I was asked to give a talk this past Monday for the ETech convention (focused on K-12) in Columbus OH. I did my best to politely let our sponsors know that I would not participate in regurgitating vendor marketecture and FUD (see
Replacing FUD), that is what vendor reps are for. Instead I put together a discussion around understanding the Risks of the BYOD (BYOD == BYOWMD - Weapons of Mobile Destruction, credit to whomever tweeted that the other day, I searched but couldn't find it again), the current business drivers, the ramifications and a roadmap to follow if your organization is thinking about allowing users to bring their own weapons onto your network. Great participation and dialogue, which i love, and thanks to all who attended and participated in the discussions.
Some very interesting take aways, mostly specific to the K-12 vertical
- Not a single person in the room had ever seen a single line item for security in an OSFC bid (not surprising)
- IT resources are streched beyond capacity (not surprising)
- Educators are usually not aware how much access they actually have, and many times don't care once that is explained (interesting)
Only a handful of persons who attended are currently being directed to design and implement network that support these weapons. However, I guarantee with the rising expectations of these networks to support all of the upcoming advanced technologies and the high costs of 1:1 computing we will see many more organizations moving towards this model that the tech industry has made its latest acronym focal point.
