Dave Mattingly 3:48 pm on October 1, 2015

Career Planning

This morning, I spoke for the ladies at Dress For Success about finding and getting the right career.

Desiree Thayer, who sits with me on the board of TALK (the Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky), invited me. Besides being a techie and business leader, Desiree is also the singer for Front Porch Prophets and founder of the recording label Earthtone Analog Recording Company.

My own career has been an odd one, including space shuttling, virtualizing, radioing, graphic designing, writing, publishing, preaching, teaching, programming, databasing, conferencing, scrumming, gaming, hacking, and more. My degree in engineering math and computer science was counterbalanced by minors in psychology and philosophy; I like using both halves of my brain.

Here’s the career advice cheat sheet that I gave to my students, and a sample of my own resume.

In short:
• know yourself
• know your community
• know your company
• know how to approach

Dave Mattingly 2:44 pm on October 1, 2015

DerbyCon

Last weekend was DerbyCon, Louisville’s hacker conference. (There’s also the Louisville Metro InfoSec Conference, that takes place the day after, but it’s more aimed a little more at the business community / general public, instead of being a “by hackers, for hackers” thing like DerbyCon.)

As always, there were amazingly cool sessions and events. There were tracks for red team/black hat, blue team/white hat, tracks for hardware/physical, software/online, and social engineering/people hacking. There was an all-weekend Capture the Flag contest, a silent auction to raise money for charity, dances, parties, and more. Sponsors lined the hallways, and the traditional “lockpick village” was set up, so hackers could try their skill at getting past dozens of kinds of security devices.

It’s always great to see friends and colleagues, and to fanboy gush with all the speakers that I stalk. I mean, admire.

Sadly, I had a nasty cough for most of it, and wasn’t able to attend the full time each day, but I was there for as long as my body could handle.

On the software side of things, I learned about OSINT, RITA, and doxxing.
On the social side, I learned about pwning people, managing people, and reading people.
On the machinery side, I learned about our power grid, industrial machinery, and medical devices.

Personally, the most valuable session was about helping law enforcement catch criminals through online research, by @DennisKuntz. At my last job, I used databases to detect and prevent fraud. Right after 9/11, I worked for Homeland Security’s bioterrorism division. It’s cool to use tech to stop the bad guys.

As a nice surprise, I attended the Believer’s Breakfast and met many fellow Christians who are hackers of various sorts, and learned about #CrossCon, the Sunday morning Bible study at DerbyCon.

DerbyCon

Dave Mattingly 7:47 am on September 24, 2015

Mini Maker Faire

This weekend was Louisville’s Mini Maker Faire. I volunteered at the event by helping exhibitors set up that morning, and helping here and there throughout the day.

I also helped man the tent for TALK, the Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky. We were in a giant tent, and shared the space with ARTxFM and Soular Gig, and with Vogt Award Winners Inscope Medical, Sunstrand, TriBlue Engineering, and Stinger Equipment.

Our tables at TALK were focused on the Rad Science Skateboard Build, one of the events from last month’s TechFest. In the event, local high school kids who signed up started with a piece of wood, and by the end of the two day workshop had created their own skateboard that they got to keep. The equipment, supplies, and training for the even came from Jim Martin of Marwood Veneer, and was a fantastic success. We’re working with other local organizations to host a series of Skateboard Build events, probably once a quarter.