Key Themes at 2016 Annual Meeting

Leadership, Business Management and Technology are Key Themes at 2016 Annual Meeting

2016 is Second Year of Multi-Year Reimagining of CSAA’s Signature Event;
Adjustments to Traditional Schedule Will Enable Full Participation in Fewer Days

VIENNA, VA (July 25, 2016) – With a sharp focus on technology and on business and performance management, along with the networking opportunities for which the event is famous, the 2016 CSAA Annual Meeting offers participants the kind of value in both content and engagement that is unmatched at any other industry event.

The 2016 meeting will be held at the Marriott Resort Marco Island, Marco Island, FL, on October 22-26. Last year’s Annual Meeting in Sonoma, where a revamped education program took center stage, drew rave reviews from attendees. “2015 marked the beginning of a multi-year reimagining of CSAA’s annual event, and based on the member feedback, our efforts were successful,” says CSAA President Pam Petrow. “Attendees in 2016 can expect the same value, with timely presentations built around themes of leadership, business management, and technology, along with the networking opportunities you can only find at a CSAA Annual Meeting.”

Petrow notes that CSAA is making a change from “our traditional leadership meeting schedule this year, in order to address feedback on the length of the meeting.” The CSAA Board will meet on the first day of the conference–Saturday, October 22. Committees will meet on Sunday, October 23. “This change will help committee members participate in the complete array of annual meeting events but arrive a full day later than in the past, if they wish,” she says.

General sessions begin Monday morning, October 24. They include:

Bankable Leadership Strategy: The Secret Weapon to Accelerating Business Success
Speaker: Tasha Eurich, PhD, The Eurich Group

Keynote speaker Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, speaker and New York Times best-selling author of Bankable Leadership – and a fresh, modern voice in the leadership world. By pairing her scientific grounding in human behavior with a pragmatic approach to business challenges, she has helped thousands of leaders over the last fifteen years. With a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Colorado State University, Eurich serves on the adjunct faculty of the Center for Creative Leadership, one of the top ten executive development institutions in the world. She’s also the principal of The Eurich Group, an executive development firm that helps companies succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders and teams. (View Eurich’s recent TedxMileHigh Talk at https://youtu.be/NVPxmz_PvUw.)

“In today’s competitive business environment, leadership is as difficult as it is important. Good leaders create economic value–and poor leaders can sink companies. Even though research tells us that effective leaders balance people and results, this complicated balancing act is easier said than done,” says Eurich. “In the quest to create engaged employees and drive business growth, most leaders feel more comfortable doing one than the other, but this imbalance drastically limits their success.” Eurich will deliver an engaging keynote based on her bottom-line research that will help attendees master the balance. Built on decades of research on the transformation of real leaders, her fresh, practical approach can help almost anyone become bankable–delivering bottom-line results, while simultaneously fostering a healthy work environment. At the end of the session, attendees will understand their personal preferences as a leader and what skills they need to sharpen, and leave with a plan to improve immediately.

Capitalizing Customer Experiences
Speaker: Dennis Snow, Snow & Associates, Inc.

Noted speaker, trainer and consultant Dennis Snow is the author of the book Lessons from the Mouse: A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. His customer service abilities were honed over 20 years with the Walt Disney World Company. There, he developed his passion for service excellence and the experience he brings clients and audiences worldwide. Today, Snow helps organizations including banks, universities and hospitals achieve goals related to customer service, employee development and leadership.

Snow explains: “World-class customer service is not simply a matter of smiling employees who say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Everything your customer sees, hears or touches impacts their experience … This session will cover how delivering world-class service requires careful orchestration of the entire customer experience. Employees watch to see how committed we are as leaders and take their cue directly from us.” Snow will help participants discover what key points of contact make or break the customer experience and understand the behaviors that create a culture of accountability among employees. “As customer expectations are at an all-time high and business competition is fierce, learn about the steps you can take to reinforce organization values and gain organizational commitment to a vision that capitalizes customer service in your company,” he says.

