After more than a year of searching for options for the impending analog cellular network shutdown, and many months of navigating through the Government regulations regarding radio signal transmission, we are very proud to announce that Provident’s BLINK monitoring service is now on-line and available to Provident clients in Vancouver.

BLINK is the fastest and most secure method of transmitting alarm signals.

Over the past couple of weeks, our team of Alarm Technicians and Installers have been working very hard establishing the BLINK network throughout Vancouver. This included installing both a primary and back-up network and the configuration of more than a dozen boxes of control equipment in our Operations Centre.

Last week, our BLINK system received certification and is now fully operational. Certification involved bringing a mesh-radio specialist in from Kansas City who spent all of last week reviewing our connections, testing signals and working with our Installation, Customer Service and Sales teams… ensuring they are all up to speed on how BLINK works. Most importantly, he ensured that our BLINK system met all relevant ULC regulations.

We are very excited to be able to offer BLINK service in Vancouver, as it offers several very important security features that have been unavailable in BC until now… some of these features include:

1. BLINK eliminates the need for a landline to act as the primary communication method for an alarm… this means that clients can choose to switch to Shaw DIgital Telephone, Rogers Home Phone or any other VoIP provider without creating a risk for alarm signal transmission;
2. BLINK can eliminate the need for your landline to disconnect any active call each time the alarm is used;
3. Because BLINK is a wireless network, it eliminates the threat of telephone lines being cut;
4. BLINK is a very secure mesh radio network… which means that every installed BLINK transceiver acts as a repeater on the network. As a result, there is no single point of failure on the network. It also means that there is no reliance on any third party network provider.
5. Most importantly, BLINK is incredibly fast.
   Because BLINK does not need to dial a number, and is always online,
   signal transmission is up to ten times faster than either a landline or
   cellular back-up. In most cases, that is a difference of almost an
   entire minute… which, when coupled with Provident’s guaranteed five
   minute response, is a really big deal.

We are installing BLINK systems on a priority basis for our existing cellular back-up clients. Within the first 72 hours of sending a note out to those clients, more than 200 had already placed an order…. needless to say, we will be very busy with BLINK for the next little while.

New clients, or existing clients (without cellular) wishing to upgrade to BLINK are being placed on a wait list…. given the nature of how the BLINK network works, we are giving priority based upon both date requested as well as geography.

The reason for geographical preference is because we are upgrading all of our existing cellular clients in tight groups to ensure that the network strength is maximized from Day 1. If a new client has made a request for BLINK and lives in the same area that we are already installing in, we will likely have that unit installed much sooner. The more BLINK units installed in a neighbourhood, the stronger the network becomes.

So… if you are interested, be sure to let us know as soon as possible so that we can get you on the list.

After a ton of work, many meetings, several days of filming and photos… the new and much improved Provident website is finally up at www.providentsecurity.ca

The site features fifteen short videos, five service related ones and ten team member videos. The original idea was to have six videos in total, but the team member footage ended up being so good that we could not condense it into one four minute video… so we made ten individual ones instead. A huge thanks to Greg, Rebecca, Jane, Chuck, Jordan, Ryan, Ryder, Keith, Angus and Sarah!

Several of our clients also agreed to help us out on this project and took time out of their day to be filmed … a big thanks to Tom Gautreau, Thomas Hobbs, Andrea Molnar, Nada Vuksic, Scott Shepherd, Denise Lum, Drew Grimson, Dwayne Stewart and Stew Jordan for being a part of this project.

The site was designed by Jeff Joseph and all of the video footage was filmed in High Definition… Jeff is an incredibly accomplished commercial and film Director (one of his commercials was aired in the U.S. during last years’ Superbowl…. plus his own reel of commercials that he himself has starred in is pretty impressive). The Provident site was his first full scale web site that takes advantage of HD video. I’m sure that there will be more to follow.

There are still a few pages that need a bit of updating… but the site is largely there.

The first Westside Home Security seminar of 2007 is going to be held Wednesday, January 24th, at the Arbutus Club.

We want to make it easy for you to learn more about protecting your home from burglary.

Through an interactive presentation, with lots of pictures, I will show you exactly what burglary looks like on the Westside. More importantly, I will show you some very specific things that you can do (both high and low tech) to reduce your risk.

