The event season

It is upon us again, that time of year where there are so many events to go to that you really are spoilt for choice. Our annual CyberFest begins tomorrow and we already have more than twenty events lined up. Most days have something and on other days we have had to double up. Others keep appearing out of the shadows.

Last week, while Danielle was off to a ScotlandIS event in Edinburgh, I was down in York to help Evolve celebrate its twentieth year of trading – some achievement these days.  Both of these events were off our patch as such yet we have had a long association both with our Scottish neighbours and Evolve, which definitely does trade in the North East. Perhaps it was the lure of a decent lunch, or a nice trip on a train that eventually hooked me. Though the journey back could not be described as nice.

No, the main reason I went was to get a chance to speak to Emma, CEX of IASME, an Information Assurance standard that is designed to be simple and affordable to help improve the cyber security of Small and medium-sized enterprises. I think the acronym stands for Information Assurance for SMEs and Cyber Essentials is certainly one of those but one that CyberNorth has struggled to attain. I was hoping to find out why and what we could do about it. We had a good chat, involving several of the Evolve staff about it and I have left them to ponder on it for a while. One day we will get there and the trip was worthwhile just for that.

While I was there, I met up with a colleague who was working for a cyber security company in Gateshead I wasn’t aware of (at least its cyber role), met someone from a hospice in Newcastle who had been in touch with one of my colleagues and had a great chat with someone from the charity sector who I learned so much from.  I also learned that nobody in the room does not work from home in some part of the week. How the world has changed since COVID.

There were plenty of reasons to have gone to the event, though on reflection, the real reason I went is probably to get some headspace, to listen to and engage with other people and to think about my own plans. All good reasons.

It was certainly worthwhile and it was good to be in the audience rather than organising the event for a change.