Here's an interesting difference between infosec and physsec that highlights a failure to evolve. One of my talk proposals was accepted for the ISC2 Security Congress 2012 in Philadelphia this September. A couple weeks ago, I received a rather startling template email from one of the event coordinators. As a speaker, I was being offered a day pass to the event for the day I was speaking, which in reality translates to maybe seeing 2 talks. To say the least, I was taken-aback, since the norm in the infosec industry is to grant speakers a full conference pass. I mentioned this ridonkulousness to a few people directly, as well as in passing on Twitter, and was contacted by a rep from ISC2 to explain the situation.
Quite simply, the situation is this: ASIS International does not offer speakers conference passes. Period. End of story. Apparently they never have in their 58 year run. ISC2 is co-locating their event with ASIS 2012 - at the request of ASIS, it should be noted - and thus is subject to the ASIS rules, no matter how outdated and insulting they might be.
Now, mind you, ASIS doesn't charge as much as events like RSA do ($875 early-bird reg for members, $1125 for non-members), but still... this is a very large event (as big as, if not bigger than, the US-base RSA Conference). In this day and age - especially with the economy as it is - I find it egregiously disrespectful that a major conference would not comp speakers a full pass.
So, there you have it... ASIS is unwilling to evolve their policies and show their speakers a little hard-earned respect.
Not only cheap and disrespectful of ASIS, but ISC2 shows no spine to accede to such pathetic conditions.
ISC2 is actively working to change things. ASIS is the 800+ lb gorilla here, and have been operating this way for 58 years now.
I guess that is something speakers will need to negotiate prior to committing to speak at these events -- or increase any compensation received by the amount of full admission. This does strike me a being very cheap though.
Just to clarify, very cheap on ASIS's part.
It turns out, there's an interesting twist in the story, but I can't share it publicly, at the request of ISC2. I'll email you full details... oh, and I *wish* I was getting paid to speak! ;)
One additional note: I got on-site for the event yesterday and found that speakers aren't even automatically registered (even as speakers). ASIS had sent me a registration code, but at no point was I told that I needed to actually register myself. Checking in for the event took me about 30 minutes overall, standing in 5 different lines, all because ASIS doesn't not properly respect their speakers. Absolutely terrible.