Dissertation proposal: "Shaping Possibility Space"

At long last, I have submitted my dissertation proposal:

• "Shaping Possibility Space: Coevolution of Thinking and Doing In Organizational and Institutional Innovation"

Fair warning: it is long -- 72 pages not including Glossary and Bibliography.  Being academic work, it will not be 'light reading' for many readers.  I have done my best to be clear and direct, but the subject matter is complicated.

Spoiler alert: I don't propose to solve the Cyber Security Problem(tm) in my research.  Instead, I'm studying the process of innovation that might, eventually, lead to new solutions, especially institutional innovations.  Some readers might find this boring, irrelevant, or 'ivory tower'.

Feedback is most welcome.  If you don't have my email address, ping me on Twitter.

The defense meeting is in mid-October.

B-Sides LV slides

Here are my slides for today's B-Sides Las Vegas talk (5pm Wednesday).  I'll be demoing the B-Sides SF spreadsheet (see previous post).  A video of the talk will be available on Archive.org in a day or so.

B-Sides SF Talk

Here is the demo spreadsheet I'll be using in today's B-Sides SF talk on the Thomas Scoring System (TSS):

• InfoSec Maturity Assessment (TSS) V1.xlsx

Download the spreadsheet and open in Microsoft Excel 2008 or later.  It uses conditional formatting and cell data validation, but no macros or other advanced features.  The sheets are protected to avoid data entry errors, but there is no password.

This is a realistic, fully functional implementation of the TSS applied to a general case: scoring the maturity of a company's information security capability.

Entry in Schneier's Eighth Movie-Plot Threat Contest

Every year, on April Fool's Day, Bruce Schneier hosts a "movie plot threat" contest on his blog.  This year's theme is "evils of encryption".  This is my third year submitting an entry (I won two years ago -- w00t!).  Here is my entry for the 8th contest (500 word limit):