Lessons Learned, and those to thank (or blame)

Many things have changed for me in the past couple of years, much of it because of lessons I have learned from others. Below are a few folks I have learned from and want to thank for their enlightenment. Note that I won't mention what I learned from each, or even when (a few lessons may not have been intentional) because that doesn't really matter, I just want to say "Thank You" to them. In no particular order:

Chris Brogan- people will tell you that Chris is intelligent, articulate, friendly, helpful, insightful, sharing, and on and on. All the gushing over this guy might be a bit much- if it weren't all true.

Jennifer Leggio, aka Mediaphyter- I've only known Jennifer for about six months, and watching her work is amazing. Her ability to "connect the dots" on a dizzying array of levels is amazing and eye-opening.

Critt Jarvis- I have never "clicked" with someone at work the way I did while working with Critt. We often handed each other pieces of a puzzle before the other knew they needed it. Amazing, actually. Thanks, and get out of my head.

Martin McKeay- Content, Community, Identity. I could say a lot more about Martin, but I'll leave it at: he creates content and builds community, and he's Martin. Which is pretty cool.

Chris Hoff- Is really smart. "Stop it now, Hoff, my head's gonna explode" kind of smart. You can't help but learn from him, and he's a great guy to be around- but I can't imagine trying to keep up with him for any length of time.

The list is far from comprehensive, there are certainly others I have learned from and should thank- and many more I should have learned from, but didn't.

Maybe you can learn something from these folks, too. Or you can find your own people to learn from. Maybe you could even learn from my mistakes, there's plenty of material there.

Jack

RSA Security Bloggers Meet-up

Several people have already written about this, so I'll keep it short. I really enjoyed it; I reconnected with some people, met some Internet acquaintances and Security Twits in person for the first time, and met new people, too. I had a great time and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Thanks again to Jennifer Leggio (Mediaphyter), Martin McKeay, Rich Mogull, Alan Shimel and everyone else who helped make it happen.

Mediaphyter's blog post has a pretty thorough list of attendees, scan it and you'll see why I am not trying to repeat the effort here.

Jack

Astaro, RSA, Bloggers, and Beer

OK, this post is much more "commercial" than anything I've done before, but bear with me on this...

A handful of factoids:

• The San Francisco RSA conference is coming up in a few weeks.
  
• I'll be there covering the event.
  
• Astaro will be there, promoting their new (and of course, current) product line.
  
• I blog, and I work for Astaro.
  
• Getting press credentials for RSA means you are solicited by everyone who wants press for their products and services.

Now to connect some dots. Several people have commented on the barrage of email invitations to schedule meetings and other such things. Some have commented on the cluelessness of some of the PR and Marketing people. I see two primary issues; first is that some PR and Marketing types don't have the time (or possibly skill) to do a good job (see this post at the Mediaphyter blog); second is that many people do not realize that bloggers and traditional press may have some overlap, but are generally very different people with different situations (see this post at Martin McKeay's blog).

I don't mind the mountains of email invitations. I'm getting into the event with a complimentary Press/Analyst pass and the vendors want to get their message out- that's how this works. I do think many of the messages and invitations are excessively verbose and hype-laden, but some are pretty well done. The well done ones are much more likely to get my attention, both before and during the conference.

Here's the Astaro connection: Astaro wants to get attention from bloggers and I think they are trying to do it right. Tuesday afternoon (you'll be ready to sit down, have a beer and jump on the Internet by then) there will be a "Beer and Blog" event at the Astaro booth; meet Astaro people including the CEO, see the products, talk about whatever you want. And beer. The invitations are short and to the point, and they are only being sent to bloggers. Yes bloggers, Astaro wants your attention, but they are trying to do it right. If you are registered as a Blogger for RSA you should get an invite- if you are interested please RSVP, it would be bad to run out of beer. If you don't get an invite, let me know. And let me know what you think.

Now, back to your irregularly scheduled blogging.

Jack