During the 2006 conference, ConSec organizers celebrated a decade of sharing. ConSec's education sessions focus on key knowledge areas including business contingency planning, all technical and administrative aspects of information security planning, privacy issues, IT risk management planning, all areas of IT audit and training of IT staff.

During the opening general session, ConSec Steering Committee Chairman William Tompkins said it was not just the conference's education sessions that made the conference valuable, but the tremendous networking opportunities.

He asked how many individuals were attending the conference for the first time. Although slightly more than half were new attendees; the remaining attendees indicated that they had attended at least two or more ConSec Conferences. As Tompkins reviewed the themes of past ConSec conference, he asked individuals to remain standing if they had participated in each conference. By the time he had counted back to the first conference in 1996, seven individuals remained standing.

Check out Tompkins' review of a decade of sharing.

The theme for ConSec'06 was "Converging on Information Assurance." Speakers emphasized how technology-supported business processes have critical dependencies on both protection and availability. More and more practitioners in the technology, security, continuity, and audit fields recognize that what they do is about information assurance (making sure that information is available to legitimate users for legitimate purposes, wherever and whenever the users need it). 

As speakers noted, this "convergence" of purpose presents both challenges and opportunities.  In the aftermath of the catastrophic events of 2005, information technology practitioners recognize the importance of having thorough and complimentary planning and implementation activities now, rather than later.  Managers and executives expect comprehensive recommendations for activities that will protect valued information resources and ensure availability of information that the business processes rely upon.  The practitioner's efforts are not just parts of normal change but are now part of an intensive change. It is evident that there are significant overlaps of contingency planning and information security planning practitioners' activities.
     
Information provided in the ConSec'06 sessions sought to assist the practitioner in overcoming the inherent restrictions of maintaining core competencies in "silo" areas. The practitioner gained new insights to communications and information sharing across the old "silo" boundaries. Attendees left with better skill sets and more ideas to positively affect the organization's capability to perform its mission.