Blogs

Marketing professionals are beginning to understand the power of video (Talent Zoo, Beneath the Brand blog) in the ongoing drive to better understand and serve customers. At Airship, we're always talking about the link between high-quality video and the business intelligence opportunities it can provide.

It's short-sighted to think of surveillance video simply as an expense (and high quality video as more of an expense) when it can bring huge returns in terms of better understanding of customer patterns, preferences and demographics.

Many companies spend lots of money on in-store customer surveys which are a burden on the customer and which provide self-reported information which is by nature subject to inaccuracies.

By using security and surveillance video to study customer behavior and the effectiveness of promotions and programs, businesses can collect better and more reliable data without intruding on the customer.

A good example of ROI-building business intelligence would be the discovery that though sales are slow during a certain period of the day across several locations of a retail operation, store traffic remains steady. A retailer could use that information to use PA system promotions, on the floor staff efforts, or other ways to improve conversions during this time period. And if the retailer also learned that different days or time periods during the day showed significant shifts in demographic, they could adjust their in-store and direct-mail promotions accordingly.

All it takes to boost customer experience and build revenue is good quality searchable video and a smart program for using it.

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Contributed by Abigail Hamilton, director of marketing for Airship Industries, a developer of advanced video surveillance solutions.

The Seattle Times is reporting that the pilot project to put surveillance cameras in Seattle parks is being expanded to include a total of 4 parks. There's been a rich public discussion since the first park cameras went live in February. Some felt the deterrent effect made them safer. Others reflected Seattle's famously rebellious streak by voicing concerns about privacy. To quote:

"In a free and open society, people should have the right to be present in public spaces without being monitored by the government," said Jennifer Shaw of ACLU Washington at Monday's council meeting."It's a changed world as we've been told so often. It's a world where we're suspicious of people who might be terrorists or we have a Big Brother looking over our shoulder," [a councilmember] said.

"Surveillance cameras are going to be sending us down that road, and I'm not sure that's a world I want to go in and help create."

Others are keeping an open mind, since after all this is a pilot project. The project doesn't include monitoring of the cameras except by police during 911 calls, but it does include the removal of public toilets and newly scheduled ranger patrols.

[The chairman of the parks committee] emphasized the cameras are a pilot project. "We'll see if improvement is either made in perception of crime or safety."

And a columnist for the Seattle Times went out in search of "some good ol' Seattle-style Big Brother outrage" at one of the parks — and didn't find any.

All the discussion is good. And I'm glad it also includes new ideas people are putting forward to make the cameras p[rovide the most public benefit (after all, that's who's paying for them).
I remember reading about one woman who advocated for public online access to the cameras so she could check and see if things looked safe before she took her young child to the park. I suppose a tool for the good can be used for the bad (cyberstalking, now with video!) but the main thing is for us all to contribute to a dialogue and get all the possibilities and potential pitfalls on the table.

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Contributed by Abigail Hamilton, director of marketing for Airship Industries, a developer of advanced video surveillance solutions.

Anyway, they all missed out on one big piece of information in my mind. The horse that won the race, Da' Tara, is owned by none other than L-1 Identity's CEO Robert LaPenta. If you remember, L-1 was formed out of the joining of Viisage and Identix in 2006 and L-1 is also the company that purchased Bioscrypt for $44 million last year. It would seem, at least from an outside view, that life is pretty good for LaPenta these days.
The same, unfortunately, can't be said for Big Brown.

It's the weekend, and I'm waiting for my iPhone to finish syncing, so here's a short post.

Yes, I'm an early adopter, I'll admit it. I bought one, and then proceeded to fill it up. I have 3500 contacts, 25% I use regularly, but can't find this "modified" group. I have 7500 songs, 10% I'm listening to, but not any single 10%.

What's happening? It's been 20 minutes already and I expect it to take even longer. I'm late to pick the crew up for tonight's bike ride.

What does this have to do with security? You just don't know when an appliance will be out of resources until you use it in the situation that you are in. The iPhone is one of the most efficient h.264 video decoders on the market, but its resources are optimized for audio and video, not syncing with complex contact databases.

I really think this appliance, once Version 2.0 is introduced later this month, will be "the killer appliance," even if corporations take the usual six months to integrate its Exchange Server features.

But oh, the video! Right now, YouTube is even somewhat tolerable for viewing video clips online. Imagine getting near immediate access to video stored online...the beauty of an SaaS (Software as a Service). I believe two key technologies will change the Security Industry - better wireless connectivity (3G, WIMAX will all help) and the popularity of the SaaS, making video available through portals, rather than servers.

But right now I'm still waiting!