Volume 7

Volume 7 | January 26, 2023

Wow! It is hard to believe, but we are almost through January. It feels like we just rang in the new year. 

Today's Brief is personal. It is a plea to the built environment to get more curious about safety and security. The Brief continues the series of conversations digging into "how does the access control industry continue to derive value as it becomes commoditized?" In V6 we discussed branding and whether or not you should white-label or co brand your access control systems. In V7 I broadened the discussion to cover how storytelling, ESG, and bringing some sex appeal is not only needed by our industry but a responsibility of the built environment. I hope you like it. As always, please let me know. 

Before we dig into Brief V7, here are some updates and announcements:

🙌 Thank you to those that have accepted the invitation to the Slack group. We are now over 100 people strong and growing every day. As I have said, the more people we engage there, the better it will be. So please use it as a resource. 

🌎 Speaking of growth, hopefully, you have had a chance to check out the Global Access Control Topo Maps. I have plotted over 300 companies! The Map continues to grow daily and I will be adding another 30 this Friday. More to come, but please let me know if you need anything or if any companies still need to be included. I really want this to be a resource. 

🎤 I am working on a bunch of in-person events and speaking opportunities. If you are going to be at any of these, please let me or the community know, and we can coordinate a get-together. Also, please let me know if you are looking for someone to speak at a sales kick-off, a board meeting, a customer event, or a tradeshow. I am happy to speak on various access control topics. Here is a quick list of upcoming events:

• In March, I will attend MIPIM in Cannes, France, representing the access control and smart lock industry. I will cover the show and provide insights and analysis inside Slack. At the event, I will partner with Brivo Systems and Salto Systems on a breakfast event where we hope to showcase the industry to developers, owners, operators, and the ecosystem.

• ISC West in Las Vegas, NV, is also in March. I am partnering with Brian Karas to create The Lounge. Thank you, Torus Technology, Brivo Systems, and Moms in Security for being the first to sponsor The Lounge

• I have organized an Access Control Village at CREtech London. I am excited to have SwiftConnect, HID Global, LenelS2, iLOQ, ZKTECO USA, and Torus Technology join us to display what access control can do for the built environment. I have partnered with Bloxspring to help with PR and communications. I am pretty pumped for this.

• I just confirmed two speaking opportunities at IFSEC in London in May. More to come, but I will attend and look forward to being there.

• Dave O'Toole was gracious enough to invite me to speak at the European Locksmith Federation ELF Convention in Helsinki in June. Very excited about this opportunity.

• And last but not least, I will be putting on an access control conference called Future Forward: Access Control. The plan is to do it in Zurich, and I hope to have it on June 15. More details to come, but I wanted to get it on your radar now.

It is going to be busy but I would not have it any other way and I am excited to be doing all of this with you. Ok, back to the regularly scheduled Brief. Thank you and see you on Slack!

PS: I am sure some of you may forward this on but please do so sparingly and encourage others to sign up here. Thank you!

A Plea to the Built Environment: Please Get More Curious About Safety & Security.

I promise safety and security can be sexy.

Sure it isn't Big Data.

Or even AI. 

And it is definitely not the Metaverse.

But that is ok because safety and security are fundamental (and steady) building blocks of the buildings you build, manage, and operate. We just all need to reboot our view of it. 

A thesis I am working out is: for buildings, there is a correlating line between physical and psychological safety, productivity, innovation, investment, and possibly GDP of the individuals occupying the space, which impacts the greater cities, states, nations, and societies.

This is the S story in ESG and why developers, owners, and operators should care more about the security industry and, specifically, the access control industry.

👉🏼 I believe the stakeholders in the built environment in many societies, especially "wealthy" ones, take safety and security for granted. They do not find the subject sexy, invest the appropriate time and curiosity needed, and do not adequately use the resources they have on modern solutions. A more straightforward way to say it, you check the box. This is a global problem. The statement is not to say that there is zero appreciation for it or that no safety and security investments are happening. Instead, what I am saying is: the way we approach it in 2023 needs to change. There is no better time than now to breathe some new life into what has become a ho-hum sector of the built environment and implement change that can result in a meaningful return on the invested time, money, and energy. AND, more importantly, can save lives.

Before the pandemic and even more so after, we heard a lot about the built environments' impact on people, especially their health and wellness. Whether it is a story on ways to increase productivity, health and well-being or the results from research proving or highlighting good and bad applications, there is a rich treasure trove of principles, parameters, and learnings. A quick Google search shows you rich information on the topics are abound.

But what about it as it pertains to safety and security? 

Very little. There is plenty of blame, but I don't blame the larger ecosystem for where we are. The security industry must look at itself in the mirror and take ownership of the situation. The reason is complicated and nuanced, but one reason we are where we are is how bad the storytelling is. We do not tell a good value proposition story to garner interest. We also require more wherewithal or desire to engage deeply in the ecosystem, expanding our system's technical capabilities beyond its initial use case of keeping people safe. We need to stop being so isolated. As a result, we have shown just how unsexy we are. Or another way of saying it, our industry lacks the "It Factor" it deserves, given how important it is. We have literally bored people to the point of being an invisible utility. An essential utility but a very unsexy invisible utility. Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that being sexy and visible is the priority. Safety and keeping people safe is value proposition number 1. But with some sex appeal - some sizzle - added to the essential utility we as an industry deliver will have downstream effects such as: 

• Proper investment

• Increased budgets

• Bigger seats at the table

• Increased revenue

• Talent acquisition

And I firmly believe a safer building, city, and society. 

