My father once told me that the reason some people become fanatic sports fans is because they want to personally transfer the power of the winning team to themselves. That psychology lesson was largely lost on me last weekend, when my hometown football team, the Chicago Bears, won the NFC Championship. Although by the time you read this issue of SDM, Super Bowl XLI will be history, I still will be savoring that pre-Super Bowl championship win and not too concerned that I might have “power issues.”

I get an incomparable thrill from seeing people succeed – hearing about how they’ve put immeasurable effort into a goal and reached it. This month, I am extremely proud to announce that SDM’s contributing technology writer, David Engebretson, recently added a title to his name by attaining IT certification.

Others are also leading the charge

This month we chose Wayne Smith, vice president of Tech Systems’ Network Services Group, to help us convey the message in our cover article. In “Convergence Here & How” (beginning on page 58), Smith addresses the topic of convergence between security and IT systems. Smith describes his role at Tech Systems as one that bridges the gap between security personnel and IT departments.

“Convergence allows us to provide leading-edge security solutions that integrate [our customers’] business and provide them with a good return on investment. Examples of this include real-time data exchange between HR databases and global access control systems; RFID inventory controls; digital video integration; video analytics; POS smart card payment systems; and physical and logical systems access control,” Smith describes.

“We are moving past traditional physical security,” he pronounces. “The business model in a company today requires their security integrator be smarter and much more technical. It’s not a niche market, and it’s not a fad,” he stresses. “It’s something that is going to be a part of the future in the physical security market and the companies that are investing in it are going to do well.”

In the meantime, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Bears will do just as well on the Super Bowl field as Engebretson and Smith have done in the security “field.”