Folks, you have no idea how excited I am to officially announce the upcoming Security Awareness Summits in both London (10 July) and Philly (19 August). As many of you know we held our first Security Awareness Summit in Dallas last year. The results and feedback were so positive we are hosting two this year. The purpose of these summits is to bring together hundreds of awareness officers from around the world to share their stories and lessons learned and to create a super rich environment for networking. You can expect the following at each of the summits:
- Six talks from leading awareness practitioners and researchers. Three of the talks will be on theory and three will be on practical application. You can find the name of the speakers, their talks, abstracts and the full agenda on the summit websites.
- One talk from the leading government organization to help coordinate awareness efforts. For London this will be ENISA and for Philly this will be NCSA (the staysafeonline.com folks).
- We will host the ever popular 'show-n-tell' table. Attendees will be encouraged to bring examples of their awareness program to share at the event. Examples can include posters, newsletters, videos, mascots or any other fun handouts. This was hugely popular last year and will be even bigger this year, to include prizes.
- To develop more networking opportunities we have longer breaks and lunch. Lunch is served on site so you get maximum time with your peers. In addition this year we are arranging the tables differently. Last year tables were organized by industry, this year tables will be organized by challenges (phishing, engagement, support, metrics, etc).
- Each summit has additional courses where you can develop your skills in both management and security. If you are new to the world of security awareness, I highly recommend you take the two-day MGT433 course, it is hosted at the event right before each of the summits
- Something new we are trying this year is we are encouraging all attendees to read at least one of the following books. This way everyone comes with common foundations and some additional knowledge to share with others.
- "Leading Change" by John Kotter
- "Switch" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
- "Made to Stick" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
You can learn more about each event, to include speakers, talks and agendas at each of the summit sites. Not sure which one to go to? If you are a large, international organization then consider sending one person to each as each summit will reflect it's unique regional cultural and communication differences. If you have any questions (or better yet suggestions) for either summit, feel free to email me at lspitzner@sans.org. Hope to see you there!
