As this magazine comes out once a month, what are you (and I!) supposed to read in between?! I would recommend The Economist. Except that after last month I would not recommend it quite as much. It ran an article about the fall in crime. It quoted a couple of eminent criminologists. For a newspaper (that’s what it calls itself, although it looks like a magazine, but why argue) that rightly prides itself on reporting things as they are, and not as various people would like us to think they are, the article frankly wasn’t up to scratch. And that now makes me wonder if the rest of their articles are the same.
As so often, it was what the article didn’t say that was the problem, as much as anything it did say. It quoted the official British crime survey, sensibly, as police recorded crime is so far from the true picture. But who takes surveys as gospel? Last year’s crime survey was the first to include computer-related crime, as I well know because my household was one invited to take part. In return you got a book of postage stamps. The surveyor said that they had trouble making the 70 per cent target of people asked to do the survey. People just don’t want to do something for nothing (no offence to the stamps). Or they might not fancy being asked about crime, as the abiding memory of the survey is being given a long list of drugs and asked if I had taken them (I haven’t). Judging by The Economist article, cyber crime or crime against businesses doesn’t count; only old-fashioned crimes like robbery and assault of the person. Which is strange because The Economist does face crime, the same as any other business. Last year we featured Vicki Gavin, head of information security there, a regular (and good) speaker at infosec events. As years pass, Professional Security evolves to face the new mix of security management issues, cyber besides physical and electronic. For proof of that, turn the pages.
‘Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.’ Shakespeare, Henry VIII. I felt I had come up with something from Shakespeare when I interview the lone worker safety trainer Nicole Vasquez (of Worthwhile Training, pictured, ahead of the Lone Worker Safety Expo in March at London Olympia) as we met at the rooftop restaurant at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon, which I highly recommend, any time of year. In fact the day last month I went was so wet and dreary, it was the best place in town to be. I have to be honest; that quote came from Nicole. One thing I took away from speaking with her was that lone worker protection – that you can address with technology, but you can’t get a more physical issue than lone working – is changing because of wider changes in ways we work. Things once taken for granted, such as natters in canteens and staff rooms, that helped people spread knowledge informally, aren’t necessarily around any more. This magazine and our ST events can be a help.
