Learning to Do More with Less: An RSA Conference 2009 Preview

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Every day we are faced with a steady flow of lay-offs and company shutdowns. Surviving companies are faced with a daunting new reality—they must manage with significantly less money and far fewer employee resources despite an ever-increasing tide of threats and vulnerabilities. Learning to do more with less is top of mind for just about everyone, and this year’s RSA US Conference is no different. To be held April 20–24 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the show is positioned to provide attendees with the education, ideas, and resources needed today. Despite the flagging economy and nearly non-existent budgets, Sandra Toms LaPedis, area vice president and general manager of RSA Conferences, says that the conference registration is still seeing momentum, underscoring the fact that attendees have counted on the RSA conference to provide the best education, technical training, networking, and experience. “Our attendees and more importantly, their managers, realize that the cost of the conference and the cost to travel is less expensive than the cost of a breach to the organization.”

For many, networking may be a life raft in these uncertain times. “The conference really helps the attendees keep on top of what to expect, what’s happening, where the vulnerabilities might be and helps them take preventative action,” says Toms LaPedis. “Security is still very important to organizations—it’s still a priority.”

The Innovation Sandbox

Among the newest conference offerings is the addition of the Innovation Sandbox, a half-day meeting of the minds where attendees can brainstorm with industry leaders to find collective solutions to challenges they face. “There are people in every organization trying to tackle the same problems,” explains Toms LaPedis. “Coming up with a better way to handle those issues will be a priority. It’s also an opportunity to highlight new technologies and new companies and bring them face-to-face with our RSA audience. Sixteen companies will be vying for the Most Innovative Company award at the show.”

War Stories

The addition of a category called “War Stories” will bring true life corporate sagas to the show populous. Toms LaPedis says show organizers want to highlight customer experiences with technology—the good, the bad, and the ugly—to examine what worked and what they learned. Instead of creating one eponymous track, the war stories sessions will be peppered throughout relevant tracks, i.e., Hackers and Threats may have a war story associated with it. “We’re really focusing our agenda, asking all of our speakers to think about what an attendee wants to do when he walks away from a session. How are they going to apply what they’ve learned when they get back to the office? We want to provide them with a launch pad where they can say, ‘I have five steps from this session and I know what I’m going to do when I get back home’.”

Expanded Interactive Web site

RSA Conference 365 is a Web site the team created to inspire and enable continued discussion and collaboration among attendees. Noting that hallway conversations are a key byproduct of attending the show, the conference team wanted to recreate that experience on the Web site as closely as possible. By providing webcasts, discussion forums, top stories culled from the news, and blogs from respected friends as conference attendees, the Web site pulls it all together in one place so attendees can continue valuable discussions within the walls of their own office or virtually with other attendees.

Gimme Gimme More!

The unabashed use of technology will satiate even the most die-hard data fiends. The conference team hopes live Twitter feeds will help overwhelmed attendees make it to their favorite sessions, catch the keynotes and browse the exhibit floor while feeling less stressed and more focused. “One of the biggest attendee questions is “What can I do now?” says Toms LaPedis. “Providing a feed to give them updates—‘here are the class sessions that are happening’, ‘here are the speakers that you want to hear,’—throughout the day is a great thing.”

Attendees to the 2009 show will also see interactive high tech brought to the show floor map. The team has implemented a product called Map Your Show that allows attendees to go over the exhibitor map and see what a company does, learn more about its product, contact them directly and schedule appointments (or not). Toms LaPedis feels that the ability to preview, in-depth, what the exhibitors are all about will make for a much more productive, rewarding show experience, “I think a lot of attendees come on our show floor and they’re either looking for a particular solution or they say ‘I need to talk to these six companies’, we’re making it easier for our attendees to make that connection proactively, directly with the companies.” The technology also allows attendees to put in search terms, such as “Messaging Security” or “Unified Messaging,” and it will provide all relevant exhibiting companies. One caveat, as the search terms are dependent on what the companies themselves have used as descriptive words, it may be hit and miss or it may be the coolest thing to happen to a show floor map.