Notes from the Conference

I enjoy the yearly ASIS conference, and this year's was no exception.

There were a few serious research projects I had to knock out when I was there,

and it's incredibly beneficial to conduct your product research when the manufacturer's

developers, engineers and sales reps are all in one place.

 

Let's see - some of the highlights (social this time, saving the product/service-specific comments for later) :

 

Steve Hunt's  event at the Hard Rock was well attended. Some great panel-type discussion and enough subject matter experts walking around to start a few companies. I enjoyed listening, and meeting a few new contacts.

 

HID's aquarium get-together was done in the usual HID style. That's got to be one of the best places to host that kind of event. Enough room for people to walk around and talk, with plenty of cool stuff to look at.
HID has some very cool options out now for use of your HID cards. A lot of it has to do with using the cards you already have to do more (unlock your computer quickly - etc.) but the edge devices they are offering are very slick as well.

I finally met my two favorite industry editors, Sam Pfeifle  and Rhianna Daniels. I must say, it's got to be difficult to write about the industry - starting from the outside. These two have jumped neck deep into things and work very hard to produce quality content.

 

The Niscayah  function was classy - these guys have come out of the gate strong and are going all out to set the standard. I love the concept of being as large, experienced and capable as they are but purely agnostic when it comes to product. They are selling expert integration and security technology services - not designing systems around a product line.

 

I don't know how - but I think it's logistically impossible for me to ever attend the President's reception - nothing specifically against it but it seems like as much as I plan to go it never works out. This year, I struggled to handle some left over work in time to attend, but the work got the best of me.

 

AMAG  had a classy event as well, and it's good to see the success they are having. I've got a very short list of access control systems I recommend and AMAG's is definitely on it.

 

Let's see - Softwarehouse /AD  hosted an event in an old refurbished opera house which was pretty cool - complete with bull riding. And last but not least - Pelco had a dixieland group playing, and it blew me away when they busted out the canteena scene song from Star Wars. 

More to come on equipment, booths and industry politics