It's one of those interesting times where we got two talks actually, two talks in one hour.
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.
It's something that is actually not discussed often enough.
And Megan Rohde is here. Is it Rohde?
Rohde. So Megan is going to be talking about neurodiversity in SECOF teams.
And this is, you know, one of the things, the nice thing about the Packet Hacking Village is we can have many different conversations.
It doesn't have to align with any of the tracks, any certain tracks, but it's something that's, you know,
these are the issues that we need deeper conversations with.
And it is now my pleasure to introduce you all. Megan Rohde.
Thank you.
So as Ming said, I'm going to be talking about how to strengthen your SECOF team by welcoming neurodiversity into the mix.
Specifically, I'm going to talk about my experience over the past year working in SECOFs with Asperger's syndrome
and how I benefit my team through the special brain chemistry I have with high-functioning autism.
And also how my managers work with me and certain difficulties I face in my day-to-day.
So today I'm going to talk about a group of people who are highly productive, have extreme attention to detail,
are logical, calculated, passionate about the work they do, and are hyper-focused,
which are all skills that come greatly as a great asset to SECOFs teams.
This group of people are high-functioning autistics.
So right now there's a lack of neurodiversity and high-functioning autistics in the general workforce,
not even specifically SECOFs or IT.
Research has found that only 15% of people with autism in the UK are employed full-time.
There's no stats for the USA yet. I'm guessing it's similar, but in reality, a lot of these people,
they're not even working.
They just haven't been given the chance.
And they should, because they can add valuable skills to your teams.
So then we ask why.
Why are these individuals not working when they could be really succeeding in certain fields.
And so to begin with, due to social disabilities, these individuals often do not interview well
due to lack of social skills, communication skills, and so that's a quick cutoff for them
when they're in the field. So that's a quick cutoff for them when they're in the field.
So that's a quick cutoff for them when they're interviewing.
There's also a stigma surrounding autism, and typically interviewers or anyone who,
when you think about autism, you're thinking about the disabilities and difficulties of those individuals,
and it's rarely talked about the abilities that come with having a different mindset
and being able to work with that.
And my last point that I think is why we're often overlooked,
is because we behave uniquely.
So some of the things that I do that would often turn people away from considering me for a job
or being a friend even, I typically talk very loudly.
I am often told to use my indoor voice like a five-year-old.
So that's one thing I realize.
I understand I do it in general, but I don't often realize I'm doing it until somebody tells me to be quiet,
and often they just think I'm annoying.
It's really something.
It's something to do with my brain chemistry that I don't understand.
Secondly, I tend to be very blunt with people, and so I often say things that easily offend or annoy people
because I don't think about what I'm saying or I do think about it, and just my brain's saying,
oh, yeah, that's totally cool to say.
I mean, it's the truth, and obviously a lot of times people don't want to hear the truth,
so I do tend to offend or annoy people on accident.
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.
So, I mean, I had a mathematics degree before I even had a driver's license, and I still struggle to drive.
So I limit my driving, and then other things, car problems, AC problems, I don't handle them well.
So I find it hard to be an adult despite having almost two degrees now.
But having said all this, there is evidence of certain companies and organizations
that are working hard to bring these individuals into their workforce.
For example, many tech companies are discovering that autistic individuals,
their mindset provides valuable resources to their team.
SAP, for example, has an autism of work program and is working to get their workforce up to
1% autistic by 2020 because they found that these individuals do great with quality assurance reviews,
and their attention to detail allows them to review software and work on application development.
And this is the same across the board for Microsoft, New Relic, HP.
They all have programs specifically focused on hiring autistic individuals to work in their companies.
Secondly, we have the Israeli army.
Everyone knows the Israeli army is a pretty strong military force, a very admired military force.
And they have dedicated a whole division called the Visual Intelligence Division
to work with high-functioning autistic individuals who were previously turned away from military duty.
They found that a lot of these individuals were high-functioning enough to want to work
because every Israeli adult, when they turn 18, serves in military forces.
And they found that these high-functioning,
autistic individuals who could do the work were getting disappointed that they were turned away.
So they created the Visual Intelligence Division,
where these individuals sit in screens all day looking for slight differences in satellite images
that may indicate enemy movement, explosives, or anything like that.
So they found they were good at hyper-focus, high attention to detail,
seeing those differences over long periods of time.
And even further, what really shows how this is working,
is a lot of these individuals are now being moved into the general population of the military
because the commanders and leaders are now learning how to work with these individuals
and realizing there's not really much difference if we move them into the general population.
And lastly, me working for the past year at the Texas Department of Public Safety,
which has led me here, I believe is proof that this really can work.
So I was great in academia.
I did four years, got my math degree at 18.
I am currently working on my master's degree.
Should get it by the time I'm 21.
And I actually had never even touched cybersecurity until one year ago.
Decided to jump in on an internship.
I didn't really know what it was about, but I didn't have anything better to do with my summer.
And now, a year from now, I'm speaking at DEF CON about my work in cybersecurity.
So I think that's pretty good evidence that it worked out okay for me.
So I listed a few things that make me difficult to work with.
So now I'm going to tell you how you can work with these individuals despite their disabilities.
So the first thing is awareness.
Both the coworkers and the managers need to understand that these individuals,
though they may have challenges associated with their conditions,
that they bring benefits.
And that's why they should be hired.
So you will need to adapt to the employee because their brain does work differently.
But that shouldn't scare you.
It's not a bad thing.
And as I'll show you in a few minutes, there's not much difference, but there's some.
