Saturday, December 17, 2016

Infosec reporting and the problem of reaching your audience

If you've ever taken a course with me at SANS you know how big I am on reporting and getting that right.  You can be the best in the world at the technical aspects of infosec, but none of that matters if you can't write.  I regularly tell people to shoot for maximum 7th grade reading level in their executive summaries.  Your executives aren't stupid (most of them) but you shouldn't make your writing hard to read or you're less likely to get engagement.  This great article I found doesn't cover writing for infosec explicitly, but really hammers home how many people read at below a 9th grade level.

Read and heed. The people in infosec making the most cash aren't always the smartest or the most technical. They're the ones that can communicate effectively - and that invariably involves writing coherently.

This was cross posted from my #Peerlyst account.  If you haven't yet joined the Peerlyst community, I think it's a great source of knowledge for the community. Go sign up.