I’m sure that the RSA folks were nonplussed to hear Bruce’s take on the possible contraction of the RSA security conference. I think he’s right.
From Wired:
Talk to the exhibitors, though, and the most common complaint is that the attendees aren’t buying.
It’s not the quality of the wares. The show floor is filled with new security products, new technologies, and new ideas. Many of these are products that will make the attendees’ companies more secure in all sorts of different ways. The problem is that most of the people attending the RSA Conference can’t understand what the products do or why they should buy them. So they don’t.
And this is something that I noticed when I was there last year.
There was a surprising number of infosec types that either fell upwards into their job or had the budget to show up for a conference that happened to be in San Fran. Sad but, you know that it happens. Far too often in fact. As a result they balk at buying a product or worse still buy for all the wrong reasons. This is by no means the rule.
Now on the other side of this equation we find the vendors. I spoke with a few that I knew and I heard the same refrain that I have heard at similar shows. Ninety percent of the people visiting the booths on the vendor floor are there to get the free t-shirt. I chuckled the first time I heard this from a vendor. But, as time has passed I’ve seen the honesty in that salesguy’s statement. Hell, last year at RSA 2007 I walked away with 27 t-shirts. The really sad part being was that I never asked for any of them. On the last day of the show a woman was walking around the vendor floor begging folks to take the t-shirts for company X off her hands.
More from Schneier:
“I can’t figure out what any of those companies do,” he replied.
I believe him. The booths are filled with broad product claims, meaningless security platitudes and unintelligible marketing literature. You could walk into a booth, listen to a five-minute sales pitch by a marketing type, and still not know what the company does. Even seasoned security professionals are confused.
I couldn’t agree more.
A lot of the vendors at the show were one’s that I had some familiarity. But for shops that were new to me it was like reading tea leaves trying to divine what they were selling. The “elevator pitch” from some of them was terrible while others were a little more comfortable in their own skin. The part that I was often caught by was the lack of information in marketing materials. I saw some product flyers that were bereft of any meat. It could have been a security widget or a marketing campaign for acne cream.
But, I digress. If the vendors aren’t making sales, they won’t come back.
Read on for the rest of Schneier’s piece.
I think its always been like that at any conference. Its a chance to get away from work, have fun at the companies expense.
But aside from the vendors hawking their magic fixes, its a chance to meet with old friends and exchange ideas and problems.
Staying connected to your peers is important, so in that aspect, RSA will live on.
@ Doug
I agree that part is a major selling point for us as practitioners but, that won’t move the purchase orders through for the most part. Without those I feel some larger conferences may have to adapt.