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It's one of those interesting times where we got two talks actually, two talks in one hour.

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But this next talk, we were like, I remember viewing the CFP's like, this is a talk that we really want to bring in.

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It's something that is actually not discussed often enough.

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And Megan Rohde is here. Is it Rohde?

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Rohde. So Megan is going to be talking about neurodiversity in SECOF teams.

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And this is, you know, one of the things, the nice thing about the Packet Hacking Village is we can have many different conversations.

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It doesn't have to align with any of the tracks, any certain tracks, but it's something that's, you know,

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these are the issues that we need deeper conversations with.

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And it is now my pleasure to introduce you all. Megan Rohde.

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Thank you.

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So as Ming said, I'm going to be talking about how to strengthen your SECOF team by welcoming neurodiversity into the mix.

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Specifically, I'm going to talk about my experience over the past year working in SECOFs with Asperger's syndrome

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and how I benefit my team through the special brain chemistry I have with high-functioning autism.

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And also how my managers work with me and certain difficulties I face in my day-to-day.

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So today I'm going to talk about a group of people who are highly productive, have extreme attention to detail,

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are logical, calculated, passionate about the work they do, and are hyper-focused,

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which are all skills that come greatly as a great asset to SECOFs teams.

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This group of people are high-functioning autistics.

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So right now there's a lack of neurodiversity and high-functioning autistics in the general workforce,

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not even specifically SECOFs or IT.

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Research has found that only 15% of people with autism in the UK are employed full-time.

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There's no stats for the USA yet. I'm guessing it's similar, but in reality, a lot of these people,

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they're not even working.

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They just haven't been given the chance.

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And they should, because they can add valuable skills to your teams.

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So then we ask why.

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Why are these individuals not working when they could be really succeeding in certain fields.

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And so to begin with, due to social disabilities, these individuals often do not interview well

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due to lack of social skills, communication skills, and so that's a quick cutoff for them

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when they're in the field. So that's a quick cutoff for them when they're in the field.

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So that's a quick cutoff for them when they're interviewing.

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There's also a stigma surrounding autism, and typically interviewers or anyone who,

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when you think about autism, you're thinking about the disabilities and difficulties of those individuals,

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and it's rarely talked about the abilities that come with having a different mindset

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and being able to work with that.

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And my last point that I think is why we're often overlooked,

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is because we behave uniquely.

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So some of the things that I do that would often turn people away from considering me for a job

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or being a friend even, I typically talk very loudly.

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I am often told to use my indoor voice like a five-year-old.

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So that's one thing I realize.

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I understand I do it in general, but I don't often realize I'm doing it until somebody tells me to be quiet,

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and often they just think I'm annoying.

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It's really something.

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It's something to do with my brain chemistry that I don't understand.

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Secondly, I tend to be very blunt with people, and so I often say things that easily offend or annoy people

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because I don't think about what I'm saying or I do think about it, and just my brain's saying,

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oh, yeah, that's totally cool to say.

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I mean, it's the truth, and obviously a lot of times people don't want to hear the truth,

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so I do tend to offend or annoy people on accident.

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Lastly, there tends to be things that we struggle with that a normal 20-year-old adult should be able to do, but I can't.

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So, I mean, I had a mathematics degree before I even had a driver's license, and I still struggle to drive.

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So I limit my driving, and then other things, car problems, AC problems, I don't handle them well.

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So I find it hard to be an adult despite having almost two degrees now.

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But having said all this, there is evidence of certain companies and organizations

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that are working hard to bring these individuals into their workforce.

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For example, many tech companies are discovering that autistic individuals,

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their mindset provides valuable resources to their team.

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SAP, for example, has an autism of work program and is working to get their workforce up to

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1% autistic by 2020 because they found that these individuals do great with quality assurance reviews,

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and their attention to detail allows them to review software and work on application development.

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And this is the same across the board for Microsoft, New Relic, HP.

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They all have programs specifically focused on hiring autistic individuals to work in their companies.

