Volume 150 | July 29, 2026
Reminder to JOIN the The Secured Collective community Slack channel to network, engage, and be part of something big! You can sign up here.
Welcome to the Access Control Executive Brief Volume 150! As Semisonic sang in "Closing Time"… "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
And here we are.
One. Hundred. Fifty. I have written that number (more like 150, but you get my point) a few times while drafting this, and it still doesn't quite land the way I expected. Not because it feels like a lot (though it does), but because of what it represents to me: 150 points of time over the past 3 or so years, give or take, of showing up, thinking out loud, collaborating, exposing myself through words, and asking this industry to take itself seriously enough to build a $100 billion future instead of defending a $10 billion past.
So before anything else: thank you. To the people who signed up in the first 20 issues when this was an unproven idea, thank you. To the people who joined at Brief 80 because someone forwarded it to you, thank you. To the people reading this as Brief number 1, thank you. We built this together. Sure, I (and often Tony) wrote the words, but you gave them somewhere to land, and that means more than anything to me.
So, let's take a step back first before we move forward. Here is what 149 Briefs have taught me as I spent time reflecting on them (travel creates space for that to happen). And in using Claude to reminisce on topics covered before writing this one (for real… played a bit of a game like "tell me what Brief 49 was about." Then how does that compare to Brief 125?" On and on), the same way I did at Brief 100.
Throughout, I found a few things that held up better than I expected, and a few things I got wrong in ways worth naming.
Here is what held up… the industry is not just a hardware business pretending to be a software business. It is becoming a software, data, automation, and identity business that still happens to sell hardware. Every framework we have discussed since Platform Squeeze, the Nokia Moment versus the Oracle Moment, the Identity Ownership Thesis, is a different angle on that same shift. I said it in Brief 21. I am still saying it in Brief 150. The difference is that in 2022, it was a prediction. Today, it is a description of what is already happening at most new and many old companies, as well as those trying to figure out whether they own the relationship with the person or just the door.
Here is what I got wrong, or at least got early (and will likely continue to underestimate)… I underestimated how long incumbents could run the old model profitably before the pressure showed up on a balance sheet. Sailing Ship Syndrome is real, but sailing ships took longer to become recreational versus commercial leaders than anyone predicted in 1890, and the same is true here. Patience matters more than I gave it credit for in the early Briefs. But please… don't confuse this admission with an apology. Truth is, the sailing industry, just like the $10B side of our industry, has little to do with the inevitable reality of the $100B opportunity coming in like a freight train.
And one more thing that holds up… naming names works. Every time I have written about a specific company, a specific deal, a specific product decision, using real names instead of hiding behind "a leading manufacturer" or "a major integrator," the Brief has been more useful. Yes, abstraction can protect egos or quickly get ugly if not handled properly, but it does not help anyone make a better decision. I intend to keep writing that way.
So if we are just getting started, why are we making changes? Here is why…
First, here is what we are doing. Starting with this issue, the Access Control Executive Brief and The Security Breakdown will merge and become the Secured Brief. Same voice, same analytical standard, same commitment to telling industry stories, and sharing my views, observations, insights, and travels. The name changes because what we are building around it has outgrown the name we started with in 2022. We are going to make it easier for the core, adjacent, and even mainstream markets to relate to or discover all the content we produce (and I am listening to Hilary, Alex, and Hailey, who know better).
We are also making a bigger change in pricing. We are going to sunset individual paid access and make it free for all. If you have been paying $30 a month or $337 a year as an individual (btw, true story…we priced it at $337 because if you flip 337 over, it spells Lee. Yep.), that ends with this change, and thank you for being the person who paid when you did not have to. Corporate Access and the value delivered remain at $1,500 per quarter or $5,000 per year for the entire company.
Now to the why…First, the momentum and growth have been steady (we are over 1800 on Slack). But it's not inclusive enough. I have heard the "country club" comment more than once over the years. I get it, and some think that it is fair. A model built around individual access, by definition, creates insiders and outsiders. It also rewards those who "can (or want to) afford" to pay before it rewards those who have something to contribute. That was never the point, and it is not the industry community I want to help build.
I believe in the power of a global community over the power of a gated community. Not because a smaller, curated room isn't valuable, it 100% can be, but because the real advantage I see, especially in a moment like this one, belongs to the widest possible group of people thinking clearly together, not the narrowest. For sure, opening this up and making changes is a risk. Some of you came in early specifically because it was smaller, and I understand if this change feels like it costs you something. But I would rather build a global neighborhood where everyone is equal, everyone is engaged, and everyone finds value in whatever way makes sense to them, than to protect a gate. The value of what the community can do and does together compounds exponentially as it gets larger. Making sure that value shows up for you, wherever or whyever you sit in this community, is now our job, not yours.
And for those of you who are on Slack with us… Here is why we are moving away from it. In short…we broke Slack.
Some of you are going to feel this one more than the pricing change. We are migrating the PhySec Collective from Slack to a dedicated home, an app (called the Secured Collective). I know for many of you, Slack is where you already are, and it's super easy to use for messaging. I know a new app is one more login, one more notification setting, one more thing competing for five minutes of your day. That friction is real, and I am not going to pretend it isn't.
Here is why we are doing it anyway…Slack was never built to be a community tool (neither is Discord nor WhatsApp). It was built to be a workplace chat tool, and we have been asking it to do a job it was not designed for. The industry needs a space to grow into for things like messaging, digital learning, a repository of video and audio content, and a true home for a dynamic, digital-first industry.
Making this shift is our job, not yours. Your job was and is showing up. Ours is building the room worth showing up in, and Slack has taken us as far as it can.
I am not asking you to trust the platform. I am asking you to trust us (me, Hilary, Hailey, Alex, and Courtney). Plus, trust each other … the people already here, those to come, and even trust you. Know that it is all worth showing up for wherever we build the room. We will make the move as painless as we can, keep asking what is not working once we are there, and adjust, add, and kill things along the way to improve continuously. You have my word.
Ultimately, we are doing this because the time is right and we believe the industry not only needs this, but deserves it. There is no better time to be in the physical security field than now, and there is no better group to be doing it with than this community.
And the most important part of all of this is the community. It doesn't matter if we call it the Brief, the Collective, or now Secured. Not a newsletter. Not a Slack channel… But a gathering point for the people who think this industry's future is worth collaborating, discussing, arguing, and engaging…and doing it seriously.
We believe that space is needed. We are building it with you, not for you, and this transition, the name, the pricing, the new home, is what building it with you actually looks like in practice.
Thank you for allowing the opportunity to write 149 Briefs. Here is to what's ahead. Keep an eye out for The Secured Brief moving forward.
Lee
PS: I am sure some of you may forward this, but please do so sparingly and encourage others to sign up here. Thank you!
