By the time you read this I’ll be home, but at the moment it’s about 7 p.m. on Wednesday and I’m flying over Manhattan on flight AA 347. I’ve flown all over the country and to many foreign cities too, but this is one of the most spectacular aerial sights I’ve ever seen – and it just occurred to me that I’ve never had this experience of a clear view at nighttime over New York City. All in about a 30-second pass, defined by the brilliance of city lights, I can make out the physical shape of Manhattan, the places where it connects by bridge to the other burroughs, and the topography of skyscrapers spreading from one side of Manhattan to the other – which, from my vantage point, resembles an intricately engineered scale model!
I’m just returning from the two-day Securing New Ground (SNG) conference, a bit tired but mentally energized by what I learned and the interactions I had with my peers from the industry there. Securing New Ground’s purpose is “the business of security.” It realizes that purpose through a carefully selected mix of attendees who are financial professionals, established manufacturing leaders, emerging product and service providers, and the most sophisticated integrators in the channel. Honestly, if you were to attend this event expecting to be able to answer e-mails from the edge of a white linen tablecloth all day, you’d be disappointed.

 

You won’t want to miss a thing at this conference. Each session presents such unique perspectives. Like my beautiful bird’s eye view of the entire island of Manhattan, Securing New Ground is that kind of an overview of the most important changes happening in security, straight from the mouths of the most influential people.

 

For example, Bob Eck, president & CEO of Anixter Int’l, opened SNG with the keynote address. Already a king in the voice and data network infrastructure world, Anixter ventured into the physical security market in 2001, positioning itself as a value-added distributor through such things as its training and Infrastructure Solutions Lab. “We’ve sought to build a bridge between security integrators, and IT people, and security end users,” Eck related. Some of the other speakers included Marty Guay, president of Niscayah; Richard Chace, executive director of the Security Industry Association; David Stang, senior vice president at Bank of America; Deb Spitler, executive vice president at HID Connect; Tony Byerly, president, North America, Stanley Convergent Security Solutions; Jeff Kessler, managing director at Imperial Capital; Jay Hauhn, vice president of Technology and Industry Relations at ADT; Shawn Lucht, senior vice president of Broadview Security; and that's just the beginning!

 

Trends in technologies, the way products and solutions are brought to the channel, and the way integrators will be providing services in the very near future were some of the key topics at the 14th annual Securing New Ground. For example, “Software as a service will become the new norm,” said Sandy Jones, principal of Sandra Jones & Co., and Securing New Ground co-founder and executive producer, “and the Internet will do for integrators what the digital dialer did for alarm dealers.”

 

SNG was co-located with he third annual Security 500 conference. For more information about The Security 500, visit http://www.securitymagazine.com/Articles/Article_Rotation/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000694096. For more information about Securing New Ground, visit www.securingnewground.com.