And so like any other disability or ethnic difference or gender difference,
don't let it be a weight on your disability.
It's a decision to hire an employee.
So like I said, neurodiverse individuals, especially those with autism,
have a very different brain chemistry.
And so you can't manage them the way that you'd manage all your other employees
because everything you say to them and every way you interact with them
is going to be taken a lot differently than would with a neurotypical employee.
So I'm going to start off with some examples.
First example is maybe an employee, a high-functioning or a regular employee.
They've got this great idea for a project they want to work on, a plan they want to implement.
They bring it to you and you don't have the bandwidth for new projects at the time.
So with a neurotypical employee, you'd say, sorry, we don't have the time.
Let's bring it back up when we're less busy.
However, with an HFA employee, you want to be more specific.
And say, bring it up to me again in two weeks or two months or two years.
It doesn't really matter what amount of time,
but the term less busy is very difficult for a high-functioning autistic to interpret
because it's very vague and it's very subjective, the term less busy.
While some people can easily handle subjective concepts, we can't.
So something like two weeks makes it very set in.
And so this comes from experiences.
I've heard the term, when we're less busy.
And I start worrying about, well, if I bring it up in two weeks, is that too soon?
And now they're mad because I'm bugging with them, something that I brought up two weeks ago.
Stuff like that.
And so having it, and also when I then get frustrated and act out and be like,
well, why aren't my projects being considered, blah, blah, blah.
And so then I'm seen as selfish and impatient, whereas really I just need something more solid
and you tell me bring it up in two weeks, I mark it on my calendar and done.
It's gone for two weeks.
So being less vague, more direct.
So like I said, couple changes of words instead of saying less busy, say two weeks.
And you've made a huge improvement in that employee's work experience.
Second scenario is every analyst usually has a series of projects,
a series of tasks, and their day-to-day capabilities, day-to-day tasks.
And so you assign these two weeks.
So you assign these two weeks to an employee.
And with a neurotypical employee, all you need to do is hand them the stuff
and say this is what you're currently working on.
The difficulty with neuro HFA employees is you need to also help them identify priorities.
And I'm not telling them everything you hand them, give them a one, two, three, four.
What this means is that you teach them to learn how to prioritize their work.
Because though we can work with a long list of jobs,
I'm not going to understand what works for them.
What is on high priority for the organization?
Again, it's more of a subjective or conditional type thing.
It's not me knowing right away.
So that's a kind of thing to help them learn how to identify importance based on the work they're given.
So the common theme among these things is these individuals need structure, routine when they can, clarity.
Don't use vague terms.
And then the biggest thing of all of those is patience and understanding.
I probably piss off my managers more than they'd like.
I say a lot of things I shouldn't.
I do a lot of things I shouldn't.
And luckily there they've learned that that is due to my slightly messed up brain.
And they've been very patient and understanding with that.
But they keep me around for some reason.
And I figured out it's because
even though I am by far not the smartest person in our office,
I have the least experience, probably the least technical knowledge of cyber security
by bringing productivity and efficiency.
Even though I'm not the smartest, I can typically crank out work at four times the speed of any other individual.
I'm also very thorough with my work.
I have extreme attention to detail.
So I get to do some of the stuff that isn't as fun.
But I do very well at things like requisition orders when we need stuff,
writing policies and procedures,
writing different documentation for our office,
because I can be very thorough with it.
And then also a dedicated and passionate employee,
which is very important across any careers.
You want to have a passionate employee, not someone who's just there because it's a job.
So just to go a bit deeper, like I said, be as specific as possible.
But as time progresses, also teach the employees how to enable themselves.
I also don't want people to just tell me what to do every time.
I want to learn how I can interpret what you're saying myself
instead of constantly having to have someone hold my hand.
I don't love having someone hold my hand.
I sometimes need it.
But I also want to learn how to enable myself.
And also individuals with HFA,
typically when they show interest in something,
they become slightly obsessed.
I had this issue many times in my childhood
where I enjoyed something and then became obsessed
and then spent every afternoon out of school focusing on that thing.
However, when you're employing an adult with this characteristic,
it's the perfect opportunity.
I suggest what you do is with these individuals,
you identify a topic.
If you see them getting really interested
in network forensics,
encourage them and help them find resources to learn more
because they will dig in in their evenings after work
and read all they can and become an expert on that topic
and be completely happy doing it.
You're not forcing them to do it. They love it.
So that's one of the things I do suggest
is you pay attention to what they're interested in
and help them gain the skills in that area
because they'll want to.
And lastly, I think this is one of the most important,
at least to me, is you need to be a mentor.
So one of the things I found most helpful
is every few months getting together with my manager
30 minutes at lunchtime
and just discussing where I need to improve.
And so it takes a little time out of your day,
but I would say it's worth it for the manager.
Like I said, that's probably one of the most helpful things
I've had throughout the past year
is every few months just sitting down 30 minutes
because a lot of the time the things I do
that are quirky,
or strange,
or inappropriate,
I don't realize I'm doing it.
And so to have someone sit down one-on-one
and just be honest and say,
okay, you need to stop doing this,
you need to improve in this area,
it's definitely very helpful for me.
And so I improve in those areas.
Usually I've seen that when I come back again
and spend another 30 minutes,
I've ticked off the things on the list from last time.
So I want to thank you all for attending my talk.
I know it wasn't the technical talk
that are being given in most rooms,
but I hope it was some insight
into an often not spoken about area.
And I'd like you all to definitely consider
integrating the HFA community into your workplace more.