Marketing in the Digital Age–Social Media 102: How to Leverage Social Media To Build Your Business and Your Bottom Line
Speaker: Ken Countess, The Countess Group

Ken Countess is managing director of The Countess Group, a strategic marketing and communications consultancy now in its 15th year. He is an award-winning marketer and an internationally recognized, accredited expert on email marketing and social media marketing. His approach to educating audiences about how to use these tools to build their businesses has earned him the respect of loyal followers around the world.

Countess understands the challenges marketers face. “You’ve hit all the social networks to market your business–but they seem to change every day. Your email contact list is up-to-date–but reaching your audience is a challenge as best practices continue to change. Where do you go from here? Are you getting back what you are putting into your digital marketing efforts?” he says. This session will give participants a closer look at the value of popular social media networks to the professional monitoring industry. They will discover how others in the industry are using social media and email to develop business and learn how to tell if their social marketing activity is working and how to gauge success based on customer reaction and engagement. Takeaways will include reporting and measurement metrics tools and a better understanding of how using digital media can impact the bottom line. CSAA and Countess will present a pre-meeting webinar on Tuesday, September 13 in which participants can get a preview of the impact and value of social media tools.

The complete preliminary program can be found at csaaintl.org/2016am. Additional speakers and session details will be announced in the coming weeks.

To register for the CSAA Annual Meeting, visit csaaintl.org/2016am. The Marriott Resort Marco Island in southwest Florida is on the Gulf of Mexico, just 55 minutes from the Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) or a short drive from Naples, FL. Visit csaaintl.org/2016am for the special reservations link, or call 1-800-GET-HERE (1-800-438-4373). Rates as low as $185/night are available.

 

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About CSAA International

The Central Station Alarm Association International (CSAA) is an internationally-recognized non-profit trade association that represents professional monitoring companies that are listed by a CSAA-approved Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory, such as FM Approvals, Intertek/ETL or UL. CSAA is legally entitled to represent its members before Congress and regulatory agencies on the local, state and federal levels, and other authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs) over the industry. Since its incorporation in 1950, CSAA has served its members’ interests through education, online training, meetings and conventions, certification, insurance, and industry standards. www.csaaintl.org. For more information, contact Elizabeth Lasko at CSAA, 703-242-4670 x 16.

 

Leadership, Business Management and Technology are Key Themes at 2016 Annual Meeting

2016 is Second Year of Multi-Year Reimagining of CSAA’s Signature Event;
Adjustments to Traditional Schedule Will Enable Full Participation in Fewer Days

With a sharp focus on technology and on business and performance management, along Marco-Island-Logo_vertwith the networking opportunities for which the event is famous, the 2016 CSAA Annual Meeting offers participants the kind of value in both content and engagement that is unmatched at any other industry event.

The 2016 meeting will be held at the Marriott Resort Marco Island, Marco Island, FL, on October 22-26. Last year’s Annual Meeting in Sonoma, where a revamped education program took center stage, drew rave reviews from attendees. “2015 marked the beginning of a multi-year reimagining of CSAA’s annual event, and based on the member feedback, our efforts were successful,” says CSAA President Pam Petrow. “Attendees in 2016 can expect the same value, with timely presentations built around themes of leadership, business management, and technology, along with the networking opportunities you can only find at a CSAA Annual Meeting.”

Petrow notes that CSAA is making a change from “our traditional leadership meeting schedule this year, in order to address feedback on the length of the meeting.” The CSAA Board will meet on the first day of the conference–Saturday, October 22. Committees will meet on Sunday, October 23. “This change will help committee members participate in the complete array of annual meeting events but arrive a full day later than in the past, if they wish,” she says.

General sessions begin Monday morning, October 24. They include:

Bankable Leadership Strategy: The Secret Weapon to Accelerating Business Success
Speaker: Tasha Eurich, PhD, The Eurich Group

Tasha Eurich low resKeynote speaker Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, speaker and New York Times best-selling author of Bankable Leadership – and a fresh, modern voice in the leadership world. By pairing her scientific grounding in human behavior with a pragmatic approach to business challenges, she has helped thousands of leaders over the last fifteen years. With a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Colorado State University, Eurich serves on the adjunct faculty of the Center for Creative Leadership, one of the top ten executive development institutions in the world. She’s also the principal of The Eurich Group, an executive development firm that helps companies succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders and teams. (View Eurich’s recent TedxMileHigh Talk at https://youtu.be/NVPxmz_PvUw.)

