Nicole Solera

Security PR Q&A with Jeanne Friedman re: RSA Speaking

The July 15 deadline for RSA Conference 2012 speaking submissions is only a few weeks away. Senior Content Coordinator of RSA Conference Jeanne Friedman was nice enough to chat with me on the phone to get the scoop on the submission process. While many of us listened to the RSA Conference speaking submission webcast, there were a few things that I wanted to clarify.

Question: Can you explain what a track is? Can a speaker be in more than one track?
Answer: A track is a certain category for a program. For example, “Hackers and Threats” is a track. For the first round of judging it does not matter what the topic is. For the second round submissions are placed into a category or track. There are 12 to 14 tracks.

Question: What is the least popular track? The most popular?
Answer: The least popular track is “War Stories.” This track involves lessons learned sessions. “Professional development” is also small as well as “Mobile Application.”  The most popular tracks always seem to be “Strategy and Architecture,” “Cloud,” “Hackers and Threats,” and “Identity Management.”

Question: Who are the judges?
Answer: The judges are from outside vendors and are CISOs, lawyers, or experts in a particular field.

Question: What levels of submissions are most competitive?
Answer: Intermediate has the most entries. For advanced it depends on the topic.

Question: How many submissions is too many?
Answer: There is no specific number, however three good submissions in very different topics is best. Judges do not like to see the same speaker submitting multiple submissions because they like to give everyone a chance.

Question: Do you have to submit a pre-packaged panel or can you submit a panelist?
Answer: You must submit a full panel. A good tip is to look around the agency to see if speakers can team up from different clients.

Question: You spoke about submitting an optional video. How “optional” is the optional video?
Answer: It is optional. If a client has a speaker series, and they have poor ratings from previous conferences it is a great way to show the judges the speaker has improved. For new speakers it is a great way to show the judges how charismatic they are--to make the judges remember them. A tip for the video: use the three minutes to explain what you will talk about in your session.

Question: Following up on that, has the added video ever hurt a submission?
Answer: The video has never hurt a submission. However, it can change a judge’s opinion in the submitter's favor.

Posted by Nicole Solera on June 24, 2011 at 3:27 PM
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Tips for Security PR Pros Facing the RSA Speaking Deadline

Security PR pros are facing a hard deadline of July 15, when RSA Conference 2012 speaking submissions are due. As you may recall from last week, I highlighted sins for submitting speaking abstracts to the RSA Conference. In today’s post, I will finish up the series sins and discuss a few more tips.

7 Sins of Submitting (cont.):

5. Submit a session based on pure speculation and no evidence -- Without evidence, speakers will lose credibility with their audience. The presenter must be able to explain the actual implementation of what they are speaking about.

6. Submit a session that is completely inconsistent with the speaker’s bio or experience -- The judges are very conscious of the presenter’s title to ensure the session will not be too high level. They understand that acquisitions are happening frequently, so if the presenter has a marketing title you may want to consider teaming them up with someone more technical.

6a. Submit little detail on your session except your bio and title- Sessions are picked based on merit, and if your submission is not interesting it will be rejected regardless of how impressive the spokesperson's title or bio may be.

7. Submit a panel with people that never actually agreed to be on your panel -- RSA noted that this happens every year. If you cannot confirm that every person on the panel will participate by the July 15 entry deadline, the submission with be rejected. To ensure a complete entry (including all speaker bios and confirmation), lock in the speakers early, especially when working across time zones.

Bonus Sin: The RSA Conference organizers urge vendors to avoid delegation of submission writing to marketing agencies. Now, Schwartz teams help their clients create RSA speaking abstracts all the time, and many of the abstracts we have worked on are accepted. I think the point of the conference organizers in bringing up this sin is to note how oftentimes a marketing organization or agency does not have the depth on a given topic necessary to complete a submission. The submission must be comprehensive, and oftentimes if the agency is left to compelte it, the shallowness of the submission comes through. In addition, if the presenter or presenters write their own abstracts, the writing will be more passionate.

At Schwartz, we have established a successful process of guiding our clients as they create their submissions, and often, as noted above, we write submissions or portions of submissions. Our process, however, is set up to avoid the pitfall that the conference organizers are worried about. The process ensures that the passion of each submission shines through and that the presenters contribute to the abstracts.

ULITMATE Mortal Sin: Don’t submit -- 2011 had a large number of first time speakers. Since the selection process is purely merit based, RSA encourages speakers at all levels to submit.

After the webcast opened up for questions, I found one question to be particularly interesting.

What is the likelihood of new speakers being accepted over past speakers?

Answer: The judges consider a few checkpoints when judging submissions. First, the judges look at the short abstract to see if they're compelling. Then if the short abstract catches their attention they move to the long abstract to see if the presenter can deliver upon what they say in their short abstract. The third important factor is the presenter’s bio. Does it match the session? Finally the last piece of information the judges consider is if the speaker has presented at RSA Conferences in the past.

If the speaker received good presentation scores at previous RSA Conferences, then it will help the submission. However, it reflects poorly on the submission if the speaker has poor scores.

Look out for my next blog post where I conduct a follow-up Q&A with Jeanne Friedman, senior content manager of RSA Conference.

Posted by Nicole Solera on June 21, 2011 at 11:11 AM
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The Seven Mortal Sins and Wins of Submitting (for RSA 2012)

July 15 may seem far away, but as highlighted by the presenters during the the RSA 2012 speaking submission webcast, this deadline will come up quickly. In addition to announcing that its call for papers is officially open, RSA held a webcast yesterday to answer some common questions about the submission process and to share some tips for getting accepted.

