This yeaR's Agenda

The CyberMarketingCon
2026 Agenda

Please note that session times and dates may change.

High Level Schedule: When should I arrive?
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To experience the whole conference, plan to arrive in the late morning on Sunday, November 15 and leave late afternoon on Wednesday, November 18 (or stay over to Thursday if you would like or are attending our CEO-Founder-Investor Dinner!)

Sunday - 11/15

Sunday will be a day of workshops and our opening night reception! Plan to arrive around in the late morning or early afternoon if you don't want to miss our 3 hands-on workshops, which start at 1pm CT. Opening night reception starts around 7pm CT.


Monday - 11/16

We kickoff with a keynote at 8:45am CT. Sessions, workshops, and networking throughout the day, including our GovCon Summit. We end the day with a group outing!


Tuesday - 11/17

Today we have sessions, workshops, and networking, plus our CyberCMO Summit; the day kicks off at 9am CT. Tonight we will have multiple activities and dinners.


Wednesday - 11/18

Our final keynote will kick off at 9am CT. Today we will have a three-quarters day of sessions, workshops, and our closing remarks end at 3:30pm CT. Founders, CEOs, and Investors may attend our CyberCEO Dinner at 5:30pm CT.

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8:00am
9:00pm
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Note on event times

Event times are subject to change and may not reflect the most up-to-date schedule. Please refer to the conference event app VirtualPro for the latest and most accurate times.

Sunday

Registration Desk Open!

Stop by the Registration Desk on the 2nd Floor Foyer and pick up your badge, swag bag, official conference notebook, and official conference t-shirt!

Explore the Expo Hall, the Fun Station, and join one of the workshops that we have set up on Sunday!

12:00 pm
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12:45 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Claude Beginner Workshop

Curious about Claude but not quite sure what to do beyond opening a chat and asking it questions? This hands-on beginner workshop is for you.

Designed specifically for cybersecurity marketers at CyberMarketingCon, this session will help you get comfortable using Claude for real marketing work — without requiring any technical or AI expertise.

We’ll cover the basics of how to work with Claude effectively, how to give it the context and direction it needs, and how to start using it across everyday workflows like research, campaign planning, content development, messaging, analysis, and more.

You’ll work through practical examples alongside other cybersecurity marketers and leave with ideas you can put to work immediately.

Bring your laptop and your corporate or personal Claude account. No AI expertise required!

1:00 pm
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2:00 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Claude Intermediate Workshop

Ready to move beyond one-off chats and start building repeatable AI workflows?

This hands-on workshop is designed for cybersecurity marketers at CyberMarketingCon who already use Claude and want to take the next step: turning the work you do repeatedly into reusable systems.

We’ll focus heavily on Claude Skills—what they are, when to use them, and how to build them around real cybersecurity marketing workflows. We’ll also explore more advanced ways to structure Claude around your work, connect context and resources, and create repeatable processes that can help you and your team work faster and more consistently.

Rather than spending the session perfecting individual prompts, we’ll think bigger: How do you teach Claude how you work once, then reuse that knowledge again and again?

Bring your laptop, your personal or corporate Claude account, and come ready to build!

2:10 pm
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3:00 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Points for Creativity: A Roller Derby Workshop for Cybersecurity Marketers

Cybersecurity marketing is defined by constraint: dense jargon, complex concepts, and audiences who demand precision. The challenge isn’t a lack of creativity; it’s finding space to play, experiment, and make ideas feel truly memorable inside those constraints. This workshop is designed as a creative reset for marketers whose brains have been on “perform under pressure” for a little too long… or those who know they are over-relying on AI for tasks that used to feel fun.

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Using the bold, irreverent naming culture of roller derby as our playground—think Penelope Bruise, Hermione Danger, Momentum Mori—we’ll explore what happens when you step away from AI and lean back pure sporting instinct. We’ll treat derby naming as a proxy for branding; names must instantly signal identity, tell a mini-story, and provoke a reaction, just like the best campaigns.

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The workshop starts with a short individual warm-up to get people out of polished marketing mode and into free thinking. Attendees will quickly jot down the words, frustrations, and ideas that feel most “stuck” or overused in their day-to-day work—terms they’re tired of, value props that feel flat, or product areas that feel impossible to make exciting. This becomes our raw material.

