I just returned from the 2010 International Association of Professional Security Consultants (IAPSC) conference in Savannah, Georgia this past week and it was outstanding! All the speakers were exceptional, both IAPSC members and outside professional speakers. The surprising good news was the sheer volume of accumulated professional experience and knowledge that is held by the membership. There is clearly no better location to search for professional security experts, security consultants, trainers or security knowledge than from the ranks of the IAPSC.
Here are some of the seminars we attended and our speakers:
Jim advised us, among the many parts of his presentation, that when you seek a “seat at the table” …. you need to “be the table”. Put management issues first and respond based on their perspective.
Jim Kelton advised us there are over 19,000 new vulnerabilities announced each week and we need to evaluate our Risk Control. We then discovered the numerous methods hackers use to learn your secrets and attack your systems.
Colin gave a sometimes (heck – often) humorous look at the misfortunes and opportunities a globe trotting security consultant finds himself involved in when solving their client’s security issues.
Karim is the hands down expert on crime analysis and how to clearly and succinctly display the relationship between a specific location and crime trends. I know in all my future expert witness cases, I will be teaming with Karim on crime stats.
Phil made it clear to all of us that our primary role as heads of our own companies was to “keep your company name on their mind”. The “their” was of course all our clients. He gave some great ideas for promoting our businesses and how keep our names “in play”.
Dave gave an in depth discussion on lighting and it’s importance in security applications. Additionally, it was stressed how important lighting conditions may become in any security assessment or expert’s review of an incident.
Joe was the WOW guy we were looking for to give our consulting firms a boost. He reminded us that all good ideas are 90% planning and 10% implementation. He was all about “Extreme Customer Service”, which is the motto for Center for Security Solutions. Joe got me interested in the National Speakers Association (NSA) as a method to get our message out and which I immediately signed up for.
Beverly was very knowledgeable in helping us to understand what the attorney wants and needs in any attorney security expert relationship. We picked up many great tips on keeping our clients (attorneys) happy and well “fed”.
The conference was a great event and overall exceeded all of our expectations. I came back with many new ideas for the business, some excellent references for future cases and some outstanding partnership opportunities.