There’s no point pretending 2020 has not been the strangest of years, with the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting global lockdowns of air transport, hospitality, events and more, pressing security managers and providers to shape their operations and product offerings in whatever ways necessary to support critical internal procedures and customers whose business models are evolving in real time.
Alongside the challenges of keeping up with operational and customer requirements are other challenges, too. Not being able to travel and gather in groups has meant security people haven’t been able to get face time with the latest solutions or with the teams that develop them, and this makes it harder to synthesise our best and brightest technologies at precisely the moment we need that holistic comprehension most.
Something that flows from this division between people and product is a feeling of personal disconnection, insularity, of inertia – almost as though the world is on hold – there’s a tension, a frustration in this feeling – a sense of no longer being able to see the road ahead as darkness falls and it starts to rain. With our minds isolated, too many questions of the moment are going unanswered, lost in a more pressured, more pressing version of everyday life.
While we are reaching out to each other in other ways, anyone who thinks it’s possible to stay up with the latest technological developments staring at humble brags pouring down the drain of social media feeds is fooling themselves. These fragmentary touch points have a certain value to the in-group, but they are not enough to meaningfully reach those outside it. Really getting your mind around technologies, especially integrated technologies, takes personal engagement, not only with hardware, but with management systems and with human designers, too.
The best and fastest way to comprehend complex technologies is with the product in your hand, with the management system in front of you and with the designer at your shoulder, steering you towards new paths and answering emergent questions, allowing end users and integrators to shear through an otherwise linear information flow to touch operational points that are of most concern to your operation, or the operations of your customers.
While it’s vital to be able to do this with a key supplier, the chance to do so with nearly 30 suppliers in one room is a chance not to be missed. Security & Government Expo, sponsored by Gallagher, will be held at the Realm Hotel Canberra on November 12, and this quickfire half-day event gives security people their one chance to snatch that moment of synthesis for 2020. Make no mistake, the speed of development in key areas of many proven solutions makes grabbing this moment more important than ever before.
At SAGE (pre-register here) you’ll see the latest iterations of the best solutions, including the latest COVID safety developments of proven systems on which many organisations depend. COVID is not going to go away quickly and that makes it vital that organisations which typically might have a relatively slow cadence of security upgrade, think fast, move fast, and act fast to enlist the assistance of the providers of best solutions the security industry has to offer.
Exhibitors, including AISM, Milestone, Inner Range BM Doors, ASIS ACT, EZI Security Systems, OSD, Bosch, Avigilon, SRA Solutions, Axis, CriticalArc, CIC Technology, Honeywell, EKA/EVVA, Perimeter Systems, Warrgambi, Saab, Deploy Security, Allegion, Geutebruck, Sektor, Traka, Gallagher, HID, Rhinoco, AMS Australia and Argent are all bringing their latest solutions to SAGE 2020.
Adding to the learning experience at SAGE are ASIS ACT seminars, featuring speakers including Geoffrey Askew, Julian Talbot, Major General Dr Marcus Thompson, Raymond Frangie, Nicky Finn and Scott Taylor, variously speaking on topics including cybersecurity, aviation security management, smart building threats and opportunities, access control threats and the role of security advisers. And there will be opportunity to speak further with colleagues after the event at the ASIS ACT dinner.
Security people are fortunate. Many of our technologies are purpose-built for low touch, for subsystem integration, enterprise integration, remote monitoring, remote control, and remote management, and they feature advanced cyber security functionalities. In the past, some solutions and some pieces of functionality have had an uncertain value proposition, but no more.
Today, end users and integrators are reaching towards each other to empower upgrades and solutions that will allow them to manage procedures in ways that ensure the highest levels of safety and security in the most economical ways possible. This year, the best – the only opportunity – to get yourself and your team across the latest security technologies is at SAGE2020.
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