ASIS 2013
News, Technical ·Tuesday September 24, 2013 @ 22:10 EDT (link)
Today I went to the ASIS 2103 security conference; Exacq chartered a bus up today (and Wednesday, so people had a choice), and some people (mainly sales and upper management, and some people involved in new projects) were there most of the week.
It was held at the McCormick center in Chicago (about four hours drive each way); the halls (A1 and A2) had a capacity (as advertised by the fire warning signs) of 20,020 (yes, twenty thousand and twenty). There were hundreds of exhibitors (and seminars, but we day trippers got free exhibit-only badges; no free bag, either). I grabbed a map and tried to be systematic about visiting all the booths, although it was easy to get turned around at the food court areas. Mike had his pedometer and figured he walked about four miles, so I probably did about the same, maybe more.
I picked up a lot of cloth bags, a couple screwdrivers, juggling/stress balls, tinfoil credit card holder, pens (everyone had pens, so here I could have standards…), a bottle opener key ring (Canon logo; maybe I should give it to my dad), some ties/badge holders, flashlights, cup holders, and managed to avoid literature except some pre-inserted into bags. We'll never need to use plastic shopping bags again. (Hey, it's my first conference of the type; I'm sure I won't bother much at the next one; and I actually stopped at each booth to learn what they did. Surprisingly many weren't obvious from what they had displayed.)
The bus left Exacq at 0730 and we left Chicago at probably around 1645 (all times Eastern, even though Chicago is in Central), although 1630 was advertised. We made a stop on the way for breakfast (Gatorade and trail mix) and on the way back (Wendy's, salad). I guess it was close to 2030 when I got home; long day.
Exacq's booth was a good size (with the smallest ones being 1x1, which is maybe 10' square?, it was a 2x2 and had no direct neighbors. We were also in other booths—Tyco's, of course, due to the acquisition (they had a 6x6 and a 6x5, both near the entrance, and were conference sponsors), and some of the camera makers: Samsung, Arecont, ACTi, Axis, etc. There was plenty of physical security gear (bullet-proof vests, security vehicles, including Segway and Cisco's mobile command center van, and Motorola had a technically equipped police car, and some security barriers), uniforms (5.11 was there too), network security, X-ray and other scanners.
