The Arch-Nemesis of Learning: Collection

Have you ever read through a security article, only to feel one of the following ways when you finished reading it?

• Frustrated at the lack of a "conclusion" when reading security articles, racking your mind to find a summarizing thought.
• Discouraged after having to reread the information multiple times, as if it just wouldn't stick.
• Unable to recall key points about what was read, or unable to quickly articulate a memorable summary of the article.

At the end of the day, no matter how much information is stuffed into an article, if you can't create ways to remember key points to prompt your memory in a meeting, project, or critical moment, it's a much use as if you never read it. Before I started Security Connections, I did what I liked to call "Collecting" articles. I would read an article that made me feel one of the ways mentioned above, and add it to the bookmark tab for articles I was sure I'd "revisit". What I found was that, no matter how many articles were collected, they never could help me when I needed that information in a pressing moment. I've illustrated how I used to learn with the "Collection" process below:
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This process is not only ineffective, but it also discourages us from being curious. Why would we want to read an article we are conditioned to think we can't understand?

Our Approach: Connecting

At Security Connections, we wanted to devise a new way to approach understanding cybersecurity concepts. More often than not, the underlying theory to security is intuitive. It isn't rocket science that we want to protect the things we own.

The problem is, articles commonly get caught up in technical jargon. There's no debating that there is value in these types of publications, but when everyone is doing them, it becomes an echo chamber of each writer pulling the same information. Technical documents are often provided by heavy hitters such as Microsoft, NIST, and other organizations which create or enforce the standards. Security Connections is not aiming to be the most in-depth or technical source of information; that's the job of the people who create the long whitepapers. Instead, we want to be a place to come when you want to learn about new concepts you can apply immediately and recall with ease. Think back to a recent meeting you may have been a part of; did the big idea come from the one who knew the most, or the one who spoke up with their idea? We want to enable more people to better recall security concepts, and are confident we can help with our "Connection" process below:
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Security Connection articles strive to be memorable, and allow you to make connections to security concepts.