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Secondly, we have the Israeli army.

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Everyone knows the Israeli army is a pretty strong military force, a very admired military force.

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And they have dedicated a whole division called the Visual Intelligence Division

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to work with high-functioning autistic individuals who were previously turned away from military duty.

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They found that a lot of these individuals were high-functioning enough to want to work

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because every Israeli adult, when they turn 18, serves in military forces.

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And they found that these high-functioning,

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autistic individuals who could do the work were getting disappointed that they were turned away.

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So they created the Visual Intelligence Division,

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where these individuals sit in screens all day looking for slight differences in satellite images

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that may indicate enemy movement, explosives, or anything like that.

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So they found they were good at hyper-focus, high attention to detail,

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seeing those differences over long periods of time.

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And even further, what really shows how this is working,

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is a lot of these individuals are now being moved into the general population of the military

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because the commanders and leaders are now learning how to work with these individuals

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and realizing there's not really much difference if we move them into the general population.

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And lastly, me working for the past year at the Texas Department of Public Safety,

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which has led me here, I believe is proof that this really can work.

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So I was great in academia.

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I did four years, got my math degree at 18.

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I am currently working on my master's degree.

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Should get it by the time I'm 21.

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And I actually had never even touched cybersecurity until one year ago.

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Decided to jump in on an internship.

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I didn't really know what it was about, but I didn't have anything better to do with my summer.

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And now, a year from now, I'm speaking at DEF CON about my work in cybersecurity.

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So I think that's pretty good evidence that it worked out okay for me.

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So I listed a few things that make me difficult to work with.

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So now I'm going to tell you how you can work with these individuals despite their disabilities.

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So the first thing is awareness.

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Both the coworkers and the managers need to understand that these individuals,

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though they may have challenges associated with their conditions,

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that they bring benefits.

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And that's why they should be hired.

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So you will need to adapt to the employee because their brain does work differently.

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But that shouldn't scare you.

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It's not a bad thing.

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And as I'll show you in a few minutes, there's not much difference, but there's some.

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And so like any other disability or ethnic difference or gender difference,

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don't let it be a weight on your disability.

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It's a decision to hire an employee.

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So like I said, neurodiverse individuals, especially those with autism,

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have a very different brain chemistry.

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And so you can't manage them the way that you'd manage all your other employees

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because everything you say to them and every way you interact with them

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is going to be taken a lot differently than would with a neurotypical employee.

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So I'm going to start off with some examples.

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First example is maybe an employee, a high-functioning or a regular employee.

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They've got this great idea for a project they want to work on, a plan they want to implement.

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They bring it to you and you don't have the bandwidth for new projects at the time.

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So with a neurotypical employee, you'd say, sorry, we don't have the time.

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Let's bring it back up when we're less busy.

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However, with an HFA employee, you want to be more specific.

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And say, bring it up to me again in two weeks or two months or two years.

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It doesn't really matter what amount of time,

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but the term less busy is very difficult for a high-functioning autistic to interpret

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because it's very vague and it's very subjective, the term less busy.

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While some people can easily handle subjective concepts, we can't.

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So something like two weeks makes it very set in.

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And so this comes from experiences.

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I've heard the term, when we're less busy.

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And I start worrying about, well, if I bring it up in two weeks, is that too soon?

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And now they're mad because I'm bugging with them, something that I brought up two weeks ago.

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Stuff like that.

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And so having it, and also when I then get frustrated and act out and be like,

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well, why aren't my projects being considered, blah, blah, blah.

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And so then I'm seen as selfish and impatient, whereas really I just need something more solid

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and you tell me bring it up in two weeks, I mark it on my calendar and done.

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It's gone for two weeks.

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So being less vague, more direct.

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So like I said, couple changes of words instead of saying less busy, say two weeks.

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And you've made a huge improvement in that employee's work experience.

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Second scenario is every analyst usually has a series of projects,

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a series of tasks, and their day-to-day capabilities, day-to-day tasks.