“In today’s competitive business environment, leadership is as difficult as it is important. Good leaders create economic value–and poor leaders can sink companies. Even though research tells us that effective leaders balance people and results, this complicated balancing act is easier said than done,” says Eurich. “In the quest to create engaged employees and drive business growth, most leaders feel more comfortable doing one than the other, but this imbalance drastically limits their success.” Eurich will deliver an engaging keynote based on her bottom-line research that will help attendees master the balance. Built on decades of research on the transformation of real leaders, her fresh, practical approach can help almost anyone become bankable–delivering bottom-line results, while simultaneously fostering a healthy work environment. At the end of the session, attendees will understand their personal preferences as a leader and what skills they need to sharpen, and leave with a plan to improve immediately.

Capitalizing Customer Experiences
Speaker: Dennis Snow, Snow & Associates, Inc.

Noted speaker, trainer and consultant Dennis Snow is the author of the book Lessons from the Mouse: A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. His customer service abilities were honed over 20 years with the Walt Disney World Company. There, he developed his passion for service excellence and the experience he brings clients and audiences worldwide. Today, Snow helps organizations including banks, universities and hospitals achieve goals related to customer service, employee development and leadership.

Snow, Dennis- HR PhotoSnow explains: “World-class customer service is not simply a matter of smiling employees who say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Everything your customer sees, hears or touches impacts their experience … This session will cover how delivering world-class service requires careful orchestration of the entire customer experience. Employees watch to see how committed we are as leaders and take their cue directly from us.” Snow will help participants discover what key points of contact make or break the customer experience and understand the behaviors that create a culture of accountability among employees. “As customer expectations are at an all-time high and business competition is fierce, learn about the steps you can take to reinforce organization values and gain organizational commitment to a vision that capitalizes customer service in your company,” he says.

Marketing in the Digital Age–Social Media 102: How to Leverage Social Media To Build Your Business and Your Bottom Line
Speaker: Ken Countess, The Countess Group

Ken Countess is managing director of The Countess Group, a strategic marketing and communications consultancy now in its 15th year. He is an award-winning marketer and an internationally recognized, accredited expert on email marketing and social media marketing. His approach to educating audiences about how to use these tools to build their businesses has earned him the respect of loyal followers around the world.

Countess understands the challenges marketers face. “You’ve hit all the social networks to market your business–but they seem to change every day. Your email contact list is up-to-date–but reaching your audience is a challenge as best practices continue to change. Where do you go from here? Are you getting back what you are putting into your digital marketing efforts?” he says. This session will give participants a closer look at the value of popular social media networks to the professional monitoring industry. They will discover how others in the industry are using social media and email to develop business and learn how to tell if their social marketing activity is working and how to gauge success based on customer reaction and engagement. Takeaways will include reporting and measurement metrics tools and a better understanding of how using digital media can impact the bottom line. CSAA and Countess will present a pre-meeting webinar on Tuesday, September 13 in which participants can get a preview of the impact and value of social media tools.

The complete preliminary program can be found at csaaintl.org/2016am. Additional speakers and session details will be announced in the coming weeks.

To register for the CSAA Annual Meeting, visit csaaintl.org/2016am. The Marriott Resort Marco Island in southwest Florida is on the Gulf of Mexico, just 55 minutes from the Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) or a short drive from Naples, FL. Visit csaaintl.org/2016am for the special reservations link, or call 1-800-GET-HERE (1-800-438-4373). Rates as low as $185/night are available.

 

ASAP’s Summer Sizzle

It’s the middle of summer, and there’s a heatwave parked over the USA. ASAP is heating up, too!