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From there, we’ll move into guided prompts such as:* “If this product or problem were a derby skater, what kind of troublemaker would they be?”* “If you could lean into FUD as a joke, what would you really call this thing?”Participants will then work in small teams, remixing their raw material into surprising combinations: pairing technical jargon with unexpected metaphors, fusing emotional states with security concepts, and bending industry clichés until they become something stranger and more interesting. The focus is less on “getting it right” and more on seeing how far they can stretch a concept without compromising accuracy. Teams will, for example: - Take a word from someone else’s list and combine it with their own to create a new character or brand.- Build a “family” of three related derby names that could all be features of the same product.
Additional playful constraints will push their creativity further: limiting word counts, forcing a quick pivot from serious to absurd, or asking teams to defend a ridiculous name as if it were going into a boardroom deck. Each round builds on the last, moving from silly and safe to sharper and more deliberate.

As the workshop progresses, teams will converge on a brand concept and tagline born from this chaos—something that still nods to the original cybersecurity idea but now feels alive, specific, and ideally, fun to scream out loud.

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Throughout, we’ll surface the meta-lessons: how constraints can unlock creativity instead of shutting it down, and how embracing a bit of discomfort or a “bad idea” often leads to better ones.

Attendees won’t leave with a rigid framework or a perfect campaign. They’ll leave with at least one absurd-but-delightful concept, a renewed sense of creative confidence, and a reminder that even in a jargon-heavy, high-stakes industry, there’s room to play for points.

3:15 pm
-
4:15 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Workshop

Workshop: Business Networking Pickup Lines

There will be NO NAPPING during this workshop, where everyone will stand up, talk, move around, and learn how to be a professional business “flirt.” We challenge both extroverts and introverts to come to this session and learn how to make in-person cold connections, find *the* person in the room you need to talk to, and qualify someone for a potential business relationship. Check out this video from our workshop at Cyber Marketing Con 2023. If you attended the 2023 workshop, come back again! This brand new workshop is loaded with new exercises.

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4:30 pm
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5:30 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Opening Night Welcome Reception

CyberMarketingCon 2026 Welcome Reception: Choose Your Own Character

Every adventure starts with a character. Who will you be?

We’re kicking off CyberMarketingCon 2026 and our theme, Create Your Own Adventure, by inviting you to dress as your favorite character—from literally anything. Anything!

Here's some ideas: Indiana Jones, a medieval knight, an enterprising elf, Taylor Swift, the CISO at the last company that you sold into, Steve Jobs, Skyrim guards, a boxer, or someone entirely of your own creation.

Go all out or come as yourself (if you’re your own favorite character, that's totally fine)!

Join us to meet fellow adventurers, reconnect with friends, and get the CyberMarketingCon conference started!

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7:00 pm
-
9:30 pm
CT
Moontower Hall - Expo

Monday

Single Speaker

FedRAMP 20x GTM: How to Market “Continuous Validation” Without Selling Snake Oil

FedRAMP 20x is triggering a wave of “it’s easier now!” messaging — and it’s going to backfire.

20x doesn’t magically reduce effort; it moves the burden upstream from documentation theatre into engineering reality: continuous signals, continuous change visibility, continuous vulnerability response. That shift changes what buyers need to hear, what proof they’ll ask for, and how your marketing and sales motions should work.

In this session, I’ll break down how we’re positioning FedRAMP 20x at 38North Security to create demand without overpromising: the narrative, the content architecture, the ABM approach, and the practical GTM assets that convert “confused & stalled” teams into discovery calls.

You’ll leave with messaging frameworks, a content blueprint, and a simple way to build credibility in a market that’s drowning in hot takes.

10:00 am
-
10:30 am
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room
Single Speaker

Behind the Booth: The Untold Stories of a Field Marketer Who Uses AI

A strategic and highly practical session that challenges how Field Marketing is evaluated in an AI-driven world; not another “AI will help marketers be more efficient” talk. Field marketing has long been misunderstood as booths, swag, and badge scans. But it’s so much more than that. This session is not about AI tools. It’s focused on what actually drives results at events and how to use AI more effectively to prove the impact field marketers can have in business outcomes. Attendees will leave knowing exactly where AI helps field marketing scale, and where human judgment is still non-negotiable. Ready to challenge lazy marketing and elevate your thinking in the field?

10:00 am
-
10:30 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Single Speaker

Where AI Belongs in Your Positioning

In cyber, we could say AI is like any other buzzword that has been used too broadly before (ahem, cloud security and Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)). But that would be ignoring the fact that AI IS in fact pervasive, and we are all in new territory. Sometimes it feels like we all jumped in at the same time to join the startup that is ‘AI.’ So we can’t avoid incorporating it into our positioning.

What we can do is incorporate it effectively while staying true to our own core message.

To do this, we first need to reframe our positioning process to think like a startup and form a hypothesis. Then we need to figure out your angle in the AI landscape, using real stories of other companies that have succeeded and failed at doing this. The third step is a hands-on workshop where you will build a hypothesis with those learnings in mind, ending with a clear view of where AI belongs.

