ʇɐʞlᴉʌƎ 🇺🇦🌈 is rnbwkatWhat. A. Day.
Yesterday at BSidesNewcastle I started out working check-in for the first three hours, happily scanning badges and saying hi to everyone rolling in. Easy start, right? Except… at 10am, one of the other organizers casually asks, “Are you ready for your 12:30?”
Wait. My WHAT?! 😳
Apparently, I was scheduled to give my brand-new talk “Going Solo: Thriving as a Single Professional in Cybersecurity” at 12:30. No slides. No deck. No practice run. Cue me checking people in while feverishly building a presentation on my laptop. By 11:30 I had something stitched together, plugged in at 12:30 sharp, and… walked into a PACKED room. People sitting on the floor. No one left. I got emotional a few times, but at the end, so many came up to thank me. Honestly? It was overwhelming in the best way.
Then at 5pm, I closed out the day with my scheduled locknote on Cloud Misconfigurations. Smooth, fun, and the perfect way to wrap up.
BSides Newcastle—thank you. For the friends, the hugs, the chaos, the love, and the reminder that sometimes the best talks are the ones you didn’t know you were giving. 🦩
And @sashatheflamingo had an amazing day, giving out new stickers, making new friends and giving away baby flamingos at the end. She of course is the rock star, I'm just her handler.
#BSidesNewcastle #BSidesNCL #BSidesChicago #FlamingoUprising #CyberSecurity
Sasha the Flamingo
Dan Conn
