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#S2Roadshow Recap – Week Six

Fargo, ND and Rochester, NY

If you’re new, or you’re confused about this #S2Roadshow thing, start here (maybe). It’s hard to believe that each week gets better, but it’s true, it does! Week #6 (this one) was the best yet.

Previous Week’s Recaps:

The purpose of the SecurityStudio Roadshow (#S2Roadhow) is to meet people and make partners. We want to meet people, understand their businesses, and help them grow using simple, fundamental, and compliant solutions (S2Score, S2Org, S2Vendor, and S2Team/S2Me).

Our mission is to fix the broken information security industry. Success requires collaboration, partnership, and transparency.

John and I spent half the week together and the other half in separate towns.

BBQ Reviews

In full transparency, we have a secondary mission on the #S2Roadshow. We eat as much BBQ as we can. After stuffing ourselves, I summarize our BBQ reviews at the end of each recap article (see below).

Fargo, North Dakota

If you’ve never been to Fargo in November, you’ve got to give it a try sometime. You can visit Bonanzaville USA, the Fargo Air Museum, or you could come to do what we did, attend Network Center’s nVision conference. We left on Tuesday for the 3-1/2 hour drive to Fargo, and got there just in time for the vendor social hour.

Network Center is a great company, and we’re big fans. It helps that they’re a trusted SecurityStudio partner.

On my trip up north, I was joined by three of my favorite SecurityStudio people; John Harmon, Justin Kallberg, and Steve Krause (all pictured below).

nVision 2019

We’ve been at the nVision conference for years now, and this one was the best yet. There were 500+ people packed into the Fargo Holiday Inn Conference Center, all there to learn and network together. Of course, there were plenty of vendor booths there (including ours – below) too.

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There were so many incredible people at this event, and it was great catching up with people I hadn’t seen in a while. After spending a few hours hanging out with cool people, I gave my talk on the main stage at 1:00. I changed my talk at the last minute (as per usual) and decided to give the “How do we secure America” sermon that I developed the week prior.

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The place was packed and the audience was amazing! We hung out at our booth afterwards and gave out a whole box of UNSECURITY books for free. I met countless awesome people, including Zoe Bundy (pictured below with her brother Grover), Frank LaLonde (from Nativity Church of Fargo – also pictured below), John Nagel (Cybernet Security), and Larry Schwab (Discovery Benefits CISO).

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One person who stands out from the rest is Zoe. She’s incredible, and she’s the founder of Brainy Ladies. Brainy Ladies is a cool organization with an awesome purpose; “We help young girls find their inner genius by helping them remain interested in STEM.” I met Zoe for the first time at last year’s nVision conference, and it was wonderful to see her again. Read her story here, and tell me you’re not impressed! I’ll get her on the UNSECURITY Podcast one of these days, hopefully soon.

nVision was a great conference. Sadly, we didn’t have time to grab any BBQ in Fargo. Curious, is there any good BBQ in Fargo? The platter of bacon laid out at the nVision lunch buffet will have to do.

Rochester, New York

Made it back to the Twin Cities early enough to grab five hours of sleep before catching my 5:15am flight to Rochester. I have an affinity for Rochester because one of my favorite customers (@FRsecure) is Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. Funny thing is (sort of), I’ll be back in Rochester to do some work for Excellus the following week.

The purpose for this particular visit was to attend and present at the Rochester ISSA chapter meeting being held on Thursday night.

Two trips to Rochester in five days. Weird.

First thing after landing in Rochester was to find BBQ. Took out my phone, opened my Apple Map and typed “BBQ”. The closest BBQ joint that looked legit was Unkl Moe’s BBQ & Catering at 493 West Ave (review below). That’ll do.

After BBQ, it was time for an early check-in at the hotel and a short nap.

Rochester ISSA

The Rochester ISSA meeting started at 6:00pm, and I was almost late. I started doing some work in the hotel and got a little caught up in it. The meeting was held at the offices of Nixon Peabody, a nice law firm located at 1300 Clinton Square. Guess what they had catered in? BBQ! Before the meeting started, we enjoyed some Dinosaur BBQ (one of my favorites in Rochester) while we got to know each other.

The meeting was great! Attendance was good, participation was awesome, and they let me preach for a full hour and a half. I preached about mental health, getting our industry’s security #*(! together, and civic duties for security people. Great talk and discussion!

Gave away a few books, and headed back to the hotel at 10:00pm. Ray Feldman left me a nice shoutout before I got back.

Most of the day Friday was spent at Starbucks catching up on email and other things that I’d neglected over the week. Tried another BBQ joint before heading to the airport, Texas Bar-B-Q Joint in Spencerport (review below).

