As part of my role at AlienVault I get to speak to journalists. A friend recently asked me how it was to respond to journalist queries.
In many ways it’s similar to communicating with C-level executives. For this, I try to follow the acronym of UMAD.
Usable: Is the information you provide usable by the party?
Memorable: Have you simply dumped knowledge, or made it a memorable piece of information. Sometimes, particularly for internal communications, it can be replaced by ‘measurable’ as metrics are what some organisation remember the most.
Actionable: Is there any action that can be taken based on the information you’ve provided, that otherwise would not have been taken.
Defensible: We don’t always get it right. But have you provided information that’s is at least defensible in terms of how you arrived at that conclusion.