It’s the end of a long week out in rainy San Francisco at the RSA Conference, but it’s been a great trip. I met tons of people, attended lots of sessions, and learned about new vendors’ products. My highlights in no particular order:

  • General Colin Powell – He was the final keynote speaker and event of the entire week. He is a highly charismatic speaker, and although he didn’t focus too highly on security, it was a great speech. His general message was that the only way that the terrorists win is if they manage to get us to change who we are as American people (kind, generous, welcoming).
  • Executive women’s forum party – I met a number of people here at the party easily and casually. Even though there were more men than women at the party, it was great to meet a number of executive women (even though it was almost impossible to move)!
  • InfoSec Myths and Legends track session – Dan Houser was a fabulously entertaining speaker. He focused on a number of themes that we discuss here at Forrester, namely the transition from security to information risk.
  • Keeping your customers loyal track session – This was a great discussion across the panelists from both the regulators side and enterprise privacy officers. It was a very well-run session incorporating audience participation and not too much time spent on obvious details.
  • Sun party – Personally I also had a fantastic time at the Sun party with lots of smart people to talk to, and I met Michelle Dennedy, the CPO of Sun. And I’m just tickled pink to meet any privacy officers these days!
  • Secrets of networking revealed – This speaker was wonderfully encouraging and pointed out some good tips for how to strike up conversations, including the following: working to make other people comfortable; being sure to introduce yourself even if you’ve met before, and you think they might forget your name; picking which people to talk to; and not taking it personally if they decide not to encourage the conversation.

It’s been a been a fun week, and I look forward to coming back next year, where they’ll hopefully include a privacy track! They had a lot of privacy-related topics this year, but not a single track.