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And so you assign these two weeks.

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So you assign these two weeks to an employee.

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And with a neurotypical employee, all you need to do is hand them the stuff

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and say this is what you're currently working on.

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The difficulty with neuro HFA employees is you need to also help them identify priorities.

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And I'm not telling them everything you hand them, give them a one, two, three, four.

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What this means is that you teach them to learn how to prioritize their work.

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Because though we can work with a long list of jobs,

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I'm not going to understand what works for them.

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What is on high priority for the organization?

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Again, it's more of a subjective or conditional type thing.

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It's not me knowing right away.

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So that's a kind of thing to help them learn how to identify importance based on the work they're given.

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So the common theme among these things is these individuals need structure, routine when they can, clarity.

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Don't use vague terms.

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And then the biggest thing of all of those is patience and understanding.

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I probably piss off my managers more than they'd like.

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I say a lot of things I shouldn't.

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I do a lot of things I shouldn't.

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And luckily there they've learned that that is due to my slightly messed up brain.

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And they've been very patient and understanding with that.

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But they keep me around for some reason.

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And I figured out it's because

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even though I am by far not the smartest person in our office,

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I have the least experience, probably the least technical knowledge of cyber security

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by bringing productivity and efficiency.

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Even though I'm not the smartest, I can typically crank out work at four times the speed of any other individual.

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I'm also very thorough with my work.

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I have extreme attention to detail.

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So I get to do some of the stuff that isn't as fun.

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But I do very well at things like requisition orders when we need stuff,

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writing policies and procedures,

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writing different documentation for our office,

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because I can be very thorough with it.

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And then also a dedicated and passionate employee,

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which is very important across any careers.

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You want to have a passionate employee, not someone who's just there because it's a job.

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So just to go a bit deeper, like I said, be as specific as possible.

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But as time progresses, also teach the employees how to enable themselves.

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I also don't want people to just tell me what to do every time.

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I want to learn how I can interpret what you're saying myself

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instead of constantly having to have someone hold my hand.

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I don't love having someone hold my hand.

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I sometimes need it.

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But I also want to learn how to enable myself.

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And also individuals with HFA,

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typically when they show interest in something,

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they become slightly obsessed.

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I had this issue many times in my childhood

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where I enjoyed something and then became obsessed

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and then spent every afternoon out of school focusing on that thing.

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However, when you're employing an adult with this characteristic,

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it's the perfect opportunity.

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I suggest what you do is with these individuals,

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you identify a topic.

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If you see them getting really interested

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in network forensics,

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encourage them and help them find resources to learn more

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because they will dig in in their evenings after work

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and read all they can and become an expert on that topic

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and be completely happy doing it.

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You're not forcing them to do it. They love it.

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So that's one of the things I do suggest

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is you pay attention to what they're interested in

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and help them gain the skills in that area

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because they'll want to.

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And lastly, I think this is one of the most important,

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at least to me, is you need to be a mentor.

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So one of the things I found most helpful

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is every few months getting together with my manager

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30 minutes at lunchtime

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and just discussing where I need to improve.

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And so it takes a little time out of your day,

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but I would say it's worth it for the manager.

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Like I said, that's probably one of the most helpful things

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I've had throughout the past year

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is every few months just sitting down 30 minutes

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because a lot of the time the things I do

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that are quirky,

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or strange,

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or inappropriate,

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I don't realize I'm doing it.

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And so to have someone sit down one-on-one

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and just be honest and say,

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okay, you need to stop doing this,

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you need to improve in this area,

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it's definitely very helpful for me.

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And so I improve in those areas.

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Usually I've seen that when I come back again

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and spend another 30 minutes,

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I've ticked off the things on the list from last time.

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So I want to thank you all for attending my talk.

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I know it wasn't the technical talk

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that are being given in most rooms,

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but I hope it was some insight

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into an often not spoken about area.

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And I'd like you all to definitely consider

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integrating the HFA community into your workplace more.