Overall, this was another great week. Met a ton of new and wonderful people!

BBQ Reviews

Only two BBQ reviews again. We still need to step up our game.

Unkl Moe’s BBQ & Catering – no website – Overall: 6.5

Hard to believe that I didn’t nab any BBQ this week until Thursday after getting off the plane in Rochester. It is what it is. I chose Unkl Moe’s because it was the closest BBQ joint to the Rochester airport and it got fairly good reviews.

I walked in the front door and the smokey smell hit me nicely. The inside of this place reminded me of a small town southern diner with most of the seats occupied by regulars. My hopes were high. I bellied up to the counter, grabbed a menu, and ordered the BBQ ribs and pulled pork platter (choosing french fries and cabbage as my sides).

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Sadly, I was a little disappointed by the place, except for the conversations I had with the regulars. One conversation in particular was great! While eating, I struck up a conversation with a retired OTR trucker named Howard and we talked about all sorts of things; politics, his hometown in Georgia, etc.

The food definitely wasn’t the best thing about this place. The pulled pork had a nice texture, but the flavor was missing. The ribs were OK, but they were smothered in sauce. I’d go back to this place for the conversation, but not the food.

Texas Bar-B-Q Joint (Spencerport) – https://www.bbqrochester.com/spencerport – Overall: 7.00

I didn’t realize that this was a small chain of BBQ joints until I sat down to write this. This was my first trip to Spencerport and I was excited to try this place. The reviews were good and I felt like I could almost taste the pictures online.

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Walked in and ordered my food at the bar (sliced brisket, pulled pork, and sausage with macaroni and cheese and steamed vegetables for sides). The guy taking my order was helpful, and I took my seat at one of the open booths in the corner. This joint looked very promising and the it smelled amazing. It was lunch time and there were maybe eight people in the place.

It didn’t take long before I realized how cold it was. They must have had the thermostat set at 60! Whatever, I blew it off. I came here for some meat.

The cook called my name, and I jumped to grab my tray. I was excited and hungry. Turned out, I was also a little disappointed. Everything was OK, but nothing was exceptional. The portions were good. The pulled pork was a little watery. The brisket was OK, but it was cut too thick and it wasn’t smokey enough. The best part of the meal was sadly the macaroni and cheese.

Remember how I said the place was cold? A cold BBQ joint makes things suck more. This is because the meat on your plate starts cooling off too quickly and by the time you’re getting towards the end, the meat is cold, dry, and chewy.

The BBQ wasn’t bad. Just not sure I’ll be back. Maybe in the summer.

BBQ Summary

Again, two new BBQ joints to add to our list. This was a disappointing BBQ week. The winner was Texas Bar-B-Q Joint (Spencerport, NY). Pecan Lodge easily retains it’s top place as overall #S2Roadshow leader with a score of 9, and Bowlegged BBQ is still in the #2 spot. The current overall standings are listed below.

Overall Standings (at the end of #S2Roadshow Week Three):

  • Pecan Lodge – 9
  • Bowlegged BBQ – 8.75
  • Divine Swine – 8.5
  • Big Ed’s BBQ – 8.25
  • Mission BBQ – 8
  • Cousin’s BBQ – 7.75
  • Blackwood BBQ – 7.5
  • Broad Street BBQ – 7.5
  • Hard Eight – 7.25
  • Spring Creek Barbeque – 7.25
  • Redd’s BBQ – 7.25
  • Lucille’s Smokehouse BBQ – 7
  • Texas Bar-B-Q Joint – 7
  • Smoque – 6.75
  • Sweet Lucy’s Smokehouse – 6.75
  • Red Coal BBQ – 6.75
  • Unkl Moe’s – 6.5
  • Hambone’s Smokehouse – 6.25
  • Shakedown BBQ – N/A (wasn’t open when it was supposed to be, wasted trip)

Next Week’s #S2Roadshow

This is a crazy week. I’ll be back in Rochester, NY on Monday and Tuesday, flying back to Kansas City, MO on Wednesday, then out to Sacramento, CA. John joins me in Kansas City and Sacramento.

I’m pumped about Kansas City BBQ, but I’m there to talk with members of Greater Kansas City ISACA Chapter . This will be a good meeting for sure. Some of the members have been hyping it up online.

On Friday, I’m speaking at the Sacramento Valley ISSA meeting. I’m excited to meet a bunch of cool people, but I’m also excited about the weather!

Looking forward to another great week!

Stay tuned for next week’s #S2Roadshow updates. You can follow us on Twitter (@evanfrancen, @HarmonJohn, @StudioSecurity, and the #S2Roadshow hashtag) and on LinkedIn.

See you next week! If you want to collaborate with us, get in touch!