The ISACA Journal is more than just a print and digital publication – for 50 years, it has served as a reflection of ISACA’s membership, in the view of Steven Ross.
Ross, whose “ Information Security Matters” column is the longest-running feature in the ISACA Journal, and Michael Cangemi, a longtime former Journal editor-in-chief, were guests on an episode of ISACA Live Tuesday to mark the Journal’s 50th anniversary in 2022.
“The opportunity to reflect the joint personality of 150,000 (ISACA members) is a very important contribution not only to the professions that ISACA represents, but the society in which we are a part,” Ross said.
Cangemi, who went on to become a C-suite executive, recalled accepting the Journal editor position early in his career. He had no inkling it would become a labor of love for 20 years.
“I took the job as editor, got the business card, and didn’t really think I would stay with it for that many years, but I fell in love with it, sort of like a business project,” Cangemi said.
The Journal’s focus in its early years – as it was for the association as a whole – was the audit profession. While IT audit has remained a steady presence in the Journal’s content, IT security, and then a range of other technology disciplines, have been added to the mix over the past couple decades. Ross said even though the technology landscape and related professions have evolved, many best practices and fundamentals explored in the Journal have remained consistent.
“I think that’s the whole foundation of what ISACA’s all about,” Ross said. “We didn’t become a whole new organization just because technology changed. The basic principles – systems of internal control, security, respect for the information itself, which underlies privacy, respect for the potential issues, which underlies risk, all of that has been pretty constant over time. It’s just every time you put out one fire, it starts burning somewhere else.”
One point of pride for the Journal over the decades has been how, in many cases, it has tackled emerging industry challenges before most other publications. Cangemi cited topics like computer viruses and biometrics as examples of important topics the Journal addressed with foresight, noting that prestigious TIME magazine featured computer viruses on its cover well after it was highlighted in the Journal in the 1980s.
Cangemi credited ISACA’s extensive pool of volunteer authors for surfacing resonant and timely article topics to be explored.
“It was because of our membership,” Cangemi said. “The fact that the membership was in the trenches feeding up the issues, the Journal was there to capture them and to help share that information. You can’t ask for greater value from an association like ISACA than to get information in a timely manner.”
Ross, who like Cangemi is a past ISACA board chair, said he has found himself in “continued dialogue” with Journal readers around the world. That connection with readers is one of many aspects of his years with the Journal that he has found to be rewarding.
“I’m very proud of what the Journal has become,” Ross said. “Like Mike says, it’s well-respected, it’s peer-reviewed. You publish an article in the Journal and you tell all your friends. You’re very proud of what you’ve accomplished.”
Editor’s note: ISACA Journal Turns 50 This Year! Celebrate with us—and don’t forget you can still receive the print copy by visiting your preference center and opting in! Watch the full Journal-themed ISACA Live episode here.