Our North American correspondent Una Riley talks some more with Don Erickson, CEO, of the US-based Security Industry Association (SIA).
Talking with Don Erickson, you get a sense of a man who is on song with his aims and objectives regarding the SIA. With my awareness of the background of the SIA in the UK I found the fundamental difference extremely interesting … one a public body and one a private association. I do believe that an exchange of views and ideas would be beneficial for both parties.
We had been discussing the educational aspect of the SIA and the new link with Mercer Community College in New Jersey. Erickson said: “We expect this programme to be very successful and our plan is to take the curriculum to other community colleges. The aim of the programme is to help attract a new generation of professionals to this industry. Notably, the SIA-Mercer program also fulfils another key organisational objective, which is to foster diversity within the security industry. Mercer County Community College has one of the most diverse student populations in the country and that is a key reason that led us to work closely with their leadership.” I asked about the curriculum. Erickson replied: “This degree programme will provide students with a for-credit curriculum consisting of courses in liberal arts disciplines including, but not limited to, communications, the business environment, accounting, and management. Students enrolled will receive technical foundation courses in stand-alone and networked computer hardware, software, and operating systems, fundamental electronics, wiring, cabling, fibre optics, security sales, and security project management. Eligible students will participate in SIA-developed core courses in security product technologies, security technology support, security project management, and security sales. The SIA is also developing an aggressive outreach programme to students known as ‘RISE: today’s rising stars, tomorrow’s security leaders’ to help promote our industry to high school and college students and recent graduates. We hope that security integrators that share our vision for attracting the best and brightest of Generation Y to our industry will actively lend their expertise.” Here in Los Angeles the Millennials or Gen Y are where it is at. It seems that the marketing push is massively targeted to that age group and the reference to Millennials and Gen Y is part of the everyday business parlance over here, more so than in the UK. I enquired about the wider world of security and Erickson talked about cyber-security.
Cyber Advisory
Erickson explained that the SIA’s board voted last year to establish a Cyber Security Advisory Board that was intended to counsel their elected volunteer leaders and their general membership about cyber security trends and best practices. He explained how they had conducted a member survey to ascertain how the SIA could best provide assistance. The expectation is to develop new benefits for SIA members, to use their business to protect their networks. Erickson also talked about the people involved with the new Advisory Board; from Patti Chrzan, Senior Director, Strategic Programs, Digital Crimes Unit of Microsoft to Dave Cullinane, Chairman of the Cloud Security Alliance. The Advisory Board is populated with senior expertise in this sector from Dan Dunkel, Vice President, Strategic Partners of Eagle Eye Networks Inc; Adam Firestone, President and General Manager of KGSS Inc; Hans Holmer, Senior Cyber Strategist, Intelligent Decisions and President and Founder of Asgar Cyber Consultants LCC; Ken Mills, Senior Manager, Global Business Development of EMC; Jack Tomarchio, Board Member, SightLogix and Principal of Agoge Group; Charles Wheeler, Chief Security Architect of Brivo and finally Jeff Whitney, Vice President, Marketing at Arecont Vision. Erickson was eager to talk about the people that make the SIA work so successfully. He went on: “Each year the SIA works very hard to develop new and innovative benefits for each member and during 2016 we expect to release a variety of exciting and compelling products and services.”
Erickson talked about the planned key benefits being developed for SIA members including the establishment of a Retail Industry Interest Group, modelled after the SIA’s Health Care Interest Group and the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS). This was co-founded by the SIA with the National Systems Contractors Association. Erickson went on: “We have recently announced a series of nationwide informal networking meetings for its members. We are also going to launch a new Online Communities programme. We will develop a guide to employment in the security industry and an online career fair that will be targeted at high school and college students. I am particularly excited that SIA by this summer will release its new SIA Technology Resource Center for Physical Security. The Center will be a continuously updated online mini-site that houses both objective and vendor-provided resources relating to physical security technologies. The Center will be organised by security topic, (eg product, security application) and each section will focus primarily on curated objective technical resources about the topic. This objective information will be sourced from trusted and respected original research in the form of surveys and data analysis by the SIA and its media partners. Each section will also contain ‘next steps’ links to the most educational resource centres of SIA members, SIA webcasts and webinars, vendor white papers, and editorial thought pieces. Finally an open-discussion about each topic can be accessed from each topic page where peers can connect with peers and answer each other’s questions.” I asked what had been his personal achievements within the SIA?
