Netizen Blog and News

The Netizen team sharing expertise, insights and useful information in cybersecurity, compliance, and software assurance.

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Netizen is an award-winning ISO 27001:2013 and ISO 9001:2015 certified Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SDVOSB) company specializing in cybersecurity with offices and locations around the country. Our work is truly global as we support customers all across the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Asia. We are America’s fastest growing cybersecurity company in 2019 and a national “Best Workplace” according to Inc. Magazine. We also received the Department of Labor HireVETS Platinum Medallion for our veteran-focused hiring, training, and retention programs in addition to numerous other accolades.

  • Houston, we have a problem…in startup project management

    Today I’m talking about failures to launch, for software products that is.  Consider this here a brief introduction for future lectures in essential startup project management because this is an epidemic amongst inexperienced entrepreneurs looking to get in on a red hot dot-com 2.0 industry.  Lets start with a few questions: Are you pushing out delivery dates every few months? Find yourself chasing differing visions for the direction of the product? Feel the need to add feature after feature in the name of “quality” without ever putting something in front of a real customer?  Then this is definitely for you.

    Processes turn chaos into order.  They tame the amazonian wilds of a new company and help it grow. I’m not talking about bureaucracy, which is process run amok, but there is a need to balance the agility of a nascent company with the core practices of change control, requirements gathering, communication/personnel management, quality assurance, risk management, and scheduling/budgeting, amongst others. These need to be documented and adhered to whether you are a 3 person consulting firm or a 300 person software company.  Without them, you’ll very quickly find yourself on a long (and lonely) winding path of ever-changing, never releasing software products.  Not a very happy place to be.  In the same line of thinking, using the wrong methodology for the wrong situation will also leave you with extended (or too rapid) lifecycle iterations and, thus, potentially obsolete or unusable software before you even get a chance to make a dime with it.

    I’m not going to advocate only some of the recently popular “lean” styles (which have actually been around for decades but simply repackaged with shiny new marketing for the modern internet era), though I will touch upon some of them briefly.  I’m not going to say that one particular methodology is better than another in all situations. Heck, you could even come up with your own brand new methodology that builds upon the fundamentals I will discuss – whatever works.  What I will say is that basic core project management skills are sorely needed in the startup world.  With this first post I intend only to bring the problem to light, later articles will elaborate on proven fundamental project management processes.

    Team Netizen

    http://www.NetizenCorp.com

  • Why we are proud of being veteran-owned

    A lot of businesses you see are veteran-owned (including ours), they just don’t advertise it very often.  It may be because of the negative connotations it once carried in previous eras or some other reason altogether, but they should display it loud and proud for reasons I will explain here.

    Veterans start and operate businesses at a far higher rate than the rest of the population, and they tend to be more honest and successful, too [link], as integrity is the hallmark of one’s honorable military service.  Veteran CEO’s are less likely to preside over fraud, and tend to do better in economic downturns (like the current one) than other business executives.  Veteran leaders are also team-oriented, not just profit-focused.  This could mean that employees will generally find greater satisfaction in working for them and the long-term success of a company is at their heart, not just a few Wall Street quick-wins or so called “band-aid” solutions that will disintegrate in a few days leaving a gaping pit of calamity.  Last, but certainly not least, Veterans are mission oriented.  This means that when something absolutely positively needs to get done, for a client for example, a Veteran knows how (or will find a way) to make things happen to accomplish the mission at hand, however large or seemingly improbable it may appear at the time.

    What people don’t understand is that military service breeds innovative and agile leaders.  Some unfortunately perceive military service as nothing more than strict adherence to rules and rote repetition of procedures.  Part of it is, don’t get me wrong, but when the bullets start flying, literally or figuratively, prior-military personnel will shine with levels of adaptation not seen in most who have not served.  A common saying in every branch is “adapt and overcome” which translates perfectly into the everyday life of an entrepreneur or other business leader.  When something needs to get done yesterday or a roadblock is encountered that needs to be mitigated right now, and no easy solution is within the immediate purview, veterans will generally find a way to make it happen every time, as previously stated, but also in ways quite possibly never before thought of.  They will accomplish it most often through cohesive teamwork leveraging the collective experience and intelligence of a group, not the wild individualism of today’s popular Silicon Valley startups.  All in all, this team orientation builds lasting, prosperous enterprises more often than the latest startup fad or fly-by-night organizational structure.

    We advertise as a Veteran-owned business because we are proud of that, obviously.  However, we also do it to enlighten others, and help end the stigma often associated with military service in too many startup circles.  Case in point, while writing this article my blogging platform sees that I wrote about veterans, and immediately chose to tag the article as associated with “post traumatic stress disorder,” which itself is associated with a slew of other unfortunate stereotypes by people who only know what they see in the movies.  I’m hoping we’ve helped overcome a little bit of that negative stereotyping of veteran entrepreneurs, but there is still so much to do.

    Team Netizen

    http://www.NetizenCorp.com