The Museum of Anthropology has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of the stolen Bill Reid pieces. Photos and descriptions of each item can be seen on their website by clicking here.

With respect to the obvious security lapse, I’m shocked that the Museum continues, at least publicly, to suggest that their security is ‘appropriate’.

Here is a quote from today’s Sun… “But museum director Anthony Shelton said that elaborate computer program printouts have determined that the museum’s security system did not fail during the heist and that the construction of the building’s layout did not compromise security.”

… elaborate computer printouts? Why would you need that? Given that the items were stolen, isn’t that solid enough proof that the system failed?

Either the system failed or was improperly designed/programmed in the first place (which would still be a ‘failure’). It’s a black or white issue. (Keeping in mind that a ‘security alarm’ is not a ‘security system’).

Protecting a museum is no different, in principle, than protecting a home… there are two fundamental security concepts that must be addressed. First, you need to ensure that you have five minute proofed everything that you are trying to protect and second, you must create redundancies so that there is no single point of failure. That’s it. The rest is implementation.

The fact is, there are many different technologies that could or should have been in place at the Museum to prevent, or at the very least, detect this incident as it was happening. And if they were detected, multiple levels of redundancy to ensure that appropriate response was under way.

I demonstrate a few of those technologies during both of the interviews linked to below…

Provident was featured in the Vancouver Sun today in a series of articles on ‘outsourcing your life’.

The article mentions a few of the different homewatch services we offer including filling your fridge with fresh milk, eggs, cheese and juice for your return from vacation, as well as making sure that the dogwalker is actually walking the dog.

Getting to the bottom of the dogwalking issue mentioned in the story was a combination of both our homewatch service and alarm monitoring… and illustrates one of the many benefits of not sharing alarm codes.

Every user of your alarm should be assigned a unique user code to arm/disarm the system. Most alarms, and certainly every system that we have installed in the past five years, are capable of having dozens of different user codes. Just two of the benefits of not sharing codes are that:

1. Individual codes allow for restricted access for some users. For example, if you have a cleaning lady who only comes on Wednesdays, we can program her code to only work on Wednesdays between 8:00am and 6:00pm (or whatever hours you’d like); likewise, in a retail store, employees codes can be made to operate the system within reasonable windows of time before and after regular office hours (rather than full 24 hour access).
2. Individual codes provide an audit trail. If everyone uses a unique code, we can always look back into the event history of your alarm and tell you that it was Bob who disarmed the system at 6:43am on Tuesday, not Mary.

In the case of the dogwalker mentioned in the article, we were able to review the event history on the client’s alarm and see that rather than seeing the dogwalker disarm & arm the system in the morning and afternoon, she was only arming and disarming once… with only 10 minutes between. Based on this information, we sent one of our Mobile Team members to watch the house at the appropriate time and confirm what we (& the client) suspected… that the dog was not being taken for a hike at all.

In you would like to add, delete or modify any user codes for your alarm, give us a call. We can program almost every single one of our client’s alarms remotely and can help you configure individual codes from our office.

To set-up a homewatch for the next time that you are out of town for the day, weekend or month (or anything in between), call us at 604.664.1087 to arrange for a member of our team to pick up your mail & newspapers, water your plants, check the furnace or whatever else might need to be done. We’ll drive you and the family to the airport, pick you up when you return and make sure that your fridge is full of exactly what you would like to be in it. What can we do for you?

Provident was featured in a cover story in the February issue of Security Systems News… which is one of the largest security trade journals in the United States.

The story talks about a number of our Homewatch services that we provide such as picking up newspapers, watering plants, airport dropoff/pick-up and shoveling snow.

It also mentions that Provident was named the 11th Best Place to Work in BC by BC Business Magazine and Caliber Leadership Systems. (This was the second year in a row that we have made the list… last year we placed #24)

Click on the image above to read the full article.

David Cay Johnston is a NY Times reporter who has written a new book called ‘Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick you with the Bill)’ that is getting a fair amount of press in the States.

In addition to the typical targets like Wal-Mart that you might expect a book like this to discuss, Johnston devotes an entire chapter to the alarm industry… referring to the fact that police response to burglar alarms is an incredibly costly and ineffective use of taxpayers money.

In essence, he is saying the same thing that I have said on this blog and in several interviews… that the alarm industry is a parasite on the Police and is profiting through making a bad problem worse.

Here is a quote:

“The burglar alarm industry charges hefty fees for a service that costs it very little. Then the industry dumps onto the taxpayers the real costs of providing the very service it sells. This is economic pollution sold to people under the guise of making them safe. In fact, it makes them less safe.”

I was interviewed a couple weeks ago by Security Systems News, an American trade journal that was writing a story about the book. I was the lone industry voice (at least in the article) that was agreeing with Johnston. Click here to read the SSN story.

There is absolutely no question that police response to burglar alarms is a collossal waste of taxpayers money. With a false alarm rate of 98%, taxpayers throughout North America are getting fleeced by helping subsidize the alarm industry.. in effect allowing it to sell an incomplete service and get rich doing so.

