Security Field Day is not a typical conference. In fact, it’s not a conference at all! Most industry events are focused on sales and demand generation: Pack the people in and get their contact information. Field Day is all about the content, the ideas, and the technology.
Coming Home from a Conference
I have been going to conferences for years, but I always come home wanting more. For example, you may have been following along with my post series detailing the lead up to RSA 2019 and how I felt after I got back from the biggest conference I’ve ever attended. It was a bit of a roller coaster as usual.
I always go to these events looking forward to having great, in-depth conversations. But the format of these shows makes it harder for people like me. Whether it was a crowded show floor or a session that didn’t go as deep as I would have liked, the overall experience wasn’t as educational as I would have liked.
To be completely fair, this is something I’ve been seeing from various large conferences for years. The amount of technical content seems to be dwindling, and many attendees don’t even attend the technical side of things any longer. Instead, they go because of the community. They want to be a part of the conversations that happen between colleagues and to meet new people. But even those things are becoming harder as conferences grow in size.
Another problem is that conferences are focused different things than technical attendees like me. Conference organizers want to impress people with the size of the event and the bustle of people coming and going. They want to make sure that they dominate the news cycle for that week. And that often means deemphasizing what makes a conference great for people like me in favor of getting as many “butts in seats” as possible.
The Non-Conference
To be fair, I’m a huge fan of Tech Field Day events. Not just because I work there, but because I love the concept. Let’s consider the things I hate about massive conferences:
- Crowds
- Lack of technical content
- Marketing pitches
- Lack of interactivity
- All the walking
That may not be everything, but most of those items would be high on the list. Field Day events do away with all of them in the best way possible.
- A Crowd of A Few – Field Day is invite-only because we don’t want 200 people in each session. We want interactivity. We want people asking questions and making comments. A dozen delegates is the perfect number to make that happen.
- We’re All Technical – Field Day focuses on the technical conversations. Sure, there’s a bit of marketing discussion around terms and trends. But that gives way to deep dives and demos into the actual products. It encourages challenges to assumptions and uncovering how things really work under the hood.
- Interactive Investment – Delegates at Field Day event don’t stop at the surface level questions. They dig in to the meat of the solution. They ask about direction and make the presenters and audience think about the basic assumptions of a product. It’s about making people see the value in the ideas and the thought processes, not just the flashy GUI.
- Walk This Way – Field Day events are streamed live! We also uploaded videos of the presentations to YouTube, usually by the next day. No more waiting for a conference session to be posted weeks or months later with no fanfare. Tech Field Day makes sure everything is ready to go when you want it. No walking needed!
Security Field Day addresses the problems I have with big conferences in ways that enhance the parts of the experience that people like me enjoy. There’s no need to look for the community to have a good technical conversation, because the community is already here. No walking, no worrying about how deep things are going to get. We’ve got it all covered!
How Can You Experience Security Field Day?
The best part of Security Field Day is the experience. You don’t have to fly to San Francisco and get a hotel room, you just need a web browser! We’re going to be streaming live June 19-21 from Silicon Valley with some of the most exciting security companies out there. We’re going to be covering a variety of topics across the space.
You can find an up-to-date list of the companies on the Security Field Day 2 event page. We’re going to keep adding great companies to that page over the course of the next couple of months and keeping you in the loop about all the great conversations to come. All you have to do is set a calendar appointment so you don’t miss anything!
If you’re a company that wants to take part in this unique and exciting experience, there’s always room for you at the Security Field Day table! You get a lot of benefits from being a presenter at Field Day, including:
- Interaction with a dozen of the brightest minds in the security space
- Discussion about your solution and a chance to put your “best foot forward” for the community
- Real tech talk!
- Live streaming video to an attentive and excited audience of practitioners
- Video recordings that you can reference for future social media campaigns and content
If you want to be a part of all this from the presenter side of the table, don’t forget to fill out out Sponsor Interest Form!
There will always be a place for the big “trade show” style events in the IT community. It’s a necessary part of the way we do business. But when you want to avoid the conference life and back to the things that make technology exciting, you need to make sure to tune in to Security Field Day!
