I received a fair amount of criticism about last year’s column, particularly my opining on something I hadn’t experienced first hand. So I sent in a presentation proposal for this year’s conference and – surprise! – it was accepted. I decided that I would indeed experience the conference first hand … with the possibility of having to eat my words from last year.
First off, it is unquestionably the biggest conference that I have attended, including those held at the Javits Center in New York. For a first-timer it was overwhelming and mind-numbing. I heard that there might have been as many as 18,000 attendees and exhibitors. That estimate may be on the high side, however, since the count for RSA 2009 was 12,360. In any event, it was unquestionably a big number. The huge auditorium was packed for the keynote addresses and many of the sixteen or seventeen concurrent sessions were filled to capacity.
So what was my overall impression and how did it compare to my potentially unfounded comments of last year? Well, I certainly stand by my statement that it is excessive. My presentation was on the morning of the final day (seemingly “newbies” get assigned to this least desirable day of the conference). I ended up spending three days at the conference. I could have arrived a couple of days earlier for the various Monday meetings, but knew that I would be saturated by Friday … and I was right, as even my shorter attendance was overwhelming. After the first day or two I felt as though I was in overload. So far as my prior claim that the conference is pretentious, I still hold that view, especially in regard to the keynote addresses. I was delighted to hear from DHS Secretary Napolitano and FBI Director Mueller … both of whom were shamelessly recruiting potential employees from right out of the audience. But many of the other presentations, particularly those given by senior vendor executives (their companies having achieved star status by virtue of sponsoring the event), were quite dull and repetitious and, given the multimedia extravaganza, they did appear somewhat pretentious. And yes, when I claimed last year that this was sad, I did note this year a certain poignancy in the fact that quite a few attendees, with whom I spoke, were unhappy with their current job status. They were clearly hoping that networking at the event would result in some improvement of their condition in the face of a very difficult market (DHS and FBI, here we come!).
Popularity: unranked
