PSIA

Back home on the East Coast today after a very busy ISC West. (Sorry for the delay in posting, my flights' wi-fi was not working. I also had flight delays, and it was a very long day getting back here.)

Friday I spent time with David Gurulski and Curtis Cole from BRSLabs discussing rules-based cameras vs. the company's behavioral recognition offerings. Management's time saved was a key theme. I wrote recently about one of their recent projects at Port Fourchon in Louisiana.

At Quantum Secure's booth, Rochelle Thompson introduced me the new "SAFE for CIV" software, which closes the physical identity management gap between PIV and non-PIV badge holders for government agencies

OnSSI's Moshe Levi, product manager, emphasized the importance of mobility in security surveillance. I also got a look at the LiveVest, worn by SWAT teams and security guards, that contains three cameras. Very Bond-esque.

David Bunzel, executive director of PSIA expressed his optimism that CSOs are becoming more accepting of industry standards. "They're becoming less proprietary," he said.

I floated around the trade show floor after the above-mentioned meetings and then had a lovely dinner with my co-workers before calling it an early night.

At the airport early on Saturday, the TSA officer I encountered was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! Such a welcome! I've written much about the problem-plagued TSA, but on this most recent trip, I found the security officers to be helpful, kind and personable.

I'll be writing more about ISC West findings in the coming weeks, but I'm headed to Chicago on Tuesday for the ASIS 2013 Media Tour in Chicago. I'm impressed with the agenda. More about that to come, of course.

I've been finalizing my schedule for ISC West in Las Vegas next week. I've got my work cut out for me, but it's a great lineup.

I'll be meeting with representatives and end users from, among others, March Networks, Tyco, Inovonics, Mobotix, Microsoft, Delta Scientific, Lumidigm, Interlogix, Ingersoll Rand, BRS, Quantum Secure and Cisco. Not to mention meeting up with some folks from SIA, PSIA and the Security Executive Council.

I'll be tweeting and blogging throughout the week, so, please, stay tuned.  

It'll be my first time at the show, and if I learned anything from the ASIS show in Philadelphia last fall it is to wear comfortable shoes. Actually, I learned a lot more than that because I flew in on my fifth day on the job, but the shoe thing stands out.  

If you're headed to Vegas, too, don't forget to come to the Security Director News/Security Systems News "meet the editor's event" at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. We'll be at the media stage, right outside the main entrance to the show floor. I would truly enjoy meeting my readers and hearing what's on their security-industry minds!

ISC West is the Security Industry Association's annual conference. As such, its purpose is to give manufacturers the opportunity to show off their latest and greatest security technology to integrators, specifiers and potential manufacturing partners.

As you can imagine, it's a bit overwhelming and the majority of attendants were not end users. However, during my three days on the show floor in Las Vegas I was able to meet and interview several security professionals who were attending the show. In my previous blog post that recapped my first day, I mentioned interviews with Peter Miller, CSO of Florida’s Orange County Government; Linda Florence, dean of the doctorate program in strategic security at Henley-Putnam University and a long-time member of ASIS International’s volunteer leadership; Bryan Warren, senior security manager at Carolinas Healthcare System and newly minted president of the International Association of Healthcare Security & Safety; and Pablo Antonio Sanchez Urbina, security director for 10 prisons and the state police department in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

But before I get to the details about my second and third days at the show, I must mention the event that took place the morning of the second day: the Security 5K. The three-mile road race (there was also a 2K walk) attracted more than 350 runners to raise money for Mission 500, a non-profit that works with World Vision to feed needy children around the globe. The event ultimately raised $85,000, which will be used to sponsor nearly 300 children. (Security Director News and Security Systems News are sponsors of the race.) It's been a while since I ran a road race, but I was pleased with my performance. I placed 45^th overall with a time of 23:22.

During my second and third days at the show, I was able to catch up with a few additional end users in our media studio. On Thursday, I spoke with Mike Howard, CSO of Microsoft, about how security managers should demonstrate their value to the C-Suite and use social media to spread that message. You can follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeHowardMSGS. I also spoke with Lauris Freidenfelds, director of security and emergency management for Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, about a newly completed construction project and the importance of including security in the early design discussions.

I also had a chance to visit several companies' booths. I heard the latest about CheckVideo's Ruggedized Outdoor Mobile Sentry (dubbed the CMS4000), which is a self-contained, cloud-based, wireless video surveillance solution that only requires power be added to provide remote video monitoring capabilities, from company CEO John Estrada. Estrada told me CheckVideo is experiencing as much as 25 percent increases in sales month over month.

Mark Jarman, president of Inovonics, told me about Radius, the company's enterprise mobile duress system. The product, which was originally introduced at the ASIS show in October 2010, has applications across markets, but Inovonics for now is targeting the healthcare industry. Jarman also stressed his company's commitment to supporting the open standards trumpeted by the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance. Though the company's not ready to make any announcements or offer any details, he told me that Inovonics has developed a product in complete accordance with PSIA open standards. "We're walking the walk," he said.

I heard the from Verint about the facial recognition software it's beta testing and its new, all-weather 5-megapixel cameras. I also saw new cameras from Pelco and JVC. The latter is introducing 18 new cameras this year, including several analog cameras, which John Grabowski, JVC's national sales and marketing specialist, was not shy about admitting are still the company's "bread and butter."

I saw a demonstration of IDV Solutions' Visual Command Center. The demo was actually given by a shift manager of Microsoft's GSOC in Redmond, Wash., which uses the platform to monitor its facilities across the globe.

Over at the VidSys booth, I was able to get a demo of the PSIM provider's new collaboration with Bridgeborn to integrate 3D modeling into its software. Another big partnership VidSys recently announced was with BRS Labs to integrate its behavioral analytics software into its PSIM software.

For more updates from ISC West, check out the blogs from Security Systems News' team, who were blogging throughout the event: Martha Entwistle's On the Editor's Desk; Rich Miller's Monitor This!; and Tess Nacelewicz's This Blogs on Fire.