6 posts tagged “rsa conference”
19K attendees, who knows how many sessions, and a reservoir of carbonated drinks, a few tons of sugar saturated confectionery, and one MIA Larry Ellison.
It's been a busy week, people are sprawled out all over the place, and after Colin Powell's closing address it'll be over.
So long RSA Conference 2007.
I don't think it would play too well in MA, but on the RSA Conference Expo floor you too could win a lite-brite just like the ones which shut down Boston.
I wasn't eligible to enter the raffle. Boo Hiss!
Poor Hasan Rizvi.
I arrived to the keynote a few minutes late only to walk right into a flood of people who were leaving the Hall and watched as they pounced on the drinks & snacks which were still being set up. It turns out that Larry Ellison had the flu and Oracle VP Rizvi was stuck with delivering the keynote.
For all Hasan's charm the audience still wasn't willing to sit through an Oracle product demo they could get at the Oracle booth in the Expo hall, unless it was Larry doing the driving.
I've never seen a room clear out so quickly only to watch it fill up again as people headed back into the hall to listen to CA's John Swainson.
Best keynote of the day? Ray Kurzwell. His book..
..started flying off the shelf in the RSA Conference bookstore just seconds after he finished up. I know this as I was standing in line to buy a copy. His keynote was inspiring stuff.
Though his schedule was packed, EMC's Chief Development Officer Mark Lewis was gracious enough to sit down with me for a few minutes and cover a range of different topics relating to the business of information. Having listened to it back I think there's something interesting in there for everybody, but if there isn't then I only owe you 00:14:33 of your life back. Feel free to sleep in longer than usual tomorrow, and if your boss asks why you're late to work you can just blame me.
I don't think a person realizes how busy the folks at the executive levels are until you see them deal with a room full of reporters & analysts after they've announced some new technology, new service offerings, and an acquisition. I've RSA's Matt Buckley to thank for allowing me to sit in and watch Joe Tucci, Art Coviello, and Mark in action, and EMC's Dave Farmer for indulging me right in the middle of the maelstrom.
And my thanks to Mark Lewis for finding the time.
I'm sitting watching the Cryptographers panel in the keynote room at the RSA Conference, the old monsters of the crypto industry are on fire. If there's a webcast to watch this should be the one, and you can take a look at that here when they convert the media and post it.
My USB cable is sitting in my luggage back in the hotel so no photos at the moment, assuming it doesn't turn out awfully bad there will be a podcast, and I will have a guest.
(A bit) More later.
Two things I might need to do.
The first is register for the RSA Conference. Thousands of super paranoid security professionals all at the same event. The most frequent answer to the question "What do you do for a living?" being "Why do you want to know?!?" ;-p
Once again Gates and Ellison are keynoting. I like Larry Ellison he's the closest thing we have to a Bond villain in the I.T. industry.
Just a few months after RSA wrap up the US show we have the EMC Technology Summit, Software Developer Conference, and Documentum's Momentum show all coming together under the banner of EMC World. Or the sore feet and no voice show as I like to call it. By the end of the first day my feet are usually screaming from all the standing and walking around I end up doing, and I've blown my voice out from speaking to countless EMC customers.
If I attend EMC World this year, and I'm assuming no such thing as it's far far away and requires months of planning and effort, the second thing I need to do is buy more comfortable shoes and hire someone to speak on my behalf. Or just communicate using sock puppets.
Preferably sock puppets made from clean socks too.