But unfortunately, right now, we get all of the above only when a tragedy occurs—for example, shootings or the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, look at North America during the Covid-19 pandemic. Not surprisingly, the security industry, precisely the access control and smart lock industry, did what it does best and fumbled a marketing and communications opportunity around Covid-19. The initiative provided a mediocre at best value proposition story by taking "ADA compliant" products of yesterday with the same messaging it has had for years and substituted "automatic door opener" or "motorized doors" with "seamless," "frictionless," and "touchless." In a broad view, the campaign has resulted in a thunderous "meh." Sure there are pockets of examples where there was adoption, but the mainstream market window-shopped and moved on to other problems to solve. We just didn't try hard enough to grab the space we occupied and expand beyond that. It was safe, unimaginative, and ineffective. We needed more "Kool-Aid Man" marketing and communications. We indeed let a "crisis go to waste."

But it is not fair to lay all the blame at the feet of the access control or smart lock industry. The built environment is guilty of its own slow adoption and change. 

If the stakeholders demanded excellence and change, they would get excellence and change. 

I was triggered to write this based on a LinkedIn post by Phil Kirscher, where he highlighted a Freakonomics Radio podcast called "Can Our Surroundings Make us Smarter." As the show description describes, "in a special episode of No Stupid Questions, Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth discuss classroom design, open offices, and cognitive drift." Phil was sparking a conversation on LinkedIn based on the discussion around the Winston Churchill quote, "we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us." More on that later, but the overall episode got me thinking because, during the episode, Angela Duckworth brings up a study discussing the impact of classroom design on learning. You can extrapolate the use case and apply it to the office and other places we live, work, and visit. The report states that seven design principles and parameters impact learning. The first three make up 50% of the impact, by the way. They are:

1. Light

2. Temperature

3. Air quality

4. Color

5. Complexity

6. Ownership

7. Flexibility

Wait, what? Security and safety aren't in the top 7, if not the top 5? Why? Or better, how? Is there a list of assumptions and safety and security implied? Not sure.

Now I appreciate that I am being very liberal with the report's intent and, in many ways using it to support the story I am trying to tell here. Still, it applies to the mindset, is relatable to other applications, and is one example of many I have read or seen.

It also highlights an issue and an opportunity that is worth exploring. 

The issue is that, in some parts of the world, safety and security are assumed or at least not thought of till they matter. While in other parts of the world, the lack of feeling safe and security practices impedes progress. [I am currently working on the correlation and hope to have more data and a framework to show the impacts. More to come.]

As we said earlier, in the parts of the world where people feel safe and security measures are practiced, the security industry is a rearview mirror utility in the building. And as an industry, we've not only allowed this, we created it. And it is both the problem and the opportunity.

In my writing, I usually write about how the security industry needs to improve. Whether that's better interoperability, up-leveling our talent, or marketing and communications, we need to do better. Not just incrementally but exponentially.

My opinion on who should go first and lead this conversation has stayed the same. The responsibility starts with us, the access control industry. But after engaging with the built environment community, spending time with end users, and listening, the ability to invoke change goes beyond the access control industry. We need to include ALL the stakeholders (owners, operators, developers, property managers, specifiers, and experts in the security industry). "We" all need a reboot. We need a reboot on expectations, definitions, and criteria… let's call it a reboot on holistically how we view, expect and engage with physical security and safety.

And, as said earlier, there is no better time to start than now. 

Let us assume we are aligned that we need a reboot. 

That usually leads to, where to start? Of all the security categories, there is no bigger chance and opportunity to get a return on the investment of time, money, and attention than in the access control industry.

As you are reading this, the access control industry is changing. There is:

📈 A re-imagination of what access controls value is and how it is defined.

🛠️ A retooling of the economy and the relationship with the built environment as it pertains to access control.

🌲 An increase in technology adoption within the access control industry is unlike what we have seen in 30 years.

But as owners and operators, are you taking advantage of these changes? Probably not. But just like the chicken and egg debate, the access control industry needs you to demand more. Demand more innovation, value creation, and the change you want. You doing this will accelerate everything. 

Bring in your existing partners, explore new ones, and start a conversation. That is all the first step forward needs to be—a conversation.

If the Winston Churchill quote in the podcast is valid, "we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us," shouldn't safety and security be center stage? For as many sexy conversations we are having on big data, AI, and the Metaverse, we need to have the same type with the new sexy safety and security industry.

Start with these two questions:

1. How do your products and services impact the productivity, GDP, and health of the people that occupy my [office, building, apartment, condo] directly or indirectly?

2. How do your products and services improve the spaces we live, work, and visit and go beyond keeping bad people out and locking or unlocking doors?

This is the S in ESG. No industry has a more significant obligation and opportunity to command the space it occupies regarding the S than the security industry. And for a suitable place to start within the S, we can start with access control. 

The safety and security of your buildings, the people that occupy them, and the general society needs it.