From the editor

Now in the thick of event season, August saw the staging of the Safe and Secure Facilities and Public Spaces conference at Te Papa in Wellington and the NZSA New Zealand Security Industry Awards at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Auckland, and in September the tempo continued with Auckland hosting Crowded Places NZ and the latest instalment of the Facilities Integrate trade show.

In this Security Industry Awards special issue of NZSM we acknowledge this year’s award winners and we cover what was an extremely successful awards gala dinner. And what a fantastic dinner it was, with inspirational award winners, great speeches and Te Radar’s incomparable performance as MC. The awards event has been growing in popularity in recent years, and this year saw 240 dinner guests congratulate winners shortlisted from a record 130 nominations.

I was honoured to again be on the awards judging panel this year, and it was great to see that the additional guidance provided by the NZSA to the industry in relation to how to complete nominations was well heeded. The quality of nominations was much improved over previous years, providing for better insights into nominees and a flatter playing field. There remains, however, some room for improvement in this regard, and I suggest that the ASIAL Awards approach of limiting nominations to 1,000 words and prohibiting images and attachments be considered.

I was also honoured in August to be invited by Conferenz to chair the Safe and Secure Facilities and Public Spaces conference at Te Papa. The speaker line-up did not fail on its promise to deliver, with 26 excellent presentations over two jampacked days. Feedback from attendees in relation to the quality of presentations has been glowing, with the conceptual and rhetorical flair provided by the academic contingent of Dr Paul Buchannan, Dr Bridgette Sullivan-Taylor and Dr John Battersby widely lauded.

Dr Battersby features in this issue of NZSM to announce the arrival of a new scholarly publication, the first edition of the six-monthly National Security Journal, published by Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies. It’s a welcome addition to New Zealand’s discourse on security affairs, providing evidence-based research articles penned by both academics and practitioners, and it comes at a time when such research is more necessary than ever. We look forward to showcasing selected research from the new journal in future issues of NZSM.

We don’t read enough in New Zealand about Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM), so it’s great to see an article in this issue of NZSM from our partners at ASIS International about how one large company in the US moved from a traditional security to an ESRM enterprise model.– and the language of business risks and business goals (whether we like it or not) holds greater currency in boardrooms and c-suites than that of physical security. It’s time that we started talking about our value to enterprise customers as one of supporting their business goals through the effective identification and management of the risks they face.

Nicholas Dynon, Chief Editor

Nicholas Dynon, Chief Editor