and square. I took note of some learning points, maybe subjective, out of his talk.

They are brilliant points to consider when creating a start-up within the IT security world. Do not forget them!

• "Instrument" your company from day 1. The first thing he did in square (and not in twitter) is writing an admin control panel for their servers.
• Be a story teller. You need to inspire your team and your customers with a story, your idea.
• In the company, you act as the editor, composing the stories.
• The team you build is not permanent, different players will need to enter and exit according to their profiles, the current story and the "required edition".
• Internal communication: Everyone in the company will have the same priorities.
• External communication: You communicate with the product, your product is "your story for your customers".
• Money in the bank: The company needs it, firstly from investors and secondly, and more critical, from revenue.
• Limit the number of details. Those details that stay need to be perfect.
• A last sentence from his side:"expect the unexpected and, whenever possible, be the unexpected".

If you see value in these points, then listen to the entire podcast or watch the lecture.

Happy listening!

ps Thanks to the Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar crew!

Social-engineer.org crew interviews communication expert Joe Navarro

The episode number 14 of the Social Engineer podcast features an interview with the author and expert in non-verbal communications, Joe Navarro. This is a post with learning points extracted from listening to his interview.

Disclaimer: These lines do not substitute the listening of the interview. The statements mentioned are close to literal or slightly summarised or just a subjective interpretation. Kudos to the social-engineer.org crew!

Minute 17: Inmigrants in a country using a different language than their mother tongue need to be sensitive to body language and observe carefully.

Minute 18: Babies mimic gestures since their third week of life.

Minute 19: Babies with eleven months look for mood clues coming from their mothers.

Minute 20: Blue is a smoothing colour. Blue is predominant on TV.

Minute 22: When we see something beautiful, our pupils dilate. When we see something ugly, ours pupils contract. Our limbic system controls this.

Minute 31: A good observer focuses not only on the face but on the entire body. It is more difficult to lie when there is space among our fingers and we show our thumb.

Minute 36 and 37: People talking while looking at the same direction are more relaxed than people talking facing each other. Facing people create tension when talking.

Minute 41: You can calm someone down just by exhaling in front of them (they will mirror you).

Minute 47: A biographer of Kennedy mentioned that you can get anyone anywhere anywhen talk to you, you just have to tell them that you treasure their opinion.

Minute 55: The meaning of words: People in their fifties like to talk about problems, people in their thirties talk about issues. People like to talk with people like them.

Minute 66: When performing social engineering, assess whether the person does look comfortable to you.

Minute 66: In the US, the amount of time one should look someone else at their eyes is 1.8 seconds.

Minute 68: Arch your eyebrows when you greet someone. When arching the eyebrows, we burn sugar. We only burn sugar when we care. Babies respond to this action already when they are a week's old.

Minute 70: If you show space between your fingers, you are confident of what you are saying.

Minute 72: Some tips on using body language with your children.

Happy interview listening!