ASIS Int'l: Disrespecting Speakers for 58 Years

| 6 Comments

Here's an interesting difference between infosec and physsec that highlights a failure to evolve. One of my talk proposals was accepted for the ISC2 Security Congress 2012 in Philadelphia this September. A couple weeks ago, I received a rather startling template email from one of the event coordinators. As a speaker, I was being offered a day pass to the event for the day I was speaking, which in reality translates to maybe seeing 2 talks. To say the least, I was taken-aback, since the norm in the infosec industry is to grant speakers a full conference pass. I mentioned this ridonkulousness to a few people directly, as well as in passing on Twitter, and was contacted by a rep from ISC2 to explain the situation.

Quite simply, the situation is this: ASIS International does not offer speakers conference passes. Period. End of story. Apparently they never have in their 58 year run. ISC2 is co-locating their event with ASIS 2012 - at the request of ASIS, it should be noted - and thus is subject to the ASIS rules, no matter how outdated and insulting they might be.

Now, mind you, ASIS doesn't charge as much as events like RSA do ($875 early-bird reg for members, $1125 for non-members), but still... this is a very large event (as big as, if not bigger than, the US-base RSA Conference). In this day and age - especially with the economy as it is - I find it egregiously disrespectful that a major conference would not comp speakers a full pass.

So, there you have it... ASIS is unwilling to evolve their policies and show their speakers a little hard-earned respect.

6 Comments

Not only cheap and disrespectful of ASIS, but ISC2 shows no spine to accede to such pathetic conditions.

ISC2 is actively working to change things. ASIS is the 800+ lb gorilla here, and have been operating this way for 58 years now.

I guess that is something speakers will need to negotiate prior to committing to speak at these events -- or increase any compensation received by the amount of full admission. This does strike me a being very cheap though.

Just to clarify, very cheap on ASIS's part.

It turns out, there's an interesting twist in the story, but I can't share it publicly, at the request of ISC2. I'll email you full details... oh, and I *wish* I was getting paid to speak! ;)

One additional note: I got on-site for the event yesterday and found that speakers aren't even automatically registered (even as speakers). ASIS had sent me a registration code, but at no point was I told that I needed to actually register myself. Checking in for the event took me about 30 minutes overall, standing in 5 different lines, all because ASIS doesn't not properly respect their speakers. Absolutely terrible.

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This page contains a single entry by Ben Tomhave published on August 2, 2012 11:13 AM.

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