Re: OT: vendor contacts after list posting

[Kevin Moulton <kevin.moulton () ORACLE COM>]

Hello,

As a vendor and a member of this list, it seems appropriate to reply.  I joined this list because, as an engineer in 
the security space who works with Higher Education, I sincerely wanted to know what security professionals in Higher Ed 
are talking about, and this list has been a great education for me.  

Just yesterday, I saw a post on an issue where I thought I could help the poster and wondered if it was appropriate for 
me to contact her.  While she provided a number in her signature, calling seemed way too presumptuous, so I simply 
wrote an email offering to have a chat.  I had no specific product in mind, but thought I could help in an educational 
way given my experience in Higher Ed and in other markets that the question related to.  If I don't hear back from this 
individual, then that will be the end of it.  This is the first time I have made any such contact.

I guess I can't speak for all vendors, but I'm in the job I'm in because I care about security, and I'm on this list to 
learn, and admittedly to help ensure that the products and services offered by my company meet the needs of Higher 
Education.  I hope you won't kick us out.   However, if the list implements a "no contact" rule, I certainly will abide 
by it.

Kevin Moulton
Manager, Security Solution Specialists
Oracle Corporation
Phone: 973-216-3124

-----Original Message-----
From: Cal Frye [mailto:cjf () CALFRYE COM] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:20 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] OT: vendor contacts after list posting

Tim M. Crawford wrote:
> David,
> I agree with you. I have had the same issue. Interestingly, it came up 
> in two discussions just yesterday here at the Educause Security 
> conference too. In one case, the discussion was around creating a 
> separate (non-Educause) list to discuss issues without the fear of 
> vendors engaging those in the discussion.
>
> One option would be to require .edu addresses in order to participate 
> on these lists. But I don’t know how viable that solution would be.
>
> Tim
>
> On 4/11/07 8:51 AM, "David Boyer" <David () BVU EDU> wrote:
>
>     For what it's worth, not long after making this posting I was
>     contacted by Bradford Networks about their NAC products.

The trick comes in keeping the mailing list from having web-searchable archives anywhere. I've been surprized by what 
mailing lists I participate in turn up in Google sometimes.

Mostly I consider vendor contacts like mosquitos. You can't really avoid them, and if they get pesky enough you swat 
'em. That said, once in a while that cold call has been useful, but they have to be nice about it, which many really 
are.

(Said by one who just distributed several business cards to vendors at the SecPro conference not an hour ago. But that 
was my choice...)

--
Regards,
-- Cal Frye, Network Administrator, Oberlin College

   www.calfrye.com,  www.pitalabs.com

"On the other hand, the early worm gets eaten."