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We've all seen the news reports since the Sandy Hook tragedy: Schools hiring armed guards, schools training teachers in concealed weapon carry, schools arming janitors, and so on.

But a school district in California is considering something different. The Pajaro Valley Unified School District is looking into having dogs on patrol.

K9 patrols are trained to sniff out not just drugs and alcohol, but also gunpowder and bullets.

The district has considered the idea before but decided not to go ahead with it, according to a report from KIONrightnow.com. The board is now reconsidering having a K9 patrol visit the schools a few times per year.

"Newtown, the horrible tragedy there, has everyone focused on safety and safety procedures," PVUSD assistant superintendent Murry Schekman told KION.
Board members said in the report that going with a private company is a better option than asking local law enforcement.

"I think that their budgets are stressed, just as other public agencies are stressed, and we're not wanting to lean on them for that," Schekman said.

The school district decided to have staff come back with more information and a recommendation at the next board meeting, the news report said.

The National Retail Federation's 102nd Annual Convention and Expo—its "Big Show"—began today and runs through Thursday in New York City. A record 27,000 attendees are expected.

At the show today, Axis and the Loss Prevention Retail Council released survey results of the "CCTV in Retail 2012" report, which indicates that while retailers mostly use IP video for loss- prevention purposes, they are increasing their cross-functional uses of video for better business performance.

The survey compiled responses from 47 LP executives from national and regional retailers. All retailers surveyed currently use video surveillance in their stores, with nearly 64 percent having some form of IP-connected system; that's up from 31.3 percent in 2010. Of the retailers who use IP video for cross-functional benefits outside of security and LP, 93 percent have seen a positive impact on operations and 40 percent have seen a positive impact on merchandising.

Other findings from the survey, according to a press release, include:

• Of retailers that use analog-only systems, 43 percent have an IP migration strategy in place, while 21.4 percent say they would like a plan in the future.
• The main drivers for the adoption of IP video solutions were better image quality/HDTV and integration with other business systems and intelligent video.
• Dwell Time Analysis, 20 percent, and Heat Map or Hot/Cold Zone, 18.2 percent, usage  increased in 2012, while 38.3 percent of those surveyed use video analytics to detect POS fraud.
• Of respondents with IP-connected digital systems, Only 38.5 percent have access to live surveillance footage via a mobile device, yet 87.5 percent would find it beneficial.

Other loss-prevention topics will be prevalent throughout the wide range of educational sessions at the show, too, including "The Crackdown on Criminal Background Checks." This session's scheduled speakers are Thomas McCally, an attorney with Carr Maloney in Washington, D.C., and Rich Mellor, vice president, loss prevention, for the NRF. The focus will be on the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission's recent updates regarding the consideration of arrest and conviction records in employment decisions. Necessary changes in retailers' records screening policies will be discussed.

If you attend this session, let me know how it went. And have a good time at the show!

I was on a conference call this morning with Will Rhodes, senior market analyst at IMS/IHS Research. Rhodes and his team are wrapping up a recent project they did for Security Director News.

Rhodes' survey of security end-users across the verticals drew nearly 200 responses—thank you! He will present the findings next month at our TechSec conference.

Will shared some of the findings this morning, and they're fascinating. Topics include where you buy your equipment, how your budgets were impacted in 2012, what factors come in to play when you decide to install new equipment or upgrade, how often you upgrade, who is involved in each stage of a security project and more.

A few sneak-peeks of interest. Will's findings show that end-users are not all that satisfied with the customer service they receive from integrators. "They should be demanding it," he said. "it's not rocket science."  Also, many of you rely on local installers. If your peers put their trust in local hands, it  might be something you'd like to consider as well, he said.

We've just announced Security Director News' "20 under 40" winners for 2013, and I couldn't be more pleased—or impressed.

I've had the pleasure of speaking with each of these outstanding young professionals, ages 25 to 39, over the past few months, first to let them know they'd been selected from among the dozens of exemplary nominees we received, and then to interview them about their roles across their diverse verticals, the technology they find most helpful and the challenges they face. The first five profiles have been posted on the SDN website today. Please take a look.

One of the common themes that cropped up during my interviews with the personable winners, aside from PSIMs and the technological advancements in surveillance cameras, was social media's role in security and emergency managment response. It's both positive and negative, they said.

Beth Brown, manager of Target's Corporate Command Center, told me: “There’s a social media aspect that definitely helps us in some cases, but it also creates a swirl that we need to respond to. It creates awareness for people, and that can cause panic, so now we’re not only managing a response to an incident, we’re also managing a response to the panic by people who might not even be related to it.” Brown and her team have been involved in a number of high-profile emergency situations.

Another common theme was the need to develop the business acumen necessary to speak effectively to the C-suite. You can't be a successful security professional if you don't know and understand the ins, outs and goals of the business you are charged with securing, they said.

The 20 winners will be honored at TechSec Solutions 2013 next month. I'm looking forward to meeting them in person.