William Bohler

They treat that gap as the reason for practitioners to act, closing the announcement with the line "It starts with you." The burnout statistic is presented as an industry figure they cite, not as a finding from their own study.

The community announcement opens with "76% of cybersecurity professionals experienced burnout last year," then asks "where is the rigorous research to support real solutions?" before introducing the group and its purpose.

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They argue that little or no published research focuses specifically on cybersecurity practitioners, which is why the posts recruit participants rather than report results.

• The study is deliberately bounded: eligibility is limited to people currently employed in a cybersecurity role, based in the Eastern United States, with ten years or fewer of experience, at least 18 years old, and able to read English.
• The survey is described as confidential and IRB-approved.

The recruitment posts set out the research question and the full qualification checklist side by side, asking readers who meet the criteria to take part. Other posts point readers to an article on the human side of cybersecurity and more information about the dissertation research.

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The posts list the criteria in full, thank people who have already responded, and ask readers to share the links with colleagues who qualify. The reasoning is consistent: evidence-based solutions to burnout and retention require data from the people doing the work, and that data has to come from volunteers.

"Every response helps expand the limited research on mindfulness and motivation in cybersecurity.

• If you've already participated, thank you.
• Please consider sharing the links with a colleague who qualifies."

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It connects practitioners with academic researchers studying burnout, motivation, retention, resilience, leadership, and career development, and admits only IRB-approved research and published findings. They state plainly that the group carries no vendor pitches, product marketing, or job postings, making the anti-promotional rule part of the pitch rather than a footnote.

The announcement lists the three exclusions under the heading of what the community offers, then names the practitioner roles it targets: SOC analyst, incident responder, GRC specialist, pen tester, or CISO.

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They recommend a podcast by Bill Brenner and Dr.

• Dustin Sachs on the human factor and mental health of security professionals, highlighting cognitive overload and burnout on the front lines.
• They also publicly thank Brenner for mentioning the dissertation research and tag named cybersecurity figures, mixing research promotion with amplification of colleagues.

One post recommends the Brenner and Sachs episode on cognitive overload and burnout; another thanks Brenner and tags figures including Dustin Sachs, Jennifer Jabbusch, Nicole Perlroth, Cris Thomas, Erin Shrimpton, Suzy Siegle, Chris Heiden, and Dave Schippers, alongside links to the research and the survey.

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It connects the broader human-side theme to a specific community and research agenda, making it a useful first read for newcomers.

Bohler frames burnout as a workforce problem that needs research-backed solutions, then describes a LinkedIn community connecting cybersecurity practitioners with academic researchers.

• They name burnout, motivation, retention, resilience, leadership, and career development, and say the group excludes vendor pitches, product marketing, and job postings.
• The community’s stated purpose is clear: gather practitioner input and share research, rather than promote products.

For brands planning a campaign

For a workforce development company considering a webinar or content collaboration, this post suggests a research-centered angle on burnout and retention, with practitioner participation. Ask whether the community is currently active and whether its audience suits the proposed collaboration.

Start here to understand the specific research question and its stated limits before drawing conclusions.

Bohler explains that the Walsh College dissertation examines the connection between mindfulness and motivation among cybersecurity professionals, with burnout and turnover as the workforce problems in view.

• They specify who could participate: people currently working in cybersecurity, based in the Eastern U.S., with ten years or fewer of experience, and at least 18 years old.
• They also say the survey is confidential, IRB-approved, and takes about 12–15 minutes.
• The eligibility details show that this is a bounded study, not a claim about every cybersecurity worker.

For brands planning a campaign

A collaboration could turn the mindfulness-and-motivation question into a discussion about burnout and retention, while distinguishing a dissertation study from established industry-wide findings. Ask for the study’s current status and available findings before building campaign claims around it.

It gives newcomers a second format and two concrete themes to explore: cognitive overload and burnout.

Bohler points readers to a podcast by Bill Brenner and Dr.

• Dustin Sachs, describing its focus as the human factor and mental health of cybersecurity professionals.
• They specifically highlight cognitive overload and burnout.
• The post is a short recommendation, not a transcript or detailed account of the conversation.

For brands planning a campaign

A webinar could pair cognitive overload with practical workforce-development questions about support and retention. Review the podcast episode before quoting or adapting its claims; the post points readers to it but doesn’t detail its conclusions.

They describe the topic as having little or no published research specific to cybersecurity practitioners.

• The posts recruit survey participants and set out the terms: the survey is confidential, IRB-approved, and takes about 20 to 30 minutes, with links posted in the comments.
• Eligibility is stated each time — currently employed in a cybersecurity role, based in the Eastern United States, ten years or fewer of cybersecurity experience, 18 or older, and able to read English.

IRB-approved survey recruitment, with qualification criteria listed in full and participants asked to pass the links to qualifying colleagues.

The study population is deliberately narrow — early-career practitioners in the Eastern Time Zone — so findings should not be presented as representative of all security staff.

For brands planning a campaign

Directly relevant to a workforce-development brief on burnout and retention: Bohler can speak to the research question and what it takes to get practitioners to participate. Any webinar or content piece should respect the study's limited population rather than generalizing its findings to the whole industry, and frame the effort as research participation rather than vendor-led education.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4

The posts open with the claim that 76% of cybersecurity professionals experienced burnout in the past year, then argue that the industry discusses the problem without enough rigorous research behind its solutions. The community's rules are explicit: no vendor pitches, product marketing, or job postings; only IRB-approved research and published findings are admitted.

A LinkedIn group used as a distribution channel, with the recruitment copy reposted and a direct join link.

