There’s always one abiding memory of a business trip abroad. Whether it’s the 30 beers you managed to sink in three short hours on a post-conference pub crawl in Budapest (well, they’re smaller over there, aren’t they?), or those ladies with abnormally large hands who took a shine to you in the backstreets of Berlin. For me this week it was sitting in a hotel bar in Amsterdam at 11pm, unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed, while a Dutch soft rock band performed the entire Elton John and Paul Young back catalogue in some live TV concert. The waitress must have been hypnotised by the haunting melodies in their superb rendering of Senza una donna, because she managed to forget my order twice and then brought the wrong food, but I digress.

Yes, it was Forrester time, with the firm’s first ever EMEA security forum taking place in the fair city of Amsterdam with some lively speakers (really) and Moevenpick ice creams for one and all – you listening Gartner? Free ice creams next time, alright? Day one was all about best practices for CSOs, how to get rid of a buffoonish boss, and the embedding of security in business processes. Diageo’s Claudia Natanson told us the benefits of converged and physical security and how the branding of her IT security department has helped to raise its profile in the organisation and focus its efforts on supporting the business.

AT&T’s Kevin Kealy, meanwhile, warned us all about the dangers of Wi-Fi, Voip and Bluetooth – the latter featuring an amusing anecdote involving a pretty waitress, a group of obscene computer geeks and a malfunctioning wireless digital notepad. Forrester analyst Natalie Lambert explained why NAC is for losers and PERM (proactive endpoint risk management) is much better – but not as good as an end to silly acronyms.