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#S2Roadshow Recap – Week Eight

Kansas City (MO) and Irvine (CA)

Monday was spent catching up in the office before heading off to Kansas City early Tuesday morning.

A day in Kansas City and three days in Orange County, California this week. Not bad!

SecurityStudio Roadshow Summary

If you’re new, or you’re confused about this #S2Roadshow thing, start here (maybe).

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.

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).

Kansas City, Missouri

The Roadshow officially started on early Tuesday morning with a five something AM flight to Kansas City. The primary purpose for making the trip back to Kansas City was an important meeting with Lockton, our awesome partner. We had four people visiting from our office; myself, John Harmon, Alex Titze, and Chris Dian. I took a earlier flight than the other guys, so my job was to get the car and come back to pick them up.

I was greeted in Kansas City by the happiest and most encouraging rental car bus driver you could imagine. Ross was great!

Got the car, grabbed a coffee (red eye) at Starbuck’s, then came back to the airport to pick up the guys. Love these guys!

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Lockton Meeting

The meeting with Lockton went great! We gave an introductory presentation to personnel in offices throughout the United States and discussed logistics about how we work together. Before heading back to the airport, we had to make a BBQ stop. This time we drove to Slaps BBQ (review below).

At the airport, we had great meeting with Chubb, a new potential partner. Chubb is reviewing the entire SecurityStudio platform, and seems most interested in using the S2Team/S2Me for their clients.

After this meeting, I was off to Irvine/Orange County, while the others headed back to Minneapolis.

Irvine, California

California is a beautiful place, that’s for sure! I had meetings with partners and potential partners while I was here, but things were low-key for the most part. Low-key is good when I have many days worth of email to catch-up on. The primary purpose for this visit was to preach at Webster University on Thursday evening.

My rental car was nicer than usual. Enterprise upgraded me (for no cost) to a Mercedes GL 320. If you know me, you know that I’m not a flashy guy who feels the need to drive a flashy car. At home, I drive a base model F250, so this is a change. A friend  told me that it looks like I’m driving a storm trooper helmet. Take a look at the picture below, yes?

John Harmon joined me on Thursday morning. We decided to check under the hood. Looks complicated.

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We had some extra time on Thursday afternoon, so we took in a few sights. Like I said earlier, California is a beautiful place!

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ISSA-OC

My talk is part of the “Cybersecurity Seminar Series”, a joint effort of ISSA of Orange County and Webster University. I wasn’t scheduled to be there until 6:00(ish) PM, so we made a stop at an In-N-Out Burger on the way. On all my travels, this was my first ever experience with an In-N-Out Burger. I can’t believe what I’d been missing!

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We arrived on time (yay us!) and were greeted by the event organizer, Dr. Brian Dozer. Brian is the Director at Webster University and the ISSA Program Director. Super cool and nice guy! The facility was great, the audience was great, and we met some great people here!

Here’s a copy of my slide deck. Use it (or not) in any manner you wish! I added a slide to the usual deck, a simple challenge for audience members to get a free copy of my book. The challenge is to solve a simple monoalphabetic substitution cipher of one of Robby Bragg’s poems. If you don’t know (or remember), Robby was a wonderful person who used to work at FRSecure before he tragically took his own life on May 17th, 2018. I keep Robby’s memory alive on the #S2Roadshow by highlighting the need to address mental health issues head-on. The slides with Robby’s tribute and the challenge are pictured below.

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After giving the talk, it was back to the hotel. More meetings on Friday, then back to Minneapolis Friday afternoon. Another great trip!

BBQ Reviews

You know how we roll, right?! BBQ man! As much as we can get, and yes, we (well I am) are gaining a few pounds along the way.

Four BBQ reviews this week. One in Kansas City (Slaps BBQ) and three in California (Fire Breather BBQ, RIBBRO BBQ, and Bad to the Bone BBQ). Reviews below!

