Laughter is the best medicine, and Ian Murphy has discovered that it’s also the best teacher. Murphy, a cybersecurity pro, is approaching this entire topic from a brand new angle - with humor.

Clocking in with over 3 decades of cybersecurity experience in both the public and private sector, Ian has been running his own business for the past 17 years. His latest project: creating and sharing educational yet entertaining videos about cybersecurity.

Why infuse humor into such a serious topic? Ian says it’s because boring presentations just don’t work. He wants you to think back to your school years and recall your favorite teacher. It was the funny one, wasn’t it? Those lessons that kept you engaged through laughing were how you retained the most information. It’s no different for adults!

Of course the scary teachers were memorable too, but not because you remembered anything other than fear. And that’s what Ian sees happen all too often with traditional cybersecurity training. Participants walk away from an employer mandated workshop feeling scared and worried, but without remembering specifics. To make things even worse, these presentations often utilize technical jargon that's very difficult for non-technical audiences to understand.

Ian’s approach is totally new and refreshing in the cyber industry as he attaches happier emotions to critical security information and delivers it in everyday language. The result: people actually remember it! And truthfully, would you rather attend a regular cybersecurity webinar or listen to Ian do his comedy routine? That’s a no brainer!

Webinar participants later tell Ian they’ve made their password more secure because of him, or taken other cybersecurity steps because his humor took the spookiness out of the topic. This feedback is what keeps him going!

Takeaways from this episode:

• Although cybersecurity is a serious risk, Ian Murphy discovered that training people on best practices actually works better when you include humor.

• He thought about what helps him retain information and realized that happy emotions are more effective than fearful ones.

• His webinars use everyday language and lots of comedy to engage his audiences and make sure they leave with useful information.

• It works! People tell him they came in without any intent to change their personal cybersecurity and after listening to him changed their mind.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Ian Murphy on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianmurphy/

To learn more about Ian’s projects please visit:

https://www.cyberoff.co.uk/

If you'd like to learn more about cybersecurity and online identity protection, you can connect with me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-mantilia/

To protect your company against cyber crime, you can now book me for cybersecurity training:

https://bit.ly/3CtZKzD

To keep your family protected online, learn more about our Identron Identity Theft Protection software:

http://bit.ly/Identron