Training for RSAC.

Yes, I'm getting ready for the RSA Conference next month in San Francisco. RSA is a particularly brutal week for those in my line of work; thus far I'm meeting with 23 vendors, most of them in 30-minute sessions, and that's not counting the time I'll be walking the exhibit hall, trying to meet with more. I have three panels and one talk to give during the week. We won't mention all the vendor events in the evenings, both public and private, the side conferences taking place, or the fun gatherings like the Security Bloggers' Meetup.

In order to get ready for this challenge, I've been doing the following exercises, which you may want to try as well:

• Walk three miles in heels; drink two cocktails and then walk another mile without spraining an ankle.
• Stand for two hours in one spot, holding a tiny napkin full of mini-quiches and seared tuna canapés in one hand, a glass of Pinot Noir in the other, and handing out business cards with the other other hand.
• Go to a public restroom and practice removing stains from the aforementioned wine and canapés from a white shirt.
• Do wind sprints through a hallway full of high school students to practice the art of the two-minute break between one-on-one meetings.
• Speed-read through books on calculus, knitting, quantum mechanics, teleology, bread baking, and constitutional law to get ready for reams of vendor brochures and white papers.
• Practice lip-reading in a dark room by the light of strobes and lasers. 
• Memorize 80 names per day out of the phone book.
• Practice listening earnestly to comedian monologues without cracking a smile or giggling.
  
  and finally ...
  
• Go geocaching in Costco to practice finding the one vendor at RSA that is not claiming to do 'big data' or 'analytics.'

 See you there.