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Part 7 - Firewalls

For most "average" computer users, hearing word "firewall" usually evokes one of two responses. The first is along lines of "Oh, that's complex big-business stuff – it's not something I need or could afford". The other group, probably due to exposure to advertising, online forum discussions, etc. automatically associates "firewall" with a software brand such as well known ZoneAlarm. The latter group have edge. At least they know that a firewall is (or more correctly, can be) a consumer item they could purchase and install if they were so inclined.

Now, nature and purpose of this article dictates that I don't tell all of story all of time. For example, I am now telling you there are two types of firewall to consider. In actual fact number of "types" depends entirely on how you choose to categorize them. For our purposes a simplistic breakdown is both adequate and legitimate.

The two types we'll discuss are software and hardware firewalls. The latter usually takes form of a small "black box" that plugs into your Internet connectivity device (e.g. cable, ADSL or dial-up modem) and also into your PC or into some network component such as a Hub or Switch. By way, "black boxes" are almost never black; term simply denotes a device whose exact inner workings are irrelevant to discussion. It is only what goes in and what comes out that matters.

Frequently called a Personal Firewall because it only protects one PC, a software firewall is, as name suggests, simply a computer program. What software and hardware Firewalls have in common is that they both receive, inspect and make decisions about all incoming data before passing it on to other parts of system.

A most important difference between software and hardware firewalls is that hardware Firewall doesn’t control outbound communications to any significant degree. This becomes a real problem once some scumware program that has capability to communicate back out to Internet gets into your hard drive.

On other hand, software Firewall offers strong control over both incoming and outgoing data. You will be justified in wondering why you need to use two different types that both control incoming connections. There are several reasons but, from point of view of a computer user, as good a reason as any is “much improved usability”.

The software Firewall’s control over incoming connections is quite powerful. Using its programmed “intelligence”, it can analyze incoming data streams. However it cannot make final “block or allow” decisions without your help until you have “taught” it how to respond to different situations. It needs to learn as it goes. In short, software type will frequently need to ask you to make decisions on what to do about certain incoming data packets – whether to allow them in or not.

That’s fine, until frequency of alarms becomes distracting to point of being annoying. While you are trying to concentrate on other things in face of these interruptions, there is a very real risk that you will take easy way out and command software Firewall to “always allow” or “always deny” such data packets, without giving careful thought to consequences — which could be significant either way.

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=========================================== Summary: Brent Filson asserts that key to organizational success is not just a function of large movements of capital, people, and infrastructure but in a single, priceless aspect, small-unit leadership. He offers suggestions on how to develop and institute small-unit leadership in your organization. =========================================== A New Age Of Small-Unit Leadership By Brent Filson Recent mergers in many industries remind me of a point that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower often made, "Generals move pins on a map," he would say, "but front-line troops have to get job done."

And key to job is leadership, small-unit leadership, leadership of most basic units or teams of an organization.

Without good leadership in front-line units ­ squad leaders and platoon commanders or their business counterparts, supervisors and first-level managers ­ organizations stumble, no matter how skillfully pins are moved on map.

Yet in bringing leadership programs to many businesses in a variety of industries during past 20 plus years, I've seen many companies neglecting small-unit leadership.

Time and again, I have seen technologists promoted right off lab bench to become team leaders; I've seen assembly workers promoted off line to be supervisors; and salespeople made local managers and yet they were not helped in substantive ways with their leadership skills.

Instead, their employers were focusing on pins and maps, re-engineering, acquisitions and divestitures.

Sure, stocks of those businesses got quick boosts, but I wonder how well-positioned businesses are to achieve consistent earnings growth over long haul without skilled, small-unit leadership.

Consistent earnings' growth is linked to consistent top-line growth. Such growth rests on a tripod. One leg is strategy, pins on map; other leg is resources; and third leg is execution. Small-unit leadership is execution leg.

So I submit that in coming years, businesses will come to realize importance of small-unit leadership to top-line growth and earnings' growth.

In fact, coming years will reveal an exciting new age in small-unit leadership. Businesses that champion such leadership will be tremendously competitive.

Here are a few ideas on how to make it happen.

First, CEO and senior executives must recognize vital importance of small-unit leadership. I'm not talking about their simply paying lip service but having instead a passionate conviction that small-unit leadership is indispensable to growth.

Senior executives must encourage small-unit leaders. Celebrate their achievements. Help them overcome their failures. Measure their leadership performance. Develop compensation that stimulates them to advance as leaders.