Whether you are a Provident client or not, you will learn tactics to ensure that you do not become a victim.

My most recent presentation like this was in December for about 35 realtors at a Ubertor Real Estate meetup event that was very well received.

Vancouver Police Constable Ray Gardner, from the Kerrisdale, Oakridge, Marpole Community Policing Office will also be available to answer questions and discuss property crime issues and concerns.

7:00pm – 8:30pm
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
The Arbutus Club
2001 Nanton Avenue (Nanton and Arbutus)
3rd Floor – Quilchena Terrace

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP. Feel free to let your neighbours and friends know to attend… please just let us know how many people are coming with you so that we can ensure appropriate room set-up and refreshments.

We are pleased to report that Provident was selected by the various stratas at Arbutus Walk (between Arbutus and Yew Street, and 12th and 10th Avenues) to take over security services effective January 1st, 2007.

Last year, the residents at Arbutus Walk developed a community security program in an effort to tackle a growing property crime problem… particularly theft from autos in the underground parkades. The launch of the program was written about in the Courier. We are proud that when a decision was made to change providers, the residents chose Provident to take over.

We look forward to working with all of the residents to help ensure a crime-free neighbourhood.

Last night, B.C. Business Magazine held the 5th Annual Best Companies to Work for in B.C. Awards.

Provident was recognized as #24 on the list this year. Four of us were at the event to accept the award (pictured from left to right are: Jane Roberts, Human Resources, Rowen Clement, Accounting, me, Rebecca Walker, Sales and Peter Legge, Publisher of B.C. Business Magazine).

We have been fortunate to have been recognized for several other business awards in the past, but this is the first time that we have been recognized for being a great employer. This award is by far the best one yet!

The awards program is run by Watson-Wyatt Worldwide and involves an anonymous survey that was distributed to our staff, in all departments including Guards, Technicians, Customer Service, IT, Accounting and our Mobile Team. The survey included questions that asked about virtually every aspect of working at Provident. Amongst the other 24 companies that were honored, two Provident clients also made the list: Aritzia at #5 and Flight Centre at #8.

In our office, we have a wall that lists some of the major goals that we are working towards. So far, we have achieved every goal that we have set… including, amongst other things, opening an alarm installation division, purchasing Vytaltek Security and most recently, building our own central monitoring station and Operations Centre. We updated our list of goals in October 2005 to cover the next 15 years and the next item on the list is to be recognized as a Top 10 Employer by 2008… Being recognized as one of the Top 25 this year is a great first step… and also a reminder that there is a lot of progress still to be made.

Thank you very much to all of our great team members for helping to make Provident one of the 25 best companies to work for!

While on the topic of working at Provident, do you know anyone who should be working here? We are currently recruiting for a few positions in our Operations Centre as well as looking for another great Alarm Technician to add to the team. If you know of anyone, please send them our way.

I have not posted in a little while due to being kept significantly busier than normal… I have heard from a few people who actually noticed that nothing had been posted since the 10th and were wondering what the delay was about.

Last week, I was in Texas on a benchmarking trip where I spent two days at Dell in Austin and then a day at Rackspace Managed Hosting in San Antonio.

As a part of a small group of business owners from throughout Canada and the U.S. who were able to take part in this unique opportunity, we spent a day with six senior executives from Dell who spoke about some of their best practices, as well as failures, in managing their amazing growth.

On the second day, we were led on very in depth tours of Dell’s Optiplex (one of their PC brands) manufacturing facility. Most importantly (for me) was then getting a chance to visit their central command station where they coordinate all emergency response to their commerical clients (like Provident), who pay for immediate on-site part replacement for their Dell servers. Given that Dell has thousands of clients like Provident where the importance of immediate response to equipment failure is huge (hospitals, military facilities, financial institutions, etc.) it was very re-assuring to see how they guarantee their four hour response despite hurricanes, black-outs and other disasters.

I have travelled to dozens of central monitoring stations in the past, but was very impressed with Dell’s facility. It is certainly one of the best monitoring facilities that I have seen and I was able to create a list several pages long of ideas for implementation at our own operation centre here in Kerrisdale. After only a few days, we are already working on a few improvements that will serve to improve our own service delivery.