While many husbands and wives are relieved that the conference is avoiding Valentine’s Day this year, Jeanne Friedman, senior content manager of RSA Conference, noted one of the most important pieces of information right at the beginning of the webcast. Unlike last year, there will be NO extension on this year’s July 15 deadline. Friedman also advised to get your submission in early and not to wait until the last day to submit.

Among the many useful bits of information of the webcast, I found it particularly helpful to know how the selection process works and what the judges are looking for in a submission.

Here are a few things the judges look for:
•    A submission to be unique and compelling
•    A submission to pull from experience to share best practices and case studies
•    A submission to be geared towards security professionals with 9+ years of experience

Once a speaking session is submitted to one of the 23 topics, all the submissions go through a first round of judgment to weed out incomplete abstracts and submissions that are deemed, “product pitches.” The submissions are then placed into a track, or specific focus area, where two-three judges are assigned to review all abstracts for the final round.

In order to ensure a strong submission, Program Committee Chair Hugh Thompson and Friedman came up with “The 7 Mortal Sins and Wins of submitting (for RSA Conference).”  In this section they clearly defined the do and don’ts of a good speaking submission. Below I have included the top reasons for rejection and the first three of the seven Mortal Sins.

Reasons for Rejection:
•    Incomplete submission
•    The submission is a sales pitch
•    The presentation is too basic
•    The long abstract did not include enough information
•    Multiple submissions on the same topic
•    If the presenter’s title does not match his bio (i.e. a technical presentation with a VP of marketing   presenting)
•    If the presenter received poor speaker ratings in 2010

7 Sins of Submitting:

1. Ignore the long abstract- Do not copy and paste the short abstract into the long abstract. In addition to adding good detail to the long abstract it is recommended that speakers outline what they plan to cover in their session.
2. Submit a sales pitch- This could be considered by the judges a “mortal sin” and an easy way for your submission to get rejected. The delegates that attend the sessions are very sensitive to sales pitches and are most interested in a case study that provides insight and best practices on a topic.
3. Submit a superficial talk- If the talk is too high level speakers will lose credibility with the delegates. When creating a submission, speakers should ask themselves what specific insights they have to share on the topic they are submitting.
4. Be boring, bland or unoriginal- Keep in mind that the judges are real people and that they want to be captivated and entertained while learning something new. Remember that the judges have to read hundreds of applications and they want something that will stand out from the rest. 

tips to be continued in my next post...

Posted by Nicole Solera on June 16, 2011 at 4:39 PM
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RSA Conference USA 2012 Call For Speakers

NOTE: Nicole Solera, member of the Schwartz IT security practice, wrote the blog post below.

This week, RSA announced that the 2012 call for speakers is officially open. The conference will take place as always at the Moscone Center in "sunny" San Francisco on February 27- March 2, 2012.  The deadline for all submissions is July 15, so it’s time to start thinking about your session abstracts.

Whether you are thinking about submitting for the first time, submitted and have not been accepted, or just want more information, RSA will be holding a webcast called “Getting Your Session Proposal Accepted in 2012” to talk to about tips for submitting on Wednesday, June 15 at 11:00 a.m. ET.  You can register for the webcast here. If you can't make the webinar, be sure to check back here at "Tangled Web" for a recap.

All accepted speaking proposals will be notified via email in October 2011. All submissions will be evaluated by a panel of judges created by the RSA Conference Committee.  

In addition to the webcast, I will be interviewing Jeanne Friedman, RSA Conference senior content manager, on June 16 to make sure no question is left un-answered.

Here are a few tips from the RSA site:

1. Select your topic carefully. See what your spokesperson’s area of expertise is and build on that. The topic should also be timely to what is happening (The theme of 2011 was securing the cloud).  Also, always think of the educational takeaway as well as the technical level. Your audience will have an IT security background but they may not be well versed in your particular topic.

2. Develop a unique approach to the topic. The committee receives hundreds of speaking submissions each year. So what is going to make your submission stand out and be unique from the rest? Be creative and find a way that has not been done before to explain your topic. Example: Make an analogy that no one has thought of.

3. Consider every aspect of your submission. Every part of the application is important to the committee, even if it seems small. Many of the questions on the application are character-restricted and the character count includes spaces. Save time by knowing all the character limits before you start writing to save time editing later on. (See below for the character counts on the sections.) 

Here are all the sections to the application that you can also find online:
o Session Title (limit 75 characters including spaces) should clearly indicate your topic and attract potential attendees. Remember you're competing against other sessions at the same time.
o Short Session Abstract (limit 400 characters including spaces) will be used to promote to Delegates in marketing materials.
o Long Session Abstract (limit 2,500 characters including spaces) should be used to provide additional detail on your session and show how you will deliver on the learning objectives. This is the most important part of your submission. The Program Committee uses the long abstract to determine what your session is all about.
 o Optional Video Submission (limit three minutes) can be added to supplement your proposal. All videos will be available to RSA Conference Community members to view and rate your video submission.
o Security Tags (up to five keywords) will be added to improve attendee search results. To streamline your submission process, we strongly recommend that you download the offline submission form, fill it in offline and then copy and paste responses into the online submission form.

If you want an example of a good submission you can find one online at the conference website here (be patient it takes a second to load).

Posted by Ross Levanto on June 9, 2011 at 10:04 AM
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