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10:00 am
-
10:30 am
CT
Waterloo 3 Breakout Room
Single Speaker

Make Them Laugh, Then Make Them Buy

They say the way to someone's heart is through their stomach. Well, the way to someone's wallet is through their diaphragm...

This talk is about the mechanics of humor in B2B. Why irony builds trust with skeptical buyers. Why parody signals you actually understand your market. Why self-deprecation (we named ourselves after the least effective martial art, after all...) makes people lean in instead of scroll past. And why none of it works if the product underneath is mid.

--- On OnlyScans, Toilet Paper, and Other Things That Outperformed Our Whitepaper....How Humor Took Aikido from Zero to Unicorn.

10:45 am
-
11:15 am
CT
Waller EF Breakout Room (Virtual Room 3)
Panel

Our Messaging Was Outdated Before We Finished Writing It. So We Built a Living Messaging System.

Messaging moves fast, and it moves even faster in cybersecurity. We have historically accepted that our messaging houses are always a little behind. And then we scramble every time a startup launches a new security product, a new CVE reframes the conversation, an analyst report contradicts what your team has been saying in the field, or frontier model providers ship a feature that will “kill the cybersecurity market”. Even with the best version control and distribution, the document you have living in Google Drive somewhere is not enough.

Our team decided to stop trying to maintain a group of documents and build an AI-powered, living messaging system instead.

We created a Claude skill that contains our canonical positioning and messaging. It lives in GitHub as markdown files, not in Google Drive as a well-designed document. Every marketer on the team has access to it through Claude, and whether they type “/review-messaging” or just ask Claude to draft something, the skill runs to make sure what they’re working on is on message.

When messaging needs to change, which in cybersecurity is all the time, anyone can submit a messaging update request through a Slack workflow. An AI agent reviews those requests, cross-references them against the current skill files, and opens a GitHub pull request with proposed updates. A human reviews and merges it, and then the skill updates for everyone.

We'll walk through what we built, how we built it, what broke, and what we're still figuring out. One of the questions we’ll answer is “When you make it easier to change messaging, does your messaging change more often?”. And we’ll share what it actually looks like when your canonical positioning is a GitHub repo with version history instead of a slide deck that nobody updates or looks at.

10:45 am
-
11:15 am
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)
Workshop

3 AI tactics that make your whole company think marketing runs on magic (launch 1 on the plane home)

You don't need to be an AI expert to look like one. Three practical tactics that make your entire marketing team — and your whole company — think you've unlocked something nobody else has. Each takes under 3 hours to launch, works across your whole team, and drives real pipeline.

No coding, no AI background required.

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10:45 am
-
11:15 am
CT
Waterloo 3 Breakout Room
Workshop

Kill the AI Tells: A Practical Editing Method for Better AI-Assisted Copy

AI can get you to a first draft faster. Then comes the part that can eat up all the time you thought you saved: reviewing, revising, and trying to make it sound like something a credible human wrote. Even partially AI assisted works have many recognizable tells, including the "not X, but Y" construction, the notorious em dash saturation, vague or inflated claims, and dramatic fragments desperately trying to sound important.

Asking AI to "sound more human" doesn’t really fix the problem. The next draft may flow better but retain many of those telltale default patterns. And telling the model to “sound more human” often just produces a smoother version that still has AI fingerprints all over it.

In this fast-paced 15-minute session, you’ll see a live teardown of cybersecurity marketing copy and a practical, human-guided method for making that review process more focused and repeatable. Instead of rereading a draft and thinking, Something about this feels AI-ish, you’ll learn how to use AI to assist with the editing and concrete criteria for finding problem patterns, explaining why they weaken the copy, and proposing specific revisions for you to evaluate. All of which can strengthen even human written copy especially technical copy

The goal isn’t to eliminate every so-called AI trope. It’s to recognize when those patterns start piling up enough to undermine voice, credibility, and subject-matter expertise—and to spend your editing effort where it actually matters.

10:45 am
-
11:00 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)
Single Speaker

How to Build Your Own Conference

You’ve sponsored the booths, planned the dinners, and walked the expo halls. But what happens when you’re the one building the entire conference? Join Gianna Whitver for a behind-the-scenes look at building CyberMarketingCon—and what cybersecurity marketers can learn from creating an event that people choose to spend their time, budget, and travel days attending.

This session goes beyond booking a venue and finding speakers. We’ll explore the decisions that shape a conference before the first ticket sells: who it’s for, why it deserves to exist, how it supports your business goals, and what will make it worth coming back to. From programming and sponsorships to ticket sales and attendee experience, Gianna will share lessons from building a conference around a specialized community.

