Guest Speaker at DC19? (Daniel Suarez)

[WiK]

I'd love to put a feeler out there and see if we can get Daniel Suarez to speak about his two books Daemon and its sequel Freedom (TM). These are great books about a botnet taking over the world and some other tech stuff (I don't want to give it away if you haven't read it yet). I'd love to hear him explain where his idea came from and what it was like writing scifi that could really happen.

Anyone think this would be a worthwhile event before I email him? Would it be best to have a Goon or someone else involved with running DC contact him?

WiK

[Thorn]

Re: Guest Speaker at DC19? (Daniel Suarez)

I'd love to put a feeler out there and see if we can get Daniel Suarez to speak about his two books Daemon and its sequel Freedom (TM). These are great books about a botnet taking over the world and some other tech stuff (I don't want to give it away if you haven't read it yet). I'd love to hear him explain where his idea came from and what it was like writing scifi that could really happen.

Anyone think this would be a worthwhile event before I email him? Would it be best to have a Goon or someone else involved with running DC contact him?

WiK

While he may be a good suggestion for a speaker, you'd be overstepping your bounds to email him directly. That kind of invite should come from someone at DC World Domination HQ.

DT or Nikita would probably be the ones you should contact, and make the suggestion to them.

[WiK]

Re: Guest Speaker at DC19? (Daniel Suarez)

While he may be a good suggestion for a speaker, you'd be overstepping your bounds to email him directly. That kind of invite should come from someone at DC World Domination HQ.

DT or Nikita would probably be the ones you should contact, and make the suggestion to them.

I figured as much, so consider this more of a suggestion and see if anyone else likes the idea or not. Either way I figured he would have to submit a talk like anyone else.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Guest Speaker at DC19? (Daniel Suarez)

If you contact the author directly, you can encourage them to submit a presentation for talking at Defcon like anyone else that wants to present at Defcon. This is the usual suggestion offered to people that like the idea of having an author of books com to speak at defcon.

This does not mean that a person won't be contacted by DT or Nikita, or anyone else representing Defcon to speak at Defcon, but authors of books tend to not have enough of a draw to fill even the small rooms or compete with the other talks submitted for Defcon, or they expect tribute in the form of payment for appearance, transportation costs and/or hotel room and maybe food expenses to be offered. Such things would cause Defcon to cost more, when it has historically been a volunteer convention with people volunteering to speak, not paid to speak..(Unless you count a "speaker badge" as payment. :-) . A cost can be viewed as monetary, and additionally as an opportunity cost in the form of, "what could we have seen at Defcon that was better, instead of this?"

Standard disclaimers apply: That is not my department. My comments are based on historical observations of past events and issues that have been previously presented when similar requests have been made.