Before presenting in a country I never visited I always try to read about the local culture and understand the basic do's and don'ts. Besides being IMHO a basic form of respect for your hosts, this helps you avoiding VERY embarrassing situations that you'd never ever figure out on your own. If you ever followed one of my presentations, you know that my "Identity Metasystem in a nutshell" pitch is a slide describing the msdn faceless guy having his age checked in order to get some wine. This example

Well, I really really enjoyed going to RSA. As I foresaw, more than the event itself I really appreciated the chance of meeting with very smart people: the Concordia and the OSIS events were truly exceptional in this sense. Axel captured some of that spirit here . Just to mention a few notable encounters: I spent some quality time with Pat Patterson , mainly discussing the book. I really really appreciated his honesty and his feedback, he truly read the book with attention and his remarks were always

After a remarkably quiet flight I landed in S.Francisco: the city of the Golden Gate , the Italian consulate and the theater of this year's RSA conference . I just unloaded on the bed all the swag from the conference bag (very original BTW, love the Turing theme ), and I was going through my agenda so far: believe it or not, Caleb and I actually have a book signing session (for the listeners tuning in just now, this is the book ). I already felt it a bit surreal, but when I saw our names adjacent