We’ll also get into the less glamorous—but essential—work: making the budget work, setting expectations with stakeholders, deciding where to invest, and figuring out what your team can realistically deliver. And we’ll talk about the difference between putting people in the same room and helping them genuinely connect.

Whether you’re considering a customer conference, partner summit, or industry gathering, come ready to think beyond the event checklist. The goal isn’t just to put on a conference. It’s to build something your audience would miss if it didn’t exist.

10:45 am
-
11:15 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)

FAM, Freelance & Fractional Marketers Mixer

Independent doesn’t have to mean alone. This mixer brings together FAM professionals, freelancers, fractional marketers, consultants, and other independent experts working across the cybersecurity industry. Meet potential collaborators, exchange lessons from the field, and build a stronger network of people who understand the opportunities and realities of independent work.

10:45 am
-
11:30 am
CT
Mixer Space in Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Tuesday

Book Your Complimentary Extras & Activities

Make the most of your CyberMarketingCon experience with these complimentary experiences. Reserve your spot in advance—or stop by to see if a walk-in time is available.

Podcast Studio

Record a podcast, interview, or video in a private, professional studio. Four microphones and an AV technician are included, so all you need to bring is your idea. Walk-ins are welcome when the studio is available.

One-on-One Expert Consultations

Get complimentary, personalized advice from experienced professionals—including cybersecurity industry analysts. Book a session to discuss marketing, channel strategy, graphic design, career strategy, your LinkedIn presence, or the cybersecurity market.

Professional Headshot

Refresh your LinkedIn photo, speaker profile, or professional bio with a polished new headshot. Visit the headshot studio in the Expo Hall, located behind the Fornix Marketing booth. Walk-ins are welcome when space is available.

Fun Station & Postcards

Add some personality to your conference badge with stickers, supplies, and badge ribbons—or write and mail a postcard to someone back home. Stop by the Fun Station in the Expo Hall aka Marketing Land whenever you’re ready for a creative break.

7:30 am
-
8:15 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Registration Desk Open!

Stop by the Registration Desk on the 2nd Floor Foyer and pick up your badge, swag bag, official conference notebook, and official conference t-shirt!

8:00 am
-
8:45 am
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Complimentary Coffee, Breakfast & Expo Hall (Marketing Land) Open!

Good morning, CyberMarketingCon! Join us at 8:00 AM for complimentary coffee and breakfast, catch up with fellow attendees, and explore the booths in the Expo Hall, aka Marketing Land!

We’ll have a set number of breakfasts ready to welcome you, available first come, first served while supplies last.

There’s plenty to explore: send a postcard from our fun station, drop in for a fresh headshot, catch content on the Expo Hall stage, or settle into a seat for networking and meetings. Come grab a bite and start the day with us!

8:00 am
-
9:00 am
CT
Waller CD General Session
Keynote

What the AI-Cyber Future Holds: A Conversation on the Market with Joseph Blankenship

Where will AI create real demand, and where could the hype outpace the opportunity? How will security buyers’ priorities evolve? And what should cybersecurity marketers be paying attention to now to avoid building tomorrow’s strategy around yesterday’s assumptions?

Joseph brings both an analyst’s view of the cybersecurity market and firsthand experience in cybersecurity marketing leadership. Together, he and Gianna will connect the big-picture questions to the decisions you’re making about positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy.

This session lets you step back and examine the market your campaigns need to succeed in. Expect a conversation about emerging opportunities, buyer expectations, and what it takes to tell a credible, differentiated story about AI.

We hope you start your day with a sharper view of what’s ahead and perspective on your company's next move.

9:00 am
-
9:35 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Workshop

Crack the Case: AI‑Powered Win/Loss Analysis to Fuel Your Modern GTM Strategy

Most organizations think they understand why they win and lose deals until the data tells a different story. This session walks through multiple real-world case studies where GTM teams moved from anecdotal assumptions to an evidence‑driven win/loss program that reshaped their targeting, messaging, and enablement strategy through embodying a detective mindset.

This session shares the frameworks, workflows, lessons learned, and how GTM teams can replicate the approach.

9:55 am
-
10:20 am
CT
Waterloo 3 Breakout Room
Speed Session

Cybersecurity Marketing: Where Everything Is Important and Nothing Stands Out

Cybersecurity marketing is at a familiar point.Everyone is secure.Everyone is compliant.Everyone has AI.

And, yes ! Everyone sounds the same.