Slaps BBQ – https://slapsbbqkc.com/ – Overall: 8 

  • Atmosphere – 8, this was a pretty cool place, located in an industrial part of town. The all brick building featured an indoor eating area, plus there were two more eating areas outside. The eating area on top of the building featured a great view of the Kansas City skyline.
  • Service – 9, I love when the BBQ is made to order right in front of you. They cut the meat and dish it out as you order it, right in front of you. The staff was very courteous and very helpful.
  • Portion/Value – 8, definitely above average. We got filled up at a very reasonable price.
  • Taste – 7, the brisket was good and the pulled pork was good. The best part was the jalapeno cheddar sausage. All the BBQ was good, but not amazing.

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We went to Slaps on a recommendation from a close friend. She’s a local and told us this was her favorite BBQ in all of Kansas City. It was good, but I’ve had better in this town.

Fire Breather BBQ – http://www.firebreatherbbq.com/ – Overall: 7

  • Atmosphere – 6, there wasn’t anything special about this place. It was located in a strip mall type setting and sort of felt like fast food.
  • Service – 7, average(ish). The staff was courteous and helpful, but nothing special.
  • Portion/Value – 8, definitely above average. Again, I got my fill and I didn’t have to mortgage my house for it.
  • Taste – 7, the brisket had a great fat cap on it, and it was an excellent cut of meat, but there was no smoke ring at all. It was hard to taste the smoke flavor in the other meat too (pulled pork).

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Overall, I could take it or leave it. I’d stop here again if I was driving by, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for this place.

RIBBRO BBQ – https://www.ribbrobbq.com/ – Overall: 7.25

  • Atmosphere – 8, This BBQ joint is also located in a strip mall setting, but they did a great job making it feel homey. Classic country music playing on the sound system seemed to round out a good atmosphere.
  • Service – 6, service was less than great. There were three people working here when we arrived and they were all busy trying to fill a catering order, which made the wait longer than it should have been. They were really nice people though!
  • Portion/Value – 7, the price was OK for what you get.
  • Taste – 8, the taste was definitely above average, but not great. The brisket was nice and moist. The ribs were good, but had some sort of weird spice in the dry rub. I couldn’t put a finger on what the spice was, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

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John was VERY hungry after he got off the plane from Minneapolis, so we got here right when they opened. The service (which was what scored the lowest) might have been better if we’d gotten there a little later in the day.

Bad to the Bone BBQ – https://www.badtothebone-bbq.com/ – Overall: 6.75

  • Atmosphere – 8, this place felt like a BBQ joint on the one hand and a little like a sports bar on the other. Overall, the atmosphere was very good.
  • Service – 7, nothing special about the service. You order at the counter, grab a number, then wait for someone to bring your food.
  • Portion/Value – 5, the worst part about this place was the price for what you get. Even by California standards, this was too costly.
  • Taste – 7, the taste was good, but they put sauce on my meat. I don’t like sauce on my meat unless I’m the one putting it on.

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I was expecting better, but maybe that’s what I get for having expectations. I probably wouldn’t visit this place again, primarily for the value/price factor.

BBQ Summary

Four new BBQ joints to add to our list. This was an OK BBQ week. The winner this week was Slaps BBQ (Kansas City). Pecan Lodge is still on top as the overall #S2Roadshow leader with a score of 9, and Bowlegged BBQ is still in the #2 spot. The current overall standings are listed below.

NOTE: I’ll organize this list with links to the reviews next week.

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

  • Pecan Lodge – 9
  • Bowlegged BBQ – 8.75
  • Divine Swine – 8.5
  • Dinosaur BBQ – 8.25
  • Big Ed’s BBQ – 8.25
  • Mission BBQ – 8
  • Slaps BBQ – 8
  • Q39 BBQ – 7.75
  • 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
  • RIBBRO BBQ – 7.25
  • Iron Horse – 7
  • Lucille’s Smokehouse BBQ – 7
  • Texas Bar-B-Q Joint – 7
  • Fire Breather BBQ – 7
  • Smoque – 6.75
  • Sweet Lucy’s Smokehouse – 6.75
  • Red Coal BBQ – 6.75
  • Bad to the Bone 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

No trip planned this week. We’re taking the week off for Thanksgiving. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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!