What I learned while in Detroit:

1. Detroit is cool town. The story repeated by business owners, folks that work down town, and cab drivers is that the worst is in the rear view, and what is coming will be different.  Not a comeback, but a transformation. My limited view of the town over the few days I was there seemed to confirm this upbeat notion.
2. SiRACON attracts smart people.  The level of discourse was high, and one could hear the comfortable but outdated iconography of information risk crumble and erode.  There is data.  You can quantify.  There are ways to tackle the problem.  All is not lost.  This zeitgeist is refreshing in the milieu of the wider infosec discussion of bitterness and defeat in the face of vicious enemies and stupid users.
3. A professionally run, information dense conference in a state of the art facility can cost only $100.  The mind is boggled.  Better run, better content, better venue than conferences that charge 10 times as much.  And who need another serving of hotel chicken in Orlando?  No one.
4. There is plenty of data, it is everywhere you look, and it is there to help you.  Data from open source security indicators, from 3rd party risk assessment questionnaires (my favorite), data from others (VERIS), and your own damn data.  And you can freq it, you can bayes it, or your can just look at it.  It is there to help you, help your gut, make your decisions good.
5. It’s a gas when your talk goes well.  I think mine did.  If I did nothing but play the role of uditore buffo in some data-driven commedia dell’arte, it would have been enough. Laughs are good.  And maybe my recounting my experiences of dealing with qualies helped.  I hope so.  Auditors are  behind the eight-ball, and need to get on board the science wagon-train.
6. Treating a debilitating headache with Motrin from the liquor store leads to system purge.  I learned this on my first day, whilst curled in a fetal ball moaning in my comfy bed at the Greektown Casino Hotel.
7. Choice quotes: “Science advances one funeral at a time” & “When you get kicked in the balls, all you ask about are cups.”
8. I’ll be back for more SiRACON.  You should too.