Founded in 1955, 2015 marks an important year for ASIS International, its 60th anniversary, writes Mike Hurst, a vice-chairman of ASIS’ UK Chapter.
We hope and expect that the 14th ASIS International European Conference and Exhibition in Frankfurt from March 29 to 31, 2015 will be one of the high points and something the 38,000 members can be proud of.
So, how do you put together a two day, multi-stream, international security conference? It helps to have a professional and efficient executive and the ASIS team in Brussels, led by director Michel Gen fits the bill. Then you need a programme; and that’s where the volunteer leadership steps in. In October, I with fellow UK Chapter Vice Chairman Graham Bassett attended the Programme Committee meeting alongside colleagues from across Europe, to put together the conference programme. A day earlier, Graham and I had attended the meeting of the European Advisory Council (EAC), of which we are both members, so at the end two days of solid meetings, we were very familiar with the inside of the Marriott’s meeting rooms.
The call for papers went out in the summer and as usual attracted a large number of abstracts. The process to select speakers involves members of the committee, initially scoring all the presentations online in advance of the meeting. It is always gratifying to see so many abstracts submitted from ASIS members and non-members across the globe. At the meeting, always held in the host city, the committee of about 20 select the highest marked abstracts and tries to formulate the best programme. Often we will have abstracts on similar subjects with similar scores, which is where the debates start.
Examining the most frequently submitted topics is actually very useful bellwether of current thinking in the security sector. Some common themes this year were ‘managing security’ in all its complexities, travel security, securing the supply chain, security awareness and cyber security issues and as you would expect terrorism and Ebola. Details of the programme are being announced as speakers confirm but we left the meeting confident that the event looks like being another success. Indeed our German colleagues are determined to exceed the 700-plus attendees who gathered in The Hague this spring.
Although this is a truly international event but there is a good crop of UK speakers from the police, academia and corporate security including Professor Martin Gill, Mike O’Neill CPP PSP CSyP, Martin Smith MBE and a presentation on raising your personal profile and personal brand by Graham Bassett and myself (please excuse the shameless self-publicity).
The conference also features three keynote plenary sessions and the first of these speakers to be announced is Axel Petri, SVP Group Security Governance, Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany. I have met Axel and heard him speak recently at an event in London, a joint meeting of the SASIG and the ASIS CSO Roundtable: I look forward to hearing him speak again.
The social and networking element is also well catered for with a welcome party on the Sunday evening and the president’s reception on the Monday. There will also be an informal UK Chapter gathering again next year although it will be hard to top the quiet soiree at Wicked Wines in The Hague!
Details of the other keynote speakers and more information about the event will be released over the next few months and can be found at www.asisonline.org or by contacting me directly [email protected].
I hope to see you there.
