Bliss Index: A Reasonable Response?
05/04/23 18:03
This morning I was honored and excited to be included on a Technology First cybersecurity panel. I was especially stoked to be on the panel with my old friend Brian Clayton and fellow researcher Jeff Hughes. The panel's ambitious objective was to share practical advice on dealing with job burnout and ways to drive positive change that is "Human Friendly". We discussed practical ways to make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing with regard to all things cyber. The session was aptly named "Cybersecurity – Team Burnout and Breaking the Cycle".
The session was very interactive with attendees sharing challenges, real-world experiences and the obligatory references to AI and Killer Robots. The group kept coming back to the human factors side of burnout, churn and operator effectiveness. Security metrics, SLA's, OLA's, role objectives and business outcomes are important to measure, but often tough to define, align and maintain. While it's beyond the scope of this post to catalog all the valuable insights shared, the one that hit home with me was the challenge of measuring "good".
After I left the session, I kept thinking about measuring “good”. “Good” is too subjective, personal and doesn't scale. #FAIL On the flip side, tough problems are often worth solving. How good could it get if we could crack that nut? Perhaps the approach I am taking myself could be applicable. I have a very simple life journey navigation system, which I’ve recently adopted. Simply put, I try to maximize my "Bliss Index"(BI) by working on projects that give me joy, with people that value my time and for the benefit of humanity. It's early days but I find it is decisive, intuitive and removes much of the stress associated with being a cyber security professional. How good could it get if everyone had visibility to their own BI factors? Or visibility to their stakeholder’s BI factors? Or if organizations aligned themselves to harmonize and amplify their BI versus creating BI conflict?
So, I did the obvious thing and asked an AI (chatGPT) how to express BI - "The "Bliss Index" could be expressed as a measure of the level of happiness or contentment that an individual experiences in their life. It could be calculated based on various factors such as overall life satisfaction, emotional well-being, fulfillment of personal goals and aspirations, and positive experiences or moments of joy. The Bliss Index could be used as a tool to gauge the level of happiness in a population or to track an individual's happiness over time. Additionally, it could be used as a benchmark for policymakers to measure the effectiveness of programs or policies aimed at improving people's well-being and happiness."
...out of the mouths of babes.
The session was very interactive with attendees sharing challenges, real-world experiences and the obligatory references to AI and Killer Robots. The group kept coming back to the human factors side of burnout, churn and operator effectiveness. Security metrics, SLA's, OLA's, role objectives and business outcomes are important to measure, but often tough to define, align and maintain. While it's beyond the scope of this post to catalog all the valuable insights shared, the one that hit home with me was the challenge of measuring "good".
After I left the session, I kept thinking about measuring “good”. “Good” is too subjective, personal and doesn't scale. #FAIL On the flip side, tough problems are often worth solving. How good could it get if we could crack that nut? Perhaps the approach I am taking myself could be applicable. I have a very simple life journey navigation system, which I’ve recently adopted. Simply put, I try to maximize my "Bliss Index"(BI) by working on projects that give me joy, with people that value my time and for the benefit of humanity. It's early days but I find it is decisive, intuitive and removes much of the stress associated with being a cyber security professional. How good could it get if everyone had visibility to their own BI factors? Or visibility to their stakeholder’s BI factors? Or if organizations aligned themselves to harmonize and amplify their BI versus creating BI conflict?
So, I did the obvious thing and asked an AI (chatGPT) how to express BI - "The "Bliss Index" could be expressed as a measure of the level of happiness or contentment that an individual experiences in their life. It could be calculated based on various factors such as overall life satisfaction, emotional well-being, fulfillment of personal goals and aspirations, and positive experiences or moments of joy. The Bliss Index could be used as a tool to gauge the level of happiness in a population or to track an individual's happiness over time. Additionally, it could be used as a benchmark for policymakers to measure the effectiveness of programs or policies aimed at improving people's well-being and happiness."
...out of the mouths of babes.