Memorial Service for the WSJ's John Wilke

I recently posted on John Wilke's tragic passing.

A gathering will will be held this Saturday, May 30, to celebrate his life and career. The service will be a music-filled fundraiser with all proceeds contributed to the education of John and Nancy’s two children, Robin and Jackson. It will take place at the American Legion Hall Post #8, 224 D Street S.E., in Washington, D.C.

The event will begin at 7 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m. There will be a cash bar and a requested minimum donation of $50 per person. Limited edition Wilke T-shirts can be purchased for $50.

Additional information on the event and the college fund can be found here.

My thanks to the Gorkana Alert for the notification.

Two CHEN PR Clients Snag Wall Street Journal Innovation Awards

Kudos to two CHEN PR clients – Phase Forward and Palo Alto Networks – for earning 2008 Technology Innovation Awards from the Wall Street Journal. It's quite an accomplishment, given that the Journal received more than 700 entries, and recognized just 32 organizations across 16 categories.

A CHEN client since 2006, Phase Forward brings technology to the pharmaceutical industry, helping its customers automate global clinical trials (a $50B per year market) and shed inefficient paper-based methods – yes, paper – and as a result deliver better, safer drugs to market. The Wall Street Journal award honors its industry-changing work with GlaxoSmithKline in the Health-Care IT category. Several public companies serve this market, but only Phase Forward has posted 16 consecutive quarters of revenue growth since its 2004 IPO and counts 18 of the top 20 pharmaceutical firms as customers. This award is just the most recent in a long string of accolades including the Boston Business Journal naming safety group President Chan Russell a 2008 Champion in Healthcare.

Next-gen firewall provider and CHEN client since 2007, Palo Alto took the runner-up spot in the hotly contested Network Security category (a shout out to our Waltham, MA-based neighbor Veracode for taking the trophy for its on-demand application testing solution.)

With a rock star team that includes father of the firewall, Founder and CTO Nir Zuk, President and CEO Lane Bess and VP of Marketing Steve Mullaney, Palo Alto is redefining its category – populated by behemoths like Cisco, Juniper and Check Point – by bringing much-needed application visibility and control to one of the biggest-dollar sectors in network security. The nod from the WSJ adds to Palo Alto’s recognition, which includes earning the Grand Prize Winner at Interop in May.

All that and they're pretty funny, too -- check them out on YouTube, but only if your firewall allows.

Congrats!

Say it Ain’t Ho, Ho, Ho

Hi, I’m Kevin Kosh. To quote the immortal Troy McClure, “you may remember me from such security blog entries as “How Does Safe Happen and When you say (data leakage) it makes me feel (choose one: scared, angry…confused.)”

Well today I have the unfortunate task of reporting how even the greatest can become a victim of data breaches – and today it’s Santa.

As covered in the WSJ Business Technology blog and Network World’s Buzzblog, the story first broke on the AP.

They reported that Santa “…has announced that he has canceled this year’s delivery of Christmas presents after a computer crash resulted in the loss of all wish lists from children around the world. The bearded, obese philanthropist also lost all records pertaining to child behavior over the past year, making it impossible to determine who has been naughty and who has been nice. Santa had used a tape-based backup system for his critical data; however, after the crash, the tapes fell off a truck and apparently tumbled into the Arctic Ocean…”

Before we all spiral into depression, this is of course a joke, and thanks to Ben Worthen and Paul McNamara for participating in the fun. It all started with a mock news piece generated by CHEN PR client and data protection experts Arsenal Digital Solutions, who of course could’ve prevented such an occurrence if Santa had employed a business continuity strategy that included online backup.

And if he’s reading this, he should consider signing up, since Arsenal already holds a dominant position in the holiday icon sector. Due to contractual restrictions I can’t publish the customer names, but I can say they include “A Large Egg bearing Rabbit,” “a diminutive, winged and sparsely dressed archer,” and “A bird most commonly found in leftovers…”

Safe Holidays to all, and to all a good laugh.