Having considered the question Erickson said: “I am honored to work each day with a very diverse and skilled group of creative SIA staff professionals who strive very hard to deliver on the strategic direction articulated by the SIA board of directors. As we have discussed here, the quality and volume of member benefits developed by our team each year along with the level of creative branding provided to promote our offerings makes me proud to work with my colleagues. Secondly, I am proud of the stronger relationships that I have formed with my friend Ed Several, the leader of the ISC (International Security Conference) Events team, who in partnership with SIA as the show industry sponsor, produces the ISC West and East Expos and SIA Education@ISC, the extensive education programme offered to the largest security audience in the world. Ed and his team and the SIA team have worked extremely well together in the past several years to demonstrate great customer service at the ISC Expos.” Erickson really is enthusiastic and positive about his work …. but I had to ask what changes would he like to see. Erickson replied: “Even more growth in members! I am incredibly proud of the growth we have achieved within SIA over the past few years in terms of the number of new SIA members, the quality of the staff, the volume of new benefits created, and the high volume of volunteer leaders who have contributed to SIA’s success. I believe very strongly in SIA’s value proposition, which, simply put, is that the SIA can uniquely connect with you with the people and the information that will make your business more successful. We are motivated by the prospect of providing more value to our members so that they and the industry may thrive. We are always thinking about ideas that can be turned into new programs that are deemed essential for business success. I am also very encouraged by the dialogue that is occurring within the SIA and by our leadership about the need for SIA to become more of an industry contributor on the topic of fostering more diversity within our industry and within executive corporate positions. This is certainly not a new problem facing the industry but one that the SIA must become more active in collaboration with media partner and industry associations.”
We went on to discuss topics that may be of interest, regarding UK collaboration. We also spoke about the power of good business relationships and partnerships and Erickson expanded upon this theme: “As noted earlier, I worked very closely with the ISC Events team to grow our relationship. I am inspired by how exciting, relevant, and impactful the ISC Expos and education sessions have become in recent years. The most innovative security technology in the world is on display at ISC West and ISC East plus exceptional networking. That is what makes SIA so proud to be the sponsor of these events, the SIA New Product Showcase, SIA Education@ISC, and the organiser of SIA member events held during ISC West such as the Market Leaders Reception and The Advance, our annual membership meeting.” My final question was what were his plans for the SIA?” He replied: “Beyond my earlier comments the SIA will continue to focus on growth, increased influence, and further delivery of high-quality service to its members. We will continue to be vigilant in working to translate member feedback into member value. More specifically, a few focus areas are the continued growth of SIA’s online education courses and security project management programme. We also want to further establish the SIA interest groups, or communities aligned with vertical markets in which participants will develop recommendations for end users on uses of security technologies. We will continue to build on the success of the SIA’s ‘Securing New Ground Conference’ as an essential networking event for both suppliers and security practitioners and their executive teams. Last but not least we will provide information and guidance to our members in an industry impacted significantly by IoT (Internet of Things) and the threat of cyber-attacks.”
Here in LA the IoT issue is very real with the advent of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the definition of IoT being a computing concept that describes a future where commonplace physical objects will be connected to the internet, and able to identify themselves to other devices. The term is closely identified with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) as the method of communication, although it also may include other sensor technologies, wireless technologies or QR (Quick Response) codes. One day it is likely that we will all be connected via our security code … that may not be in the so distant future.
Photo courtesy of the SIA; SIA CEO Don Erickson confers with Erroll Southers, Research Area Leader for Countering Violent Extremism at the University of Southern California in Washington DC, on March 2, 2016.
