The last few years I've been struggling to find time and energy to actively contribute to the information security community.
I used to go to conferences (like bsides events), either as an attendee or as a speaker. And even if the mix of travel, conference and after parties 🥳 was often tiring, these experiences gave me a lot of energy. What I like most of all about these events is meeting people in an informal context and building relationships.
In 2023, my track record of conferences was unfortunately limited. I only attended SecAppDev. An awesome experience and highly recommended by the way.
Also on social media I've been quiet for a while. Twitter was my main medium to connect with the information security community and beyond. It has always been very satisfying to me when I could reach less security aware people with content to improve their security. The best example is my daily blog series for cyber security awareness month in 2019. It reached a lot of people, mainly thanks to people in my Twitter network sharing it.
I've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Twitter. I certainly learned a lot via this platform and it helped me to build a network and even make friends in real life. But it also often felt like a waste of time and energy.
So even before the demise of (infosec) Twitter - thank you Elon Musk - I deliberately choose to spend less time on Twitter/X and online in general. I felt I needed to find a better balance in what I did in my free time.
I'm nowadays mostly active on either Mastodon or Bluesky, but when it comes to knowledge sharing and interactions, in my opinion they still aren't at the level Twitter was in the good old days.
So what's up for 2024
Like i said in this post, I want to increase my social media presence and do some things I consider fun and valuable.
One of them is blogging. I like writing blogs for different reasons. By doing so I improve my overall writing and English skills. (I know it's far from perfect. But hey, I am Belgian, so Dutch is my mother tongue 😉). It does also help me a lot to investigate and learn about security related topics. After all I want to get my facts straight. So I really want to get the blogging going again in 2024. I have some topics in mind already, so stay tuned! If you want you can subscribe to get my posts via email.
As far as conferences are concerned, nothing has been planned yet. I'll try to attend SecAppDev again but would like to do some other events as well. Either as an attendee or as a speaker. I love to reach people outside of the information security bubble. So, also if you know or host a non-infosec conference where an infosec (awareness) talk would fit don't hesitate to reach out!
The same if you like to have me on your podcast, or... You're most welcome to contact me.
I have also been practicing a self-employed secondary profession for over a year now. Here you can find more info about the services that I offer and how you can reach me.
Finally, I wish you and your loved ones a happy and healthy 2024.
