Thank you very much for joining our Free Community Event,
On December 3, I joined a group of Aussie Office fanatics which they put together a conference called Office DevCon, its an annual Office Event.
The event was great for anyone involved in managing Office products in their workplace, seek or for those interested in getting a little more intimate with the Office 2010 suite, patient SharePoint and more.
I spoke about SharePoint Security , as this is the best office product I can use and secure 🙂
Keep in mind the event is free and register if you are an Microsoft office fan.
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft.
It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite (bundled set of productivity applications), the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language.
Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand. On July 10, 2012, Softpedia reported that Office was being used by over a billion people worldwide.
Office is produced in several versions targeted towards different end-users and computing environments. The original, and most widely used version, is the desktop version, available for PCs running the Windows and macOS operating systems. Microsoft also maintains mobile apps for Android and iOS. Office on the web is a version of the software that runs within a web browser.
Since Office 2013, Microsoft has promoted Office 365 as the primary means of obtaining Microsoft Office: it allows the use of the software and other services on a subscription business model, and users receive feature updates to the software for the lifetime of the subscription, including new features and cloud computing integration that are not necessarily included in the “on-premises” releases of Office sold under conventional license terms. In 2017, revenue from Office 365 overtook conventional license sales. Microsoft also rebranded most of their standard Office 365 editions into Microsoft 365 to emphasize their current inclusion of products and services.
The current on-premises, desktop version of Office is Office 2019, released on September 24, 2018;while the next edition of this model, Office 2021, will be released on October 5, 2021.
CISO Insight
Industry events remain one of the most effective ways for security leaders to stay current, build peer networks, and discover approaches that no vendor whitepaper can teach. The hallway conversations between sessions — where practitioners share what actually worked and what failed — consistently deliver more actionable intelligence than the formal presentations themselves.
Why Cybersecurity Events Matter for Practitioners
The cybersecurity industry moves at a pace where knowledge has a short half-life. Techniques that were cutting-edge 18 months ago may already be outdated. Threat actors evolve continuously, and defenders must keep pace. Industry events — conferences, summits, forums, and workshops — serve as concentrated knowledge-transfer mechanisms where practitioners can absorb months of industry developments in days. Beyond the formal agenda, events create opportunities for informal knowledge exchange that drives real operational improvement. CISOs discussing challenges over coffee, incident responders comparing detection approaches, architects debating implementation strategies — these peer interactions produce insights impossible to replicate through online content alone.
Building a Strategic Approach to Industry Engagement
For CISOs managing limited time and travel budgets, being selective about events is essential. The most valuable events combine technical depth with strategic relevance, attract genuine practitioners rather than just vendors, and provide structured networking. Regional events often deliver more value per hour than mega-conferences because the community is smaller and more focused. I recommend mixing one or two large international events with several focused regional forums for the best balance of breadth and depth. The connections made at these events prove invaluable during incident response, technology evaluations, and career transitions.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should CISOs choose which cybersecurity events to attend?
Prioritise events that align with your current strategic priorities, attract peers from your industry sector, and provide opportunities for genuine peer interaction beyond vendor presentations. Look for strong speaker curation, hands-on workshops, and structured networking opportunities.
What is the ROI of attending cybersecurity conferences?
The return comes in multiple forms: peer intelligence that informs strategy, vendor evaluations from practitioners, talent pipeline development, and professional growth. CISOs who invest in event attendance consistently report that connections made prove valuable during incidents, evaluations, and transitions.
Related reading: Visit our CISO Career Hub or explore the Cyber Resilience Hub for frameworks and resources.