On July 13, CSAA President Pam Petrow announced that Delaware County, Ohio went live that morning with ASAP. “This is the first PSAP in Ohio to introduce AASAP-Concept1DSAP, and we are looking forward to building our coverage in the state,” she said. “The pace that we are adding PSAPs continues to increase. Thanks for everyone that has been working behind the scenes to make this happen.”

Meanwhile, also on July 13, the IT manager at Florida’s first connected PSAP was featured in a local TV interview about ASAP. Cindy Cevallos of Boca Raton (where it reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday) appears in the segment on home safety systems in the area. “Faster response times, greater likelihood of law enforcement apprehension; everyone wins here,” Cevallos explained when asked about Boca’s recent implementation of ASAP.

Speaking of heat, hot off the presses is APCO’s August magazine, Public Safety Communications, and it features an extensive update on ASAP by Subject Matter Expert Bill Hobgood called “ASAP to the PSAP: ADT Answered the Call, Now Where’s Tyco?” Hobgood reports on the impressive cost savings the city of Houston is reporting following the implementation of ASAP and the connection of ADT in December last year, as well as other positive developments around the nation. (And he answers the question about Tyco!)

Just to keep the heat theme going … how about Orlando in August? That’s right, next month, ASAP will be featured at APCO’s 82nd Annual Conference & Expo. (APCO, CSAA, and Nlets collaborate to bring ASAP to municipalities around the country.) In orlando, participants will have two opportunities to learn about ASAP:

  • CSAA will have a booth (#665) in the exhibit hall where attendees can meet ASAP users and view demos of how the technology works — and how to implement the service.
  • A special session called “ASAP: A Win-Win No-Brainer for Public Safety and the Alarm Industry” is on the conference schedule for Wednesday, August 17. Hobgood, Boca Raton’s Cevallos, CSAA Executive Director Jay Hauhn, and Duff Wheeler, representing Houston’s Emergency Center, will describe the agencies that participate in the program, project implementation outcomes, and show a demo. Participants will see how the program reduces 9-1-1 processing and response times to alarm events while eliminating telephone calls, miscommunication errors , between alarm monitoring companies and 9-1-1 PSAPs.

 

Now used by more than 20 PSAPs and with dozens more in the pipeline, ASAP is surging as PSAPs and alarm companies recognize the value of its winning formula for error reduction, cost containment and faster responses to dispatch.

Find out more at www.csaaintl.org/asap .

–Reported by Elizabeth Lasko, CSAA, July 14, 2016

 

Bay Alarm’s Westphal Warns of Coming Penalties for Alarm Industry E-Waste

Security companies should start preparing to upgrade their systems for e-waste disposal or risk action by state Attorneys General. Graham Westphal, Co-President of Bay Alarm and secretary of the CSAA Board of Directors, brought this matter to the attention of CSAA members present at the General Membership Meeting in Fort Worth on June 9.

Westphal detailed how California’s Attorney General has recently brought action against Comcast, ADT and Bay Alarm for improper disposal of e-waste, and warned that state AGs talk to each other and see this kind of action as a revenue source. “It’s likely similar actions will be coming to a state near you,” he said.

“In California, you now own the electronic waste you remove from a home,” Westphal continued. “They are dumpster-diving to find evidence, and assigning impact fees.” Most of the hazardous waste in the Comcast case was electronic equipment such as remote controls, splitters, routers, modems, amplifiers, and power adapters.

Westphal advises companies to immediately revisit their e-waste recycling plan to be sure it is up-to-date and congruent with state laws — and that the plan is being followed.

CSAA will research and distribute additional resources for member companies on e-waste issues. If you would like to share details from experiences in your state(s), please contact Elizabeth Lasko at ewlasko@csaaintl.org.

Why CSAA Five Diamond Matters to You

A Message for Consumers

Are you considering an alarm system or other monitoring system for your home or business? As a consumer, you want what’s best for your family, your employees, your property. There are a lot of choices out there. But only a select few companiesFive Diamond Logo 2015 can say they are “CSAA Five Diamond-Certified.”

CSAA, the organization that represents the alarm monitoring industry, grants Five Diamond status to companies that made it their practice to meet