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Leaving My IP Video Security Comfort Zone to Focus on Selling Some Cutting Edge, Non-“Me Too” Security Stuff…

By January 10, 2017January 16th, 2017QTSI News

…or How I Learned to Love Defense-in-Depth and Not be Married to Any One Technology

Eric Mardian

Eric Mardian

An oft said refrain but true in a lot of respects is, “If you’re good at selling, you can sell anything.”     Yes, anything from sporting goods to jet liners in fact! And why not? If you’ve got sales fundamentals down, the requisite experience, and are a good, eager learner, you too could go from selling baseball gloves and timeshares to wind turbines and offshore drilling platforms (somebody must sell those platforms, right?).

In my case, it wasn’t quite the quantum leap to go from one security product class or technology (IP video) to another, though I did in fact recently join a company called Quantum…Quantum Technology Sciences (www.qtsi.com) to be exact. And it was, in a sense, a milestone since I came from Milestone. But seriously, it was a milestone because many of us tend to get cozy where we’re at (i.e., company, industry, technology, profession, etc.), but not necessarily for me as I choose to see the industry holistically, have a deep respect for virtually all the technology (yes, even card printers), and love new challenges (life is too short, right?). So naturally it wasn’t a tough decision to go from selling industry staples like VMSes and NVRs to Quantum’s ground-breaking, seismic-acoustic sensor technology. I’m still in the physical/electronic security space; still selling, but just shifting to the front lines, beyond the perimeter, with a sensing technology that listens to the earth and early-warns the rest of the industry’s technologies (UAVs, cameras, radar, lights, sirens, talk-downs, dogs, guards, and the rest) that something wicked this way comes: people (aka bad guys), vehicles, gunshots, boats, aircraft, and other sordid undesirables.

What I discovered in making the technology shift was a promising and game changing technology that shifted the Defense-in-Depth (D-I-D) model further out beyond the perimeter, providing end users sufficiently more time to respond in protecting their assets and personnel. No other technology on the planet—at least not commercially available and not costing the equivalent of an offshore oil rig—could deliver that literal paradigm shift for D-I-D. Hence it was a straightforward decision to hop off the IP video bandwagon and get to the forefront of the front lines! The cool part I learned, most prodigiously while at Milestone, is that the security industry is like a symphony, where one piece does not play as effectively without the whole orchestra. Any appreciable end user business these days that is serious about protection does not install only a burglar alarm without some cameras, card readers, or other ancillary devices/software.

The security ecosystem really rocks when many or most of the varied technologies out there are syncopated and synergized (aka integrated) in a state we at Quantum call “cooperatition.” Our unique, geophysical data acquisition systems (say that 3x fast!) work optimally when other security technologies, be they equipment, software, or human are in place. We just assist the others by giving them a nice head start. Think D-I-D on steroids!

Be it far from me to ever say, “Look Ma, I’m a beyond-the-perimeter, intrusion guy now!” or “VMSes, cameras? Been there done that.” Rather, I want to throw a big party and invite everyone (yes, including those card printer guys) to chat about how we can all work successfully together to provide our joint customers with the best D-I-D solutions out there…oh, and make a little music together while we’re at it!

As published on LinkedIn.