A Great Week: Edition 1
I published a cyber security piece yesterday. I have been working on it for a long time.
I started reflecting and inventorying the pieces I wrote this year. Countless hours of work went into putting those together. What could be better for the 1st edition of the newsletter than to bring those articles together?
My focus for the newsletter will be to curate and share the content I am reading and finding truly useful.
The newsletter will focus on data, cyber security, and productivity. Books are a big part of me, so do expect some talk about them.
We are consumers of information and content. Every time I have articulated my thoughts in a post or an article, it has led to clarity of thought and automatically propels me forward.
I have received feedback from my LinkedIn community (about 50 direct messages). These articles have helped a bunch of executives in their strategy and execution. What else could I want for?
THANK YOU for the feedback, comments, and suggestions!
So here is the summary of my key posts from 2021. I am sure you will surely derive value from these pieces.
Data and its growing value
During the two years of the pandemic, everyone has become a data geek.
All credit goes to large-scale global data collection, reporting, collaboration, and democratization of covid cases data. International institutional websites came up with interactive graphics and began slicing dicing the data by race, location, timelines, and hundreds of variables. People have realized data is the key.
In emerging economies, people questioned the data sources and their validation?
In leading countries, people questioned the predictive nature of data. Which institute's models are better? How could our modeling be more accurate?
Data continues to be a strategic area for enterprises.
A significant number of investments are happening for the past decade.
I started my Data Strategy series in 2020. I continued posting additional pieces diving into advanced concepts like data security, data marketplace in 2021.
I also took a look into how CFOs are playing a role in the data-driven approach and transforming their organizations.
- Data Strategy: Multiplicative nature of analytics programs
- Data strategy #7: CFO's role in the data-driven enterprise
- Data Strategy #8: Rise of snowflake and data marketplace
- Data strategy #9: multiplicative nature of analytics programs
- Data Strategy #10: 5 value propositions of the snowflake data cloud
- Data strategy #11: Focusing on the right data
- Data strategy #12: 10 considerations for data security
As a Strategy, At Locuz, We carried out a bunch of webinars focused on data as well.
One of the notable ones was for CXOs. It was attended by 80+ CXOs. It turned out to be a great stage with another CXO joining us for the conversation and Snowflake engineering leader sharing views on where the industry is headed.
- Webinar: Data to Decision for this webinar, you can listen to the 60 minutes session here.
Retail & supply chain
I continued writing and sharing a bunch of pieces on Retail, e-commerce, and the supply chain.
2021 was a massive year where we saw Supply chain disruptions from the Suez Canal fiasco which showed the world how interconnected we really have become. Then came the chips shortage, and every possible supply chain interruption which is possible.
Amidst this, I shared a lot of content around these challenges. and initiated a series called Retail Bite. More on this series in 2022.
Cyber Security & rise of "Ransomeware"
This year we saw a continuation of ransomware threats across the globe. Some of the top enterprises were attacked and paralyzed by the intrusions. But some bounced back strongly. Some went unreported and caved to the demands of the intruders. Some could not afford the hit and went down in the year.
There is only one lesson here - Threat will continue ramping up & enterprises would have to get serious about it. Domains like School districts & Counties, Utility companies, and construction are probably even more susceptible than Hitech or fintech companies who are in everyone's eyes already.
Locuz has opened up new doors to the Cyber Security front for me.
I got involved in the security program details like never before. In 2021, I spent time listening to our customers, building those in our strategy, and ramping up my knowledge base.
Cyber Security will continue to be an area of focus for me in the new year. I encourage you to read the ideas for the 2022 post here.
- Slides from the webinar on Cloud security trends and challenges.
- Cyber Security opportunities and ideas for 2022.
Finally, I came out of my entrepreneurial venture earlier this year. There were a lot of lessons learned in running a business. One of the biggest lessons learned was to offer back to the community. We need to provide tangible help to folks that are building or going off the trodden path. I attempted and extended an open hand to help. I spent a few hours with a friend on his venture and it was great. My offer remains open in 2022 as well.
With that, Thanks and I shall see you all in the new year.
Cheers!