I always fret about writing these articles and finding something interesting to talk about. However, it seems like here lately, there’s no shortage of things happening that are article-worthy. They usually don’t have a title, but if this one did, I’d call it “all the eggs in one basket."

But before we get to that, I want to give a brief summary of the strategic planning session from June. Several great ideas come from these annual meetings. As we look to grow our membership, one of the things we discussed at length was exactly who is eligible to be a member of TAGITM. We are primarily made up of cities and counties, but school districts and colleges are also welcome. For those of you that have a relationship with the IT folks at your local school district or community college, reach out to them and mention TAGITM as a resource. Yes, there are differences between how a school district runs compared to a city or county, but there are also many commonalities from a technology perspective. I’m positive they would see value in our listserv and attending the annual conference. 

Also, for the coming year, we are going to be looking more closely at our membership and the data analytics and statistics that come along with that. There will be a small subcommittee formed from TAGITM members that can help us organize the data we have and how to use it to make better decisions for the association. For anyone that just perked up at the idea of statistical data analysis and would love to be on this subcommittee, email me at sjoyce@eulesstx.gov and we can get into the details.

Now back to all the eggs in one basket. I’m sure you saw the articles on the internet this week about Cylance PROTECT and how an extremely basic bypass was discovered by a security researcher. I have been a user and proponent of Cylance for several years. It is (still) one of the best antimalware products that I’ve seen. However, as a result of my trust in Cylance, I think I got too comfortable. It never occurred to me to have a backup plan if something like this happened. Since then, they have developed a fix and will be rolling it out in the coming days. We’ve all been affected by a corrupt DAT file or some other antivirus failure over the years. If the fix never comes, or if it takes too long, what do you do in the interim? Just food for thought. 

Have a wonderful August!

Scott Joyce, TAGITM President