Last week I attended my first RSAC in San Francisco. To say it was a great experience would be the understatement of the year.
The conference is enormous, and you can tell just by walking around downtown as the streets were filled with people sporting their RSAC badges. I quietly slipped mine off whenever I ventured outside the convention center. Wearing it felt like broadcasting to the city: "I'm from out of town — please rob, scam, or at least aggressively inconvenience me." Better to blend in with the local hipster cyclists. More on that later.
AI Everywhere (And I Mean Everywhere)
AI dominated the conference floor. Nearly every booth referenced it, the street advertisements were themed around it, and by day two I half-expected to find an AI-powered fixture in the restroom. (In some parts of North America they call it a "restroom" — in Toronto we say "washroom." My theory is that in some locations companies work their employees so hard that the restroom is the only place they can hide and actually get some rest 😂.)
There was a creeping, panicky feeling that this whole AI thing had spiraled beyond anyone's control. Which is why, I'll admit without exaggeration, stumbling upon Veeam's booth featuring AGENT Commander was genuinely comforting. In an ocean of AI everything, here was a company actually taking command — giving us humans a sense of security and control.
Tech Field Day: Under the Microscope
On Monday I had to deliver a Tech Field Day presentation. I'd previously attended as a delegate, but this was my first time being the one on camera. I tried to stay calm. The press center was generously stocked with free coffee, food, and other goodies courtesy of Veeam, and I made sure to take advantage of the free breakfast!
The worst part of any presentation is the fifteen minutes or so before it begins. That's when you notice things like a rogue hair pointing in the wrong direction, and your mind helpfully goes through every possible thing that could go wrong. I attempted some deep breathing to settle my nerves, though judging by the look the barista gave me, my meditative state appeared somewhat out of place in this particular crowd of über-cool tech nerds.
When it was finally time to enter the room, I felt reasonably confident, that is until I saw the Veeam team walking out who had just presented. It was the professional equivalent of warming up for a soccer match and watching the Brazilian national team stroll past. I caught a glimpse of the Rickatron himself, wearing his serious VeeamON organizing face which again made me thing I was walking on to the soccer pitch having just passed Leonid Messi. I briefly considered faking some kind of medical episode in order to bail out but realized that it was too late. Thankfully, my boss presented first, which gave me time to settle and read the room.
Tuesday: Theater Talks and Surprise Guests
On Tuesday I had my Theater presentation. I hovered near the stage for the first two speakers and watched in silent horror as the "screen is not working" catastrophe unfolded and one poor fellow was reduced to reading from a notebook until the TV finally blinked and came up with his PowerPoint presentation.
My own nerves returned, though I consoled myself with the observation that most people were using the theater seats primarily to rest, given the limited seating elsewhere in the venue. The odds of a sharp eyed adversarial nerd wandering in to challenge my claims felt reassuringly low.
I let my voice carry and felt confident until I noticed Jason Garbis of Numberline Security sitting in the front row. Jason is essentially the academic godfather of Zero Trust Data Resilience, a framework I would be enthusiastically quoting throughout my talk. It was the equivalent of presenting on the theory of relativity and having Einstein sitting right there in front of you. I pressed on regardless, leaning into excited hand gestures and emphatic facial expressions whenever ZTDR came up. Afterward, Jason approached and we had a great conversation. Relief is a wonderful state of mind!
The City
During breaks I walked around the city. The architecture is very interesting, both modern and old.
Salesforce have even created a park on the 4th floor of a building that you have to use and elevator to get to.
Another highlight was walking into the LinkedIn building. I fully expected to be greeted by the CEO with an award for “Original Poster of the Year” (remember all of my OOTBI plushy toy posts!!), but alas I remained incognito and ignored.
The Final Bell — and Then a Bike
During the conference I did a lot of booth duty and was genuinely impressed with the people’s knowledge about data protection and backups. Keep in mind you meet different types of people at conferences and some were a bit intimidating:
Booth duty is hard work but very rewarding. I also performed a trivia contest 4 times at our booth. The first time folks from other booths complained as my loud voice plus microphone was drowning out our corner of the conference.
By 2 PM on Thursday, when the conference officially closed, I was thoroughly exhausted. And yet I couldn't resist. I grabbed a bike-share day pass and set off on a self-guided tour of the city.
San Francisco is aggressively hilly, and Toronto's long, snowbound winter had kept me off a bike for nearly two months, a fact my legs would remind me of the next day. The highlight of my two wheeled wanderings was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. You could take a bus, or drive, but nothing compares to crossing under your own power. The Pacific wind was hitting me from the side and it was as if I was actually flying.
From there I wound through Golden Gate Park, where Bruce Lee once trained and eventually reached Ocean Beach. The waves were serious, complete with rip current warnings that were clearly not decorative. I waded in, and at one point my tired legs nearly buckled against the pull of the water. I held on, made it out, and began the long ride back.
The Streetcar Home
On departure day, I took an old PCC streetcar down to the BART station. I try to avoid taxis and rideshares when I travel as highways and cars look the same everywhere on earth but public transport has its own unique idiosyncrasies in different places. You can sit there being the silent spectator watching the local people go about their lives.
The PCC cars used to run all over North America. They were the workhorses of Toronto's transit network before being retired in the 1990s. I'd forgotten how wonderfully loud they were. Crashing, clanging and bell-ringing, sounds that would easily drown out those people who enjoy using their phone’s speaker on transit these days. Yes some things were better back in the day 😂!
At one point I rolled down the window and closed my eyes. The sounds were exactly as I remembered: the banging, the clatter, the sharp ring of the bell. For a moment I was transported back to my childhood, coming home late on the streetcar, worried about what my mother would say. A whole stream of people and moments rushed through my mind, all of them long gone and living now only in my memory.
I opened my eyes as we pulled into Embarcadero station, in mild bewilderment from my time travel and I thought about how unique and special it is to be human.
