I am available in a consulting capacity for a variety of different activities. The work can occur at my location or yours. No geographic boundaries on any consulting engagements.
Writing
In my career, I have been published in a wide variety of media and done private writing for individual clients. Below are topic areas with some specific writing examples.
Articles, Advertorials
I have had articles of various lengths and topics published in a wide variety of media.
IBM Systems Magazine – Cryptography article, co-written with Paul Turner of Venafi
Enterprise Systems Media – The Language of Math Transcends International Boundaries
Government CIO Magazine – Why Cybersecurity should matter
z/OS Hot Topics – Database on Demand
IBM Redpaper: Accelerating Digital Transformation on Z using Data Virtualization
Business Proposals and Press Releases
When working in IBM Federal Sales, I developed a template that was used for several successful customer technology updates. In some cases, they were technology refreshes, in other cases, it was adding new workloads to existing systems.
Several of these proposals resulted in the development of white papers that demonstrate the value to that particular customer but could then be used as a reference to make sales with other customers.
Another developed into a Press Release, from which I wrote the original draft, collected all the quoted testimonials. It was then taken over by the other party to be issued.
White Paper – Managing Cross Platform Risk with IBM System z Solution Edition for Security
White Paper – Application Development
White paper – Secure Hybrid Computing
Case Study – IBM Maximo running on System z
Presentations
I am comfortable working with Powerpoint or Keynote to create and deliver presentations. As a briefer for IBM, I never delivered the same presentation twice. Each presentation was tailored to the specific customer. If the charts didn’t change, my words did to make a better connection with the customer.
Web content
I am comfortable with several web hosting services. Presently, I am the creator and web master for several web sites.
Rock on Stone Design – this was done for a local friend.
Technical Manuals
I’ve written one technical manual. This isn’t my area of expertise. However, it was important to look from a new customers perspective to best understand how the technology worked so I could impart some knowledge and rationale to the reader before giving them the technical details. Much of the writing required interviewing and asking a lot of questions of the product developers as well as hands on experience with the product so that I could impart that knowledge to the reader.
Public Speaking
I have had the pleasure of speaking around the world on a wide range of topics to a broad range of audiences. From CEO’s and CIO’s through technical support staff. I feel comfortable speaking at the 10,000 foot level for executives down to a level of technical detail for systems programmers and developers. Elevator speeches to two hour speaking engagements are not a problem.
Keynote speaking on a wide variety of topics
I’ve enjoyed presenting to several thousand people when introducing new technology into the market.
Private customer briefings on a wide variety of topics
I was one of the lead briefers at the IBM Poughkeepsie briefing center for many years. I’ve presented in Poughkeepsie and at customer sites for over 25 years.
Motivational speaking
I enjoy adding humor and real life experiences to my speaking engagements. I’ve had the pleasure of providing motivational speeches to groups with as few as 20 people to several hundred people in attendance.
Typically, I work with the host to capture a couple of key items to impart to the audience and then it is left to me to deliver the messages in creative ways.
I’ve done this for new hire orientations to inspire younger employees to find their niche in a larger company and create their own network of colleagues to get work done. I’ve also worked with existing and mature development organizations to discuss technology trends and their applicability or relevance to their current assignments. The goal of those discussions is to demonstrate that their existing skills remain relevant to future development activities.
Education
I have presented educational material to more intimate groups of 30 people or less with hands on exercises included. These generally deal with programming and IT operations topics.
Security
I have had a TS/SCI clearance with the US Government across a variety of agencies within the Intelligence and Defense community. It is presently not active, since my retirement from IBM, but is easily renewable for the next year.
Forensic work for data breaches
I’ve worked with multiple businesses following security breaches. One effort was following work by the Secret Service, IBM Services and a third party. I found a dozen other “data leaks” and unaudited ways to get access to the same data. From this work, I became a member of the US Secret Service Electronic Crime Task force in Chicago.
Audits and reviews of existing Security Policies
The key is to follow the bouncing data…Where is it written, where is it read, how many copies exist, etc.
Recommendations for improved system security
There’s never been an environment that I’ve looked at that couldn’t improve their security. But it is a question of how much to spend. So the recommendations I make use a risk/reward model trying to identify the biggest return on investment for your spending.
Jim Porell and James Porell Consulting 