Thanks for covering the help desk. You managed flawlessly, and we managed to fix that little bug with the old Chicago address. Excellent!

Now, we need to take care of that presentation. Considering some of the incidents you’ve covered, not to mention the server problems and bad press, we’re way past due on educating employees about the security risks lurking out there. You know, the network administrator just told me that 15% of our employees still retain their original log-in password, NEWUSER. And, you may have read the recent story about our competitor (whose name I shall not mention, mind you): security employees there sent everyone in the company an email offering $50 for their network passwords and 50 people out of around 1000 were willing to provide it, including an executive. Industry experts estimate that between 40 to 80% of security threats come from within, so we have to protect ourselves.

But you know all that already, so let me just give you the specs. You’ll give the presentation at the end of the week for the entire Cupertino office, and it will be simultaneously telecast in Dallas, New York, and Chicago. Keep it dynamic but simple, and focus on high-priority issues and behaviors (i.e., try to cover the 20% of mistakes employees make that account for 80% of our headaches/vulnerability). It may help to shake up the crowd with some statistics – and consequences (e.g., every instance of a stolen social security number could cost the company some serious fines).

Plan for around 15-20 minutes, which probably comes out to about 10-15 PowerPoint slides. (I know that’s a significant range, but our allotted time has to be somewhat flexible as we’re slotted between two presentations by top execs.) Prioritize the points you want to cover and start off with the most important ones. Remember, we want to convince people that it’s in their best interests professionally to change behaviors here so that we can have a safer network environment.

Good luck!

IT Director

Education is the art of making man ethical. – G.W.F. Hegel

P.S. I’m suggesting you use PowerPoint or KeyNote for your presentation, but you’ll also need to design a quick-reference guide for all the employees. Keep it clear and concise, one page maximum. Just be sure to include an overview of the importance of security and the key behaviors we want our colleagues to remember.