I am often approached by folks in our industry who want to get the word out about something great their company has done. Integrators want to tell the world about a big project wins and how happy they made their client after a successful deployment; security directors want everyone to know how cutting-edge their facility is; vendors assuredly want you all to know that these projects used their newest technologies.
That said, for integrators especially, rising above the din to earn real recognition is an uphill climb. If you aren’t one of the top 100 recurring revenue generators out there or one of the 50 fastest growing over a three-year span, the opportunities to earn recognition dry up pretty quickly. It is for this reason that the editorial team at Security Business has decided to put our annual Fast50 rankings on hiatus as we explore new ways to help integrators publicly promote their companies.
We at SecurityInfoWatch Media – which includes Security Business, as well as print magazines Security Technology Executive (STE) and Locksmith Ledger, and of course, our flagship website SecurityInfoWatch.com – are hoping to do that by introducing a new program designed to give the entire security ecosystem the recognition it deserves: The Security Vanguard Awards.
Earning Recognition
Regardless of where it stands within the security ecosystem, if your company has an innovative story to tell about a recent project, you stand a great chance of being recognized on a national scale. A top project will be chosen on each of our platforms and will appear on the cover of each respective magazine (or on the front page, in the case of SecurityInfoWatch.com). The major stakeholders for each of those projects will be honored formally in front of their peers at Securing New Ground and be invited to participate in a special panel discussion at the October 2020 event.
Not only will the top projects be chosen, but several honorable mention projects will also be selected for each platform. We will be looking for enterprise-level collaborative security projects that exemplify the best working partnerships among security solutions providers, security systems integrators and the end-user clients they serve. For integrators in particular, we would love to see projects that changed the trajectory of your entire business, broke you into a new vertical market or otherwise impacted the business.
How it Works
Participation in this program – which has already been endorsed and sponsored by the Security Industry Association (SIA) – will be 100% free to anyone in the security ecosystem, including integrators, end-users, consultants, engineers, and yes, even manufacturers.
Not only will this program forever be cost-free, the submission process will be easy, and we PLEDGE that it take five minutes or less. Simply tell us (via web-based submission system) the name and location of the project, all the stakeholders involved (vendors, integrators, consultants, etc), and a paragraph or two as to why this particular project is innovative or special, and/or the impact it had on your business. Of course, you must be 100% sure that each stakeholder will want to go public with the project’s details.
Helped by a few industry experts, our editorial team will take it from there. If the project is chosen as a Vanguard Award winner, we will follow up with interviews and to set up photo shoots. Again, be sure all stakeholders in the project are willing to be publicized.
Look for the submission system to open on SecurityInfoWatch.com in early January. Submissions will remain open for several months, and top projects will be chosen in the summer of 2020, with recognition coming in the fall.
Feel free to email me or any of our editorial team with questions…I am psyched to see how innovative our industry can be!
Paul Rothman is Editor-in-Chief of Security Business magazine. Email your comments/questions to [email protected].
