Robert reporting from the RSA Conference

I just completed a freelance assignment covering the RSA Conference 2009 for RSA.

I wrote 17 stories that were posted on the conference Web site during the week long event April 20-24. I interviewed keynoters and wrote stories on several of the breakout sessions. Here are just a few:

"Lax security can invite lawsuits" is about a panel discussion, moderated by CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, about legal issues related to e-discovery and company liability for data breaches.

"Innovation Sandbox winner announced" is about a competition among early-stage tech security companies who presented their innovations and business plans to a panel of judges.

"Social networks present new risks for malware, ID theft, etc." is about how people let down their guard when visiting "friends" on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

"Tackling Cyber Security Challenges Today" was a very interesting panel about how the U.S. government, including the National Security Agency, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, are trying to protect cyberspace from attack.

"The 'MythBusters' stars next challenge: Is code unhackable?" Is about the Discovery Channel show whose co-hosts gave a keynote on the last day of RSA Conference 2009.

More Examiner posts

I've added a few more posts to Examiner.com, which I hope you'l appreciate.

I had a lot of fun writing about my exasperating experience with Facebook, which I chronicled in the post "Facebook's Catch-22 Rule."

This post is from my coverage of the Embedded Systems Conference about wireless mesh networks: "Wireless networks can help around the house."

Another ESC story about tear-downs, where engineers take apart a product to show you how it works -- or in this case, didn't work: "Nintendo's 'Virtual Boy' undergoes autopsy at ESC."

This was a fun story from ESC about a computer that mounts on a shopping cart handle and organizes your shopping trip. "Now you'll have no excuse to forget the milk."

New Examiner post

I posted another blog item on Examiner.com about a new Bluetooth headset product coming from Plantronics.
If you go to this page and bookmark it, you will see all my Examiner posts on one page as I make them.

My new role as an "Examiner"

I finally started posting articles in the last week for Examiner.com, the blogging site for the San Francisco Examiner newspaper. The paper has recruited an army of several hundred bloggers, mostly in the Bay Area but also in some other U.S. cities, to write about everything under the sun. We make a pittance, but it could result in some valuable exposure and help build a porfolio of articles.
Here are the first four articles I wrote:


Plantronics takes 'one giant leap' for managing multimedia audio
Savi Office introduction. March 31

Now you'll have no excuse to forget the milk
Shopping cart-mounted computer. March 31

Nintendo's 'Virtual Boy' undergoes autopsy at ESC
Failed product, April 1

Wireless networks can help around the house
Mesh networks, April 6

Be sure to click on the link "Add Robert to Favorite Examiners" and come back often.

Venture Capital Forecast 2009

I learned about the state of the venture capital industry at another Churchill Club forum, this one in Palo Alto. It featured three VCs and an angel investor Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn. The story I posted on Suite101.com is titled "Top 20 VC Firms Should be Okay."

Future of Newspapers

I accepted a recent invitation to attend a meeting of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Silicon Valley Chapter. The program, held at Microsoft's campus in Mountain View, featured two technology reporters and an editor from the San Francisco bureau of The New York Times. They spoke about how they work with PR people, like the 50 or so at the event and how they are adapting to the new media landscape of distributing news online, on blogs and even via Twitter. I wrote about the event for Suite101.com in an article titled: "Newspapers Have to Adapt or Die."

When the housing crisis gets literally too close to home

I’d seen stories on TV news about how people who’d lost their homes just packed up what they could into their cars, after which crews would come and clear out everything else they’d left behind. This Sunday I saw it happen in my own neighborhood.

A bank-owned home being "trashed-out" in Santa Clara.

I was walking my dog in a light afternoon rain when I came upon this scene: a “Bank Owned” real estate sign planted in front of a modest three-bedroom tan stucco-walled home in the 500 block of Chapman Court, just off The Alameda, in Santa Clara. Parked across the street was a dumpster, filled with a mattress, armchairs, shelves and other possessions that had made that house a home. Shuttling back and forth between the house and the dumpster were three men working in what is one of the fastest-growing jobs in the country: clearing out foreclosed homes.

The crew leader, José, said he works for a Las Vegas company that, despite being overwhelmed with work clearing out homes in that distressed market, dispatched him here where there is also plenty of work. Since he arrived in the San Jose area seven days ago, José said he’s not had a day off and averages 16 of these house-clearing projects a day.

Banks and mortgage lenders hire such companies to clear out foreclosed homes and clean them up so they can be put back on the market as quickly as possible, so the lender can make some of their money back.

A child's school photo left behind

The onetime owner of the Chapman Court house did come back after moving out to retrieve some valuable items, José said, such as TV sets or computers, and what was left behind was rightly headed to the landfill or at best a rummage sale. But I’ve seen cases in which seemingly everything was left behind. A report aired on a recent "NBC Nightly News" but I'm having trouble including the link. But here's another report from PBS’s “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” from Oct. 2008 on clearing out abandoned homes.

In the NBC report, golf clubs, sofas, paintings and some personal items are taken away by “trash-out companies” and while some items are set aside to be given to charities, many were simply thrown out. In the PBS report, residents left behind newer TVs, computers, important documents like a birth certificate and other perfectly good items.

A dumpster of what had made this house a home

It’s bad enough that people lose their homes. But I find it just heartbreaking that people find themselves in such desperate straits that they have neither the time nor the resources to try to save some of their belongings in order to furnish their next home, even if it’s only going to be a rental.