The Kimpton Clocktower Hotel in downtown Manchester was a good place to be yesterday – not only because it was the venue for the latest Security TWENTY event by Professional Security magazine, ST22 Manchester, but it was cooler inside than in the sultry outdoors.
Besides a full basement of exhibitors (pictured, distributor COP), upstairs a morning conference ran. Alan Cain of Greater Manchester NHS Shared Services opened, a return speaker to ST Manchester as he spoke some years ago when he headed security at Manchester Metropolitan University. He’s been with the NHS for three years now, working on the emergency planning side, and he talked the audience through such work, and how it relates to occupational health and safety, and security management, in a major incident. He defined them in four categories: due to natural hazards (a flood) or infrastructure (a power outage), an accident (a fire) or an act of terrorism.
Some of what Alan said found an echo in the talk on holistic security by Ellie Hurst of information security awareness trainers and consultancy Advent IM, such as the need to be careful with our language so that we are all taking about the same thing, so as to protect it. She ended with standards, notably the international standard for information security management ISO 27001, because even if you do not go so far as to be certified to 27001, it’s useful for security in general, not just information. After the tea break, Darrell Gilmour of Skills for Security went over the skills shortage and what the industry can do, and is doing, about it. We also heard manufacturer updates from Seagate, BT and Hikvision before lunch.
More incidentally about holistic security on the Advent IM blog.
The evening before, the informal evening meal for exhibitors and guests raised a round £3000 for the veterans’ charity Head Up – in fact their first fund-raiser. That came from a raffle of prizes donated; and another donated prize, a holiday in Madrid, auctioned off by Professional Security MD Roy Cooper and bid for by Mike Gillespie of Advent IM.
For the full list of ST events for the rest of 2022 visit https://professionalsecurity.co.uk/security-events-and-conferences/, and click here to register online to attend. It’s free, whatever your interest in security, whether as a manager, installer, or specifier or consultant or someone who wants to keep up with the tech and the sector.
The next ST is the double-header in Ireland – on the Tuesday, September 8, at the usual Belfast venue of the Europa Hotel; and on the Thursday, at a new Dublin venue, the Crowne Plaza at Blanchardstown, to the north east of the city, on the N3.
See more photos from ST events on the ‘gallery‘ part of the magazine website.