Buyers are overwhelmed, vendors blur together, and AI is making it easier than ever to produce content that looks good but doesn’t actually move anything forward. More activity, less clarity.

This session explores how to cut through that noise, not just by standing out, but by building a marketing engine that actually performs.

Drawing from hands-on experience in GRC and compliance marketing (where buyers are often thinking, “I probably need this… I just don’t know why yet”), we’ll focus on what works when the product is complex, the stakes are high, and differentiation is hard.

Key takeaways:- How to simplify complex cybersecurity messaging into something buyers actually understand (and act on)How to align marketing, sales, and customer success so the story holds up beyond the first touch

- How to use modern tools and AI to automate manual work, increase speed, and scale output, without sounding like everyone else using AI

-How to inject creativity in a crowded market to elevate brand and create real recall

- How to connect strong positioning to pipeline, turning clarity into a repeatable, higher-performing marketing system

This won’t be a theory-heavy session or a “10-step framework.”

Just practical lessons on how to operate in an AI-driven market where the goal isn’t more content.

9:55 am
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10:05 am
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)

Wednesday

Virtual Networking

Connect with fellow virtual attendees from around the world! Grab your favorite beverage, turn on your camera, and join an interactive networking session designed to make meeting new people easy.

Swap marketing ideas, discuss your favorite conference takeaways, and build lasting relationships with peers who understand the world of cybersecurity marketing and GTM.

12:00 pm
-
1:15 pm
CT
Virtual Conference

Lunch + Birds of a Feather Tables

Refuel, connect, and keep the energy flowing! Lunch will be served in the Expo Hall, giving you time to explore the booths, meet sponsors, catch up with new connections, and continue the search for your conference buddy.

Looking for people who share your interests? Grab a seat at one of our Birds of a Feather tables, organized around specific topics and areas of interest. It’s an easy, informal way to exchange ideas and enjoy lunch with even more folks who truly “get” your world.

12:00 pm
-
1:15 pm
CT
Moontower Hall - Expo

Lunch & Free Time

Refuel, connect, and keep the energy flowing! Lunch will be served in the Expo Hall, giving you time to explore the booths, meet sponsors, catch up with new connections, and continue the search for your conference buddy.

12:00 pm
-
1:15 pm
CT
Expo Hall (Moontower Hall)

Lunch for 60 minutes

12:00 pm
-
1:15 pm
CT
Waller CD General Session (Virtual Room 1)
Workshop

Positioning & Messaging Workshop for Cyber Founders

[Lunch will be served during this workshop]

Struggling to explain what makes your company different? Strong positioning gives your business a clear place in the market—and strong messaging turns that position into a story customers, investors, partners, and employees can understand and remember.

In this interactive workshop, cybersecurity founders will learn how to define their ideal audience, identify the problems they solve, clarify their unique value, and distinguish their companies from competitors. Participants will examine how positioning shapes every aspect of communication, from a homepage headline and sales pitch to investor conversations, media interviews, and thought leadership.

Through guided exercises and practical frameworks, attendees will begin translating complex products and technical capabilities into clear, audience-focused messages. They will also learn how to connect their company positioning with their founder brand, creating a consistent narrative that builds credibility and trust.

Founders will leave with a sharper market position, a stronger messaging foundation, and practical language they can apply across marketing, sales, fundraising, recruiting, and media.

12:25 pm
-
1:15 pm
CT
Waterloo 4 Summit Room
Speed Session

Workshop: Every Event Is a Content Studio: How to Reach Beyond the Show Floor

Your company just spent $30,000 on a conference and you sent three people to the show. They worked the booth for two days, scanned a couple hundred leads, and came home with one blurry photo and a LinkedIn post no one saw.

After the event, the only people who knew you were there were the ones who happened to walk past your booth. Your conference presence doesn't have to end on the show floor.

Instead, picture this: every event you attend is a packed content studio. The conversations are flowing, the energy is electric, the candid moments are plentiful, and the community is engaged. If you’re walking out of it empty-handed, you’re leaving value on the table.

Event content drives higher engagement and more follower growth than almost any other content type on LinkedIn. The opportunity is sitting right there, but most teams just don't have a system to capture it.

In this session, you'll learn how to build a field content engine that turns every event you attend into weeks of high-performing organic content, without a dedicated media team or production budget. We'll cover how to plan your content before you leave, what to capture on the show floor, how to turn it into multiple pieces of content, and how to activate your team's personal profiles to maximize your reach.

You'll leave with a process your team can run at the next event on your calendar, and a way to measure how far your presence actually extended past the show floor.

1:15 pm
-
2:15 pm
CT
Waller AB Breakout Room (Virtual Room 2)

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