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Rebecca Herold & Associates, LLC

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The Privacy Professor

The Privacy Professor's Security Search #1: At The Office

This engaging learning exercise is based on a wildly successful program Rebecca developed for one the world's leading financial institutions. Its primary activity tool is an interactive poster featuring cutaways of an office building with a myriad of visible information security and privacy risks. Your employees will learn by searching for the risks illustrated within the poster, working in teams or individually, based upon your organization's learning objectives.

This training tool's highly detailed illustrations are of people and work areas, as well as the immediate surroundings of a typical office building. The poster is 19" x 27" – big enough to clearly identify all of the elements (similar to the detail in a Where's Waldo book), and is produced on heavyweight paper (made with recycled materials), so you can use it not only for this exercise, but as a lasting, posted reminder of information and privacy security situations.

Employees learning with Security Search
Employees of all levels, in all fields, learn to identify security and privacy issues in their own situations.
Employees learning with Security Search
Security Search creates cohesiveness among team members and facilitates interactive learning.
Employees learning with Security Search
Team members work at their own pace, on their schedules. Daily applications last long after training.

Key benefits of The Privacy Professor's Security Search #1: At the Office

  • Meets regulatory, legal and contractual training requirements
  • Actively engages personnel to effectively and measurably improve security and privacy practices
  • Teaches participants how to identify and address security and privacy risks within their office building
  • Encourages fun while learning!

What's included in the package

  1. Illustrated learning tools and posters – multiple options are available for a variety of organizational sizes
  2. Answer key and corresponding descriptions for each risk
  3. An answer sheet template for learning participants to use to provide their descriptions of the risks
  4. Metrics tools to measure awareness before and after the exercise to determine increase in awareness as a result of the learning exercise
  5. Project plan and timeline identifying key activities before, during and after the learning exercise
  6. Sample memo from the organization leader to managers to announce the learning exercise
  7. Sample memo with instructions to managers for initiating the exercise with participants
  8. Learning exercise response grading instructions
  9. Communications to send to participants in the weeks/months following the training exercise to reinforce each key training topics
  10. Winning team and participant prize suggestions
  11. Tips for success

Why this program is effective

In the 1950s, Ph.D. Benjamin Bloom assembled a group of celebrated educational psychologists to study the elements of learning and associated behaviors. The team's results – the widely accepted standard – identify three components: cognitive (knowledge), affective (attitude), and psychomotor (skills).

The Privacy Professor's Security Search #1: At the Office provides your staff learning experiences at the highest levels within all three domains – for analysis, integration and evaluation. Most other information security and privacy training and awareness products only deliver on one, and sometimes two, of the lowest levels.

This means your employees will be more actively involved in the learning process, making the experience more effective, and resulting in measurable improvements in protecting information in everyday situations.

Case study

Rebecca originally used this type of learning exercise with over 130 teams within a company's organization, located at multiple geographic locations. Teams had a week to fill out their answer sheets with all of the security infractions and risks they could identify on the learning poster without knowing how many risks there actually were.

Nearly 100% of teams actively participated in this exercise and the response was unconditionally enthusiastic. Several of the teams had fun with their "infraction" answers (e.g., "a man wearing a plaid jacket with mismatched striped pants"). Others delved so deeply into the exercise that they identified additional security problems not even purposefully planned into the poster!

Program Results and Benefits:

  • Teams were actively engaged in thinking critically about the vast range of information security issues within a business.
  • Participants talked with their coworkers about the situations, engaging in friendly debate about whether each should actually be a risk.
  • Staff began talking with their managers about their own related situations, thus bringing potential issues to the forefront.
  • Many units updated their department procedures after realizing some of the situations presented were similar to risks in their own areas.
  • Employees began talking in the cafeteria, hallways, gym and meeting rooms about information security and privacy issues during passing conversations.
  • The information security intranet website started getting an influx of hits – levels never seen before.
  • The information security area began receiving additional calls and emails about potential security issues.
  • Many of the areas left the poster hanging in their area for months – even years – following the exercise, facilitating ongoing awareness.

Which Package Should You Select?

Order the package that will best fit with the size of your organization, and how many functional areas you have. The optimum number of members per team is 10, but it will work to have anywhere from five to 20 people on a team.

Examples:

  • If you have an organization of 2,000 personnel in one location, order Package F.
  • If you have 40 employees in four locations, order Package B.
  • If you have 800 employees in two locations, order Package E or F, based upon how many teams you wish to create.
  • For more help, contact The Privacy Professor® at rebeccaherold@rebeccaherold.com.

The Bottom Line

Engaging activities make a positive impact on security and privacy practices. This is precisely why Rebecca created the Privacy Professor's Security Search #1: At the Office. It can make a significant difference in your organization as well.

(In fact, the At the Office version has proven to be so effective that Rebecca is now in development of exercises for additional settings.)

Measurably raise awareness! Challenge your personnel to think about the issues, and discuss them with their coworkers for ongoing and enhanced learning! Order The Privacy Professor's Security Search #1: At the Office today and get started.

Sounds good! Contact me to place an order