What’s worse then the fact that the alarm industry is offloading the crucial component of its ‘service’ to the Police, is the fact that Police response itself, irrespective of who pays for it, is virtually useless.

The simple fact is that with a 98% false alarm rate (70% of which are caused by user error), Police Departments throughout North America cannot, and will not, provide immediate response. Instead, they require that an effort is made to ‘verify’ the alarm. This involves calling the alarmed premises, and in the case of ‘enhanced call verification‘ making a second call to the alarm owner, before dispatching the Police. This process all but ensures that by the time the Police are notified of the alarm, any incident that might have taken place will be long over. Unless a neighbour or some other human being actually calls 911 to report a burglary in progress, the Police are not going to respond anytime soon.

A burglar alarm is not a deterrent… it’s only purpose is to provide information that has an incredibly short shelf life. Unless response to the alarm is immediate, there is incredibly little value offered by a monitored alarm.

I’ve written about this topic a few times, here are links to three relevant posts…

1. The Alarm Industry is a Parasite on the Police
2. Provident vs. Alarmforce on CKNW
3. Burglar Alarms: an ‘Unneccessary Burden’?

On a more positive note, about what you actually should be doing, read ‘Five Minute Proofing‘ … in my experience, Five Minute Proofing is the most effective tactic that you can use to reduce your risk of being a victim. Of course, what is essential for Five Minute Proofing to be of value is that response to your alarm is immediate… the reason that Police response doesn’t work is that it is very hard, if not impossible, to ‘One Hour Proof’.

In Business in Vancouver a few weeks ago, I was quoted in an article about security concerns for Olympic sponsors… in light of recent vandalism to a few RBC branches.

Here is an excerpt from the BIV column…

Olympic anarchy

Safety and security ought to be top-of-mind for the Royal Bank of
Canada after vandals destroyed windows at two branches and bragged on
blogs. All because of RBC’s $110 million cash and services sponsorship
of VANOC. Anonymous anarchists struck at Hastings and Nanaimo on
September 29 and Commercial and First on December 8. It’s perhaps the
most public evidence of anti-2010 sentiment since March’s Olympic flag
theft from city hall.

“From the beginning there has always been more opposition to the
Games than before, and I take that as a measure of the politics of
B.C.,” said Kevin Wamsley of the University of Western Ontario’s
International Centre for Olympic Studies.

RBC confirmed the incidents, but wouldn’t discuss safety and security measures.

Provident Security’s Michael Jagger said businesses can battle
vandals with shatter-resistant safety film, laminated glass and motion
sensitive surveillance cameras. Video systems can be programmed to
detect unusual behaviour, such as loitering. That would trigger an
alarm for a security staffer to investigate.

Companies needn’t wave the white flag and opt for unsightly bars or
garage door-style shutters. “Security done quickly is ugly,” Jagger
said.

While it is unfortunate that these types of incidents happen at all, I think that the response to them is often worse. Although there are some creative examples of security bars installed at some retail stores, the overwhelming majority of security efforts such as bars, roll shutters and bollards are really ugly.

Unfortunately, security is typically an afterthought… it is rarely built into the design of most people’s homes or businesses while the designs are still on paper. Most often, increased security, whether it is an alarm or any physical security device, is implemented in a mad panic immediately after a burglary or incident. As a result, security done quickly is often incredibly ugly.

The reality is that while architects, designers and builders often spend hours on almost every other physical design aspect of a project, security is very often left until after the last minute… often resulting in unnecessary ugliness.

On Monday, I was a guest on the Christy Clark show on CKNW … talking about how five minute proofing is the most effective strategy for reducing your risk of a burglary.

We also talked about how the typical residential burglary occurs as well as some of the common problems with most alarms. We also talked a little about BLINK mesh radio and other alternative alarm signal transmission methods.

If you would like to listen to the whole interview click here… if you would like to download the audio file so that you can listen to the show over and over and over again on your iPod (or even just once) click here. … both audio files are a little slow loading… sorry, we’re working on that to see if we can speed it up a bit.

For those that would rather read about most of the topics discussed during the show, here are links to some of the relevant posts from this blog that I talked about while on the show…

1. Why Millions of Home Alarms are Useless
2. Your Security is in your Redundancy
3. Securing Your Plasma TV
4. Securing your single hung windows or sliding doors
5. Securing your yard

There are many other simple things that you can do to reduce your risk of a burglary… Many of them are listed in dozens of other posts that are listed in the ‘Home Security Tips’ category.

My interview time got moved up a little today… I’ll be on the Christy Clark show on CKNW at 1:00pm (PST) today rather than 2:00pm.

You can listen live to the show online by clicking here at 1:00pm, or by tuning into AM980 on your radio.

On Monday, December 17th between 2:00pm and 2:30pm1:00pm and 1:30pm, I’ll be a guest on the Christy Clark show on CKNW radio.

The segment will be about home security during the holidays and what you can do to minimize your risk of being a victim of burglary.

You can listen live to the show online by clicking here on Monday afternoon, or by tuning into AM980 on your radio.

