Fernando Montenegro’s Post

I strongly believe in lifelong learning. Feeling like a beginner is uncomfortable, but is what leads to growth. So I went to a marketing conference... and had a BLAST. Writing this not only to thank everyone involved, but also to highlight to others the key themes I took from the conference. The Cybermarketing Conference is the marquee event for the Cybersecurity Marketing Society, led by the wonderful Gianna Whitver and Maria Velasquez, with a large supporting team. The 4-day event had numerous workshops, sessions, and more covering multiple aspects of marketing specifically in the context of cybersecurity. The key themes that I took from the event: * The recognition of the importance of community and authenticity. Marketing teams are working hard to make sure there's real value in interacting with their respective brands, often in the form of interesting and authentic insights for a participant in a community. * The importance of data. Be it the multiple surveys that indicate behavior or the intent data that surfaces from 1st-party and 3rd-party sources, not to mention the focus on meaningful metric, a successful marketing team must be comfortable with data, lots of it. * AI is a double-edged sword. AI comes to the rescue to assist resource-strapped teams as a multiplier for their productivity, but the challenge of creating differentiated, authentic content is a sober counterpoint to "AI all the things!" * A lot was said about making sure marketing is aligned to sales and to the broader business. To me, it's uncanny how similar that challenge is to what a lot of security teams also go through. Food for thought. * There's a vibrant ecosystem of supporting entities. Be it agencies, technology vendors, influencers, analysts, investors, channel partners, media, and more, a good marketing team is effective at coordinating across all these resources. Other considerations: * Event operations was PHENOMENAL. Trust marketing teams to know how to run an event :-) The "icebreaker" questions strategically placed at the tables was an awesome touch. * Brazilians tend to find each other at these events, and I got to meet and hang out with an amazing crew: Bruno Baldo, Carolina Janovik, Paola Scampini, Andre Piazza, Suelen De Sousa, and honorary member Aileen Casmano :-) * It was wonderful to run into SO many friends from industry including but not limited to Beth Barach, Mimi Gross ✨, Chris Cochran, Andy Ellis, Ron Eddings, David Spark, Marc Blackmer, Navneet Singh , Brian Gladstein, Donna Estrin, Colby DeRodeff, Richard Melick, Tyler Shields, 💡Manny Ataebi, Dan Lowden, and so, so many others. All in all, it absolutely helped me better understand cybersecurity marketing. I think it made me a better industry analyst and, hopefully, also a better professional. I'm looking forward to next year's edition. Gianna, Maria, and team, as well as everyone else who attended, sponsored, and supported this wonderful event, please accept my most profound thanks.