News
We’re looking for a few new voices
They're an opinionated and powerful group of decision-makers, and magazines like SP&T News benefit greatly from their expertise. You may only read about them once or twice a year in the pages of this magazine, but our editorial advisory board helps us know what the industry is talking about, and whom we should consider talking to for stories about cutting-edge technologies and day-to-day issues.
August 28, 2008 By Jennifer Brown
They have helped us find sources for stories, explained complex
technologies and told us when we were missing the mark on a subject
area. In a business-to-business industry as broad and diverse in scope
as the electronic security industry, it’s tough for us to know
everything that’s going on. Ideally, the editorial advisory board
becomes our eyes and ears.
For the last two years the board has also performed an important role
determining the Integrator of the Year, based on nominations submitted
to us by the industry.
We refresh the board every few years and it’s time once again to bring
some new voices to the magazine. We are looking for experts in a
variety of areas, including education and training, the
residential/commercial alarm industry, integrators, hardware
manufacturers, IP video and access control software developers as well
as consultants.
The time commitment is not huge; we just ask that members do what they
can to answer our questions throughout the year via e-mail or phone
call and contribute about four hours of their time to two major events
in the year – judging Integrator of the Year, and our annual trends
roundtable in late fall to predict what will be hot in the market for
the coming year. Those two events are held at our offices in Aurora,
Ont., and it’s always best if you can attend in person, but we are
flexible – in the past, members from across the country have dialed in
to be part of the meeting.
During the judging of Integrator of the Year I was impressed, as I
typically am, by the expertise brought to us by people like Carlo
DiPanfilo, Barb Geisel and Bob Gauvreau. As an end-user, Gauvreau, who
retired Sept. 1 from the City of Ottawa after 40 years in the industry,
helps us to look at an integration project from the customer
perspective and not just from what might appear, at first glance, to be
an impressive line up of bells and whistles.
"Where’s the integration?" was the question Bob raised again and again as we went through the nominations.
That said, we don’t ask that you have decades of experience. Given the
speed at which the electronic security industry is changing, and the
level of technology involved, we’re also interested in hearing from
people who have just arrived in the industry, perhaps from the IT
sector.
Also, in anticipation of 2009, we’re looking for industry experts who
can tell a good story, explain a tough technology or pontificate on the
industry’s hits and misses. Due to positive growth in SP&T News we
will be adding a column next year that gives voice to the security
integrator – the challenges of meeting the client’s specifications and
what happens when things go wrong during the roll-out? How does an
integrator handle client expectations and deal with all the technology
partners? We are also looking for contributors to our Ask The Expert
section.
If you think you would like to be part of our team of experts, send me
a letter of interest with a brief description of your area of expertise
by October 31.
We will be making final decisions in mid-November.
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