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Planning for Summit 2017

With the IAPP Privacy Summit less than a month away, it is time to start planning what you will be doing there.  If you are going to the Summit this year, there are a large number of sessions, speakers, and exhibitors for you to check out and learn from.  This stands alone from the thousands of attendees, all of whom have some level of privacy expertise and experience that you can learn from.

Breakout Sessions and more

The Summit has always had fantastic sessions where you can learn about current or emerging privacy trends.  New or planned regulations, handling particular scenarios, or simply explaining the best way to implement or develop policy can all be found at one session or another.  Once you are at the summit, and even before hand on the IAPP website, you can find a schedule of all the sessions and plan out when and where you want to go.

For some suggestions, you may want to attend the pre-show workshops, covering GDPR or other privacy hot topics on Tuesday in the morning.  The sessions on Wednesday and beyond include topics like artificial intelligence, Privacy Shield, or more general privacy topics. The full schedule can be found here.

Exhibits A-Z

The exhibit hall is a lot more than just vendors and free stuff.  There is the Little Big Stage, where you can see many presentations that cover a variety of topics.  This year, we are proud to be presenting alongside students from Saint Joseph’s University.  They will be showing our co-developed predictive breach cost model and we are excited to have them with us at the conference.

It is also important to note that vendors, while they are trying to sell you on their services, can provide insight into a number of privacy issues facing all of us.  Taking time to speak with them can help you understand how to tackle a particular issue.  Also remember that many of the groups at the Summit are there to show you how knowledgeable they are, so let them show off a bit for you and maybe you can learn something new.  You could check out the Privacy Ref booth, pick up some free stuff, and learn how we are helping organizations successfully implement privacy programs.

Mixers and meet-ups

One of the best parts of the Summit is meeting other privacy professionals.  On the first day, Tuesday the 18th, there is a 5-minute mixer.  Think of it as speed networking.  I have met everyone from CEOs to law students at these mixers and it is a great experience.  Expanding your network is always helpful as you can potentially call on those people if you need some help down the road.  It is also a good way to feel more comfortable at future conferences as you can meet old acquaintances, and make new ones through the power that is networking.

If you cannot make it to the Summit this year, maybe we will see you at the PSR 2017 Conference on the west coast.  Otherwise, we hope to see you at the IAPP’s Privacy Summit this year.