The other company, Rackspace, is located in San Antonio and provides the physical infrastructure for just over 1% of all internet traffic worldwide… which is a very big number. They have been recognized many times as one of the fastest growing companies in the United States and are a great model for many of the inititives that we are currently working on at Provident. We spent half of a day there talking with Lanham Napier, Rackspace’s President, about the things that they have done to grow quickly while taking very good care of their existing clients. Again, a long list of ideas came back with me that we are implementing here.

Two days after I got back into town, my wife went into labour a little early… and by Friday night we were parents of three kids under age 4.

All in all, a busy couple of weeks.

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The map above shows the location of the last 200 visitors to our blog on Monday and Tuesday of this week. The red dot is the most recent visitor, the green dots are the 10 next most recent and the white ones are the balance of the last 200 visitors.

What was created to be a resource for our clients and neighbours on the Westside of Vancouver has very quickly found its way all over the world. We are amazed by how far and wide this blog is being read.

Courtesy of search engines and referrals from individuals like you, we’ve quickly become a resource for people all over the world. We are receiving emailed questions about home security from every corner of the planet… as well a couple inquiries about whether Provident has offices in either Ohio or Southern California!

Please continue to forward this blog to anyone you think may benefit. And do send me questions or suggestions for posts that you have.

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Last night, Provident was honored with a SAMMY marketing award from Security Sales & Integration magazine in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The award was for company logo design and its use in company branding.

Provident was one of only two Canadian firms nominated as finalists in any category and the only Canadian firm that received an award.

We have been finalists in a number of categories in both 2004 and 2005, but this is the first time that we have actually won a SAMMY award.

The response that we have gotten from this blog in only a few short weeks has been absolutely incredible. I have received great feedback from clients as well as other people who have either been forwarded a link or just found us on Google or MSN from all over North America (literally all over!) as well as England, Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore and Russia. Thank you to each of you who has forwarded it to others.

We are in the process of building our client email database. Each day, we are adding more people…my apologies to those clients who’ve called us to say, “Why didn’t I get sent a link to your blog?”. We’re trying to reach everyone as soon as possible. We hope to have sent the introduction e-mail to each of our clients by the middle of April. In the meantime, If you know of anyone that may be interested in this blog, please feel free to send them the link.

If you want to be kept up to date and advised of new postings you have two options… one a little high tech and the other very low tech… here they are:

1. low tech option: send me a quick email asking to be added to our notification list and we will send you a reminder link every time the blog is updated (send it to solutions@providentsecurity.bc.ca); or

2. high tech option: subscribe to our RSS feed and get this content automatically incorporated into whatever blog or news reader you prefer… here is a link to a Squidoo lens that tells you everything you need to know about RSS… for what it is worth, I use Bloglines myself and it is very easy to setup.

So far, given the topic, most people with specific questions have either called us (our customer service team is available 24 hours a day) or sent a direct email…. Please feel free to do either. Alternatively, you can simply post a question or comment (with our without your name) by clicking on the comment icon at the bottom of every post. The advantage of using the comment icon is that other people will be able to see both what you wrote as well as our response.

Your suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Last night several thousand homes were affected by a power failure… including our own building in Kerrisdale. After many months of power and emergency back-up testing, this was actually the first time that the power has gone out (other than during a test where we physically turn the power off) while we have been actively monitoring alarms. We’re proud to report that the tens of thousands of dollars we spent on back-up batteries, and even more on a diesel generator, all worked perfectly. When the power went out, all of our non-critical systems (such as PC’s not related to monitoring) automatically backed-up and shut down while all essential systems like our phones, lighting, servers, alarm receivers, internet modems, access control systems, security and radio systems automatically switched to battery power while the generator powered up and carried the load until the neighbourhood was re-connected by Hydro.

During this period, we received hundreds of signals from alarm systems relating to the power loss as well as many calls from clients checking to see if we were still operational. Our automated monitoring software was able to distinguish between signals related to the power and ensure that real alarms were given priority treatment and responded to first… again, something we spent a lot of extra money on up front that we were pleased to see worked exactly as it was supposed to.

As we relayed to many of you last night, we are fully set-up to monitor throughout a long term power failure as we keep enough fuel on site to last for more than two days. In addition, our fuel tank can be filled while the generator is running in the event we needed to stretch that time out. In a worst case scenario, we maintain a full-time connection to remotely located servers that allow us to instantly re-direct all client signals to another location within seconds.