‘Green’ is more than a word. It is good business. It is a journey. It is also one of three pillars of sustainability. Using the words “green” and “sustainability” is not a case of “You say ‘po-tay-toe,’ I say ‘po-tah-toe.’” Although the two terms are intricately related, they are not interchangeable.
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New players are entering the security industry in a mass market fashion, with a solution that provides more than just a traditional home security system. Is that wrong?
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Check out SDM’s fourth virtual trade show, iSecurity, for starters. Admittedly, I’m not the most high-tech, gadget-oriented person. As an example, I’m just now doing the research in anticipation of buying my first smartphone (any advice?). When I watch TV, I still need to adjust the “rabbit-ear” antenna positioned next to my HD flat screen. (My family is among the 10 percent of U.S. households that never appreciated the value of subscribing to some form of pay TV such as cable or satellite.) And for those of you who ask — yes, you can get “free TV” on an HD television.

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Let’s begin the new year by celebrating the outstanding response and expertise that characterize the security industry. When crime struck close to home, it was not the Los Angeles or USC Police that came to the rescue; it was Shandon Harbour and the outstanding team at SDA Security.

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Vivint has had a disputed ride to its place as the No. 4 company in the industry on the SDM 100, but its bold “first adopter” attitude of new technologies is helping make security a “Best Buy” and opening new growth — and that needs to be recognized.
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Leadership in the industry includes recognizing trends like the convergence between logical and physical security, an area of innovation where Diebold Security leads the charge. It’s been an honor every year since 2004 for SDM’s editors to select one company as our Systems Integrator of the Year. But with that honor comes responsibility — the responsibility of leadership. One of the distinguishing qualities SDM looks for in naming a Systems Integrator of the Year is having the courage to lead the industry through innovation.
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Call it ambulance-chasing if you’d like, but I think some of SDM’s fine readers should be following Leigh and Leslie around the country with a demo kit and a monitoring contract. As they say in the flea market business, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
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It would appear that all of the arrows point against the status quo. Each year, the SDM Industry Forecast Survey reveals the keys to your success for the coming year. Without fail, the results are optimistic at worst. RMR will grow. Product sales will grow. Costs will remain low and profits strong. To be fair, as business owners you note these will be great challenges for your organization, but you anticipate success.
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Planning and communication took L.A.’s “Carmageddon” from a potentially disastrous main event to a successful non-event. The security industry does the same thing every day.
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It’s a Sunday close to press time and I’m watching one of my favorite television shows, CBS Sunday Morning. One of the segments catches my attention; it’s about the job market seemingly coming to a stall, with first-time unemployment claims having exceeded 400,000 for 11 consecutive weeks (as of late June). A CBS Sunday Morning journalist interviews economist Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute about why this is happening.

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