For brands planning a campaign

A brand can support the research-first framing — for example, by funding or co-hosting a study-focused session — but the community's explicit no-vendor, no-marketing rule means promotional participation would cut against what Bohler has built. Content should lead with the evidence gap and the practitioner's role in closing it.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

They also recommend a podcast by Bill Brenner and Dr.

• Dustin Sachs that puts cognitive overload and burnout on the front lines, and thank Brenner for mentioning the dissertation research publicly, tagging a list of named cybersecurity figures in the process.
• The beat is consistent across the material: the mental health and cognitive load of security professionals, not tools or technical defense.

Short posts that route readers to longer formats — a LinkedIn article or podcast episode — and name collaborators and peers directly.

Bohler's own description of the arguments appears here, but the article bodies and the podcast itself are not described, so their contents are not stated here.

For brands planning a campaign

A natural fit for co-created content with a practitioner-journalist or researcher voice on cognitive overload and burnout, or for a webinar pairing Bohler's research framing with a practitioner interview. Verify the specifics of any cited article or episode before quoting it.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

Bohler asks readers to take part and share the invitation with qualifying colleagues, and thanks participants who have already responded. The format is short-form and action-oriented rather than explanatory; longer thinking lives in the linked article, podcast, or study.

Consistent short-post template across the corpus, with survey links in the comments, named collaborators tagged, and an explicit share request.

For brands planning a campaign

Plan campaign assets around short posts with a single clear action and link destination, plus a shareable ask for a specialist audience. A webinar or collaboration announcement would fit this pattern better than a long-form explainer authored by the brand.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5 · Source 6

Bohler describes the topic as having little published research specific to this workforce. Walsh College is presented as the institution hosting the research, not as an employer or client.

View example

The group, Bohler says, carries no vendor pitches, product marketing, or job postings—only IRB-approved research. Ask whether Bohler founded or administers the group, or simply supports it.

View example

Both write for a CISO-level audience and argue that industry experience and academic study should inform each other. They use their posts to bring the two communities closer: Haagman through an applied industry research consortium and a university research fellowship, Bohler through a community that pairs practitioners with academic researchers.

Haagman writes about organisational resilience: budget pressure, architecture, privilege, and what a security function should stop doing.

• Bohler focuses on individual practitioners — burnout, mindfulness, motivation, and whether people stay in the field.
• Haagman publishes longer reflective essays drawn from fireside conversations; Bohler posts short, action-oriented recruitment and recommendation pieces.

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Bohler builds a community around practitioner experience and names collaborators directly. Both gather practitioner voices and put the audience's own experience at the centre of what they publish.

Harp focuses on operational technology and industrial control systems — plant floors, safety PLCs, segmentation, and incident response readiness — through a commercial training catalog.

• Bohler focuses on the human and workforce side of security.
• The community they promote explicitly excludes vendor pitches, product marketing, and job postings.

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Both hosts use conversations with named guests to examine the costs of sustained professional pressure, and steer listeners toward further episodes or resources rather than a product.

Ryerson is a general leadership and personal-growth host who interviews founders, coaches, and psychologists for a broad business audience. Bohler focuses on cybersecurity practitioners and research participation — surveys, eligibility criteria, and IRB-approved studies — rather than general self-improvement.

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Haagman's posts show exactly that: an invitation to become a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, working with Prof.

• Carsten Maple to expand the CISO Global Study into a wider global research programme, plus an applied industry research consortium that tests thinking against real-world experience and returns the learning to the CISO community.
• The CISO Singapore fireside post offers a board-level framing device — the "Zero-Budget Test," asking what a security team would still do first if the budget went to zero — that gives a workforce audience a concrete, discussion-ready prompt about resilience through subtraction.
• For a webinar or content collaboration aimed at security leaders rather than individual practitioners, this is a stronger starting point than the dissertation-recruitment material.

Haagman's visible content focuses on leadership, architecture, and research programmes at the CISO level.

• It does not address individual burnout, motivation, mindfulness, or the early-career practitioner experience covered by Bohler's dissertation.
• A workforce development company seeking practitioner retention would miss that specific subject matter.
• The posts describe the research programme as expanding; ask for the findings and any commercial terms before planning a collaboration.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Harp's posts show a ready training and webinar format — a course catalogue under CambiOS Academy, faculty described as having 25+ years on real plant floors, and a named-panel session covering ICS/OT governance and safety, incident response authority, and segmentation against flat-network exposure. A workforce development company seeking a practitioner-training or technical-webinar collaboration around industrial security roles and skills can plug into an existing format.

The subject matter is OT/ICS and oil-and-gas critical infrastructure, not the burnout, motivation, and retention themes relevant to Bohler's dissertation.

• Harp's posts also promote CambiOS Academy and a community event, with an explicit contrast against generic AI and online courses — a vendor-adjacent training pitch.
• That runs counter to Bohler's no-vendor-pitch community positioning.
• For a neutral research voice in a burnout webinar, Harp is a different kind of partner; the company would need to change its brief to fit.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Ryerson's podcast material shows episodes on scaling a business while keeping standards, work-life integration versus balance, burnout and mental overload, and human flourishing — including a guest discussing why high achievers reach success and still ask "is this it?" and a set of growth practices around courage, curiosity, compassion, clarity, and commitment. That format can carry a workforce-wellbeing conversation to a broader business audience.

The content is general business and personal development, not cybersecurity.

• A workforce development company focused on security practitioners would need to supply all the domain specificity; the burnout framing is not tied to security roles, research, or the 76% figure Bohler uses.
• Ask for the full conversations to assess the depth of the burnout discussion; the available posts provide only episode descriptions and timestamps.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2