The Vancouver Sun published an article about how the security industry, and in particular the security guard industry, can be a great stepping stone into a career in law enforcement. It also mentioned how the security industry also offers a lot of opportunity for semi-retired people to work and keep busy.

The article featured two of our team members, Mike Karpinski (pictured) and Chuck Beaver… Mike is using Provident as a stepping stone towards a career with the Vancouver Police while Chuck has already had a full career as a Food Broker and we are very fortunate to be able to take advantage of his experience as one of our Team Leaders managing a client’s facility in Richmond.

Click here to read the full article which has already been reprinted in many newspapers throughout Canada including the Edmonton Journal and the St. John’s Telegram.

I believe that working as a security guard can be either one of the very best, or very worst, jobs out there… it all depends on what you are looking for.

One of the best things about working as a security guard is that it offers a unique opportunity to be entrusted with a significant amount of responsibility. All of our security guards are licensed and bonded, but more importantly, they are responsible for much more than someone working a ‘typical’ customer service job. Assuming that you are looking for a strong reference to prove to a future employer that you can be trusted, and have held a position with a lot of responsibility (and been successful at it), working as a security guard can be a fantastic experience. I would argue that there are very, very few other jobs for young people that offer a similar opportunity.

Unfortunately, many people come into the security guard industry looking for an easy job where they can just sit (or worse, sleep) and get paid to be lazy.

At Provident, we are much more concerned about finding the right ‘fit’ than just filling a position. As a result, we end up turning down a lot of business opportunities, especially on the guard side of things. For example, while we provide alarm system installation and monitoring as well as CCTV monitoring for several Vancouver nightclubs, we do not provide bouncers.

We do, however, provide security guard services for clients such as the
Kerrisdale Business Association, Four Seasons Hotel, Fairmont
Waterfront and the Heffel Gallery to name just a few. Our mobile team provides service for more than 6,000 Vancouver homes and businesses providing patrol and guaranteed five minute response services. We also have a security team who provide 24/7 security at several private residences in Vancouver and West Vancouver…. we are definitely not your average security company, and we definitely are not looking for average people.

Our team members are amongst the best paid in the industry and we have been recognized as being one of the 25 Best Places to Work in B.C.

The tight labour market has only increased the need for us to be very careful about what business we can take on and what type of people we will offer positions to… we provide security for a niche market that expects to receive a very high level of service. We really cannot afford to hire anyone who doesn’t fit our culture or meet our client’s expectations. That is part of the reason we have posted our core values on our website… it helps make it really clear what we are looking for and whether or not someone will be successful here.

Are you, or someone you know, a possible match with us?

If so, please check out our brand new career portal on our website… we’ve posted a few of our current openings, but there are still a lot that will be added over the next few days.

The best way to figure out if Provident could be a good fit is to hear from some of our current, and former, team members. Click here to watch ten video testimonials from Provident employees on our website. We’ve also posted them on YouTube… click below to watch interviews with Chuck Beaver as well as one of our more famous former employees, Angus Reid, who is now employed by the B.C. Lions as their starting Centre.

If you are interested in hearing about what it’s like to work on our mobile team, here is Greg Elsie:

Sales? Here is Rebecca Bligh… who has been with Provident since 1998 and has worked in almost every department within the company.

Jane Robert’s title is ‘Employee Experience’, which sums up her role very well… Jane looks after all of our recruiting and hiring, and is the first person most people speak with when coming on board with us.

Ryder Lefurgy looks after our Guard team and has been with us since 2001… Ryder has moved up the ranks from getting hired as a member of our Mobile team to becoming responsible for overseeing our entire guard team.

Of course, Provident Security is a lot more than just security… Ryan Sutton is a great example of that. Ryan is our Lead Developer and is responsible for managing the evolution of both our client and employee web portals as well as working with our IT team to keep our networks and industry leading technical infrastructure up and running 24/7. You’ll have to go to our website to watch his testimonial though.

Provident was featured in a Global Newshour story (click on either the link or image to watch) following up on the Vancouver Sun article from Tuesday.

The story talks about the increase in business that has been prompted by the recent gang shootings in the city. As I mentioned, people who call to set up a sales appointment with us mention that they have been meaning to call us for a few months and it was seeing one of our trucks, lawn signs, seeing us in the media or talking to a friend that day that prompted them to finally make the call. These shootings have produced the same effect.

There really isn’t much that anyone can do to prevent or deter motivated people who are trying to kill someone. We do not sell bullet proof vest or armoured vehicles. In fact, we won’t provide alarm monitoring, response or any services to people whom we know to be criminals…. which has resulted in our turning down more than a few opportunities over the years.

We don’t pretend to offer security services that will help prevent these types of incidents from happening.

Unfortunately, I think that the only useful advice for people who are worried about becoming an innocent victim caught in the middle of one of these shootings is to be cognizant of your surroundings. If you see anything or anyone who looks suspicious, call 911.

However, property crime is something that we ARE very effective at dealing with. If these shootings have got you thinking about your security in general… like how to reduce your risk of a burglary, upgrading your alarm system, considering whether or not a CCTV system is right for you, or other issues like that… we can do that. Please get in touch with us.