Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Keynote ASIS Speaker

JH
John Honovich
Feb 20, 2013
IPVM

Apple Co-Founder and Dancing with the Stars veteran Steve Wozniak is keynoting this year's ASIS convention.

What do you think?

JH
John Honovich
Feb 20, 2013
IPVM

I know ASIS sometimes gets people only tangentially related to security but this seems really weird and extreme even by their standards. Woz is a nice guy and entertaining but how is this related in any way to security?

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Marty Major
Feb 21, 2013
Teledyne FLIR

Last year in Philly, one of the keynote speakers (along with Big Sis and Robert Gates) was the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei).

How was he related to security? I'd rather see Woz then some dude nobody has ever even heard of... :)

JH
John Honovich
Feb 21, 2013
IPVM

Take your example. You had the head of Homeland Security and a former Defense Secretary who are clearly valuable to that audience. The International Atomic Energy Agency guy may not be as big a name as the others but he too was relevant to security (nuclear security/threats). It's not as useful to manufacturers or integrator but for security managers/execs, it's germane.

I get Woz is more of a personality but is that enough? Why not David Hasselhoff then? Or have Jeff Ross speed roast CPPs?

JH
John Honovich
Feb 21, 2013
IPVM

Re: question of getting Woz to speak. He's available through numerous speaker services. On this one, his fee is listed as $50,000+ which makes sense to me.

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
Feb 21, 2013

I might actually try to catch Woz's keynote. It would be my first.

JH
John Honovich
Feb 21, 2013
IPVM

You are afraid to reveal your identity about wanting to watch Woz? :)

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Ethan Ace
Feb 21, 2013

My first was Pervez Musharraf, and he was extremely interesting. Like John said re: others up there, not purely security related, but related to the state of the world, terrorism, national defense, etc., which is of great interest to CSOs out there.

There are definitely worse choices than Woz, but I doubt it'll be all that pertinent. He seems more like the type they'd use as the closing day luncheon speaker.

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Carlton Purvis
Feb 21, 2013

ElBaradei is pretty well known worldwide for his work with the IAEA. His work as director of the IAEA was focused on making it harder for countries to develop nuclear weapons. Both his talk and Gates' were extremely timely as they focused on securing nuclear weapons and peaceful proliferation. In the weeks leading up to ASIS there was talk in the news of the U.S. and Israel exploring what military actions were available to deter Iran from making a weapon.

As for Woz, maybe he can talk about the recent Apple hack?

JH
John Honovich
Feb 21, 2013
IPVM

I doubt Woz knows any current Apple technical details. He's more like mascot than anything else today (not a criticism, he's a great guy just not kept in the loop).

I suspect Woz will be similar to Dave Barry at ASIS 2010. The other keynotes will almost certainly be real political / security types.

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Brian Karas
Feb 21, 2013
Pelican Zero

I voted as "Good Idea", because overall for ASIS I think Woz will offer some cache and draw people to the ASIS event in general and the keynote session.

Personally I think it's more "bad idea", I'm not sure what relevance Woz really has to anything. Not trying to bash him, he is just sort of the Paris Hilton of the geek crowd, nobody is exactly sure how or why he stays relevant, yet he does.

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Brian Rhodes
Feb 22, 2013
IPVMU Certified

"Paris Hilton of the geek crowd"

Not only does that simile work, I feel strangely sorry for both Woz and Paris Hilton.

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Sandip Sengupta
Feb 24, 2013

I read about Woz from Steve's Biography and found to be immensely talented person and a thought leader. His speech will defintely bring value, but as far as Security Industry goes this is intriguing if he has something very very specific to offer.

JH
John Honovich
Feb 24, 2013
IPVM

Evidently, Woz's speech is the opening keynote, which is typically the biggest and most prestigious one (ASIS lists it for Wednesday morning - first exhibit day). This, in particular, suprises me. I thought the non security, light keynote is typically on the last day (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dave Barry, etc.).

CP
Carlton Purvis
Sep 18, 2013

For those of you more interested in sports:

"Mike Ditka legendary football player, coach, TV analyst speaks at #isc2congress #ASIS2013 closing luncheon.You going? (ISC)² Security Congress 2019 - Cybersecurity Conference | Orlando Florida 2019 | Online Registration by Cvent "

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Michael Budalich
Sep 18, 2013
Genetec

Best picture of Mike Ditka all time:

Mike Ditka

JG
John Grocke
Sep 18, 2013

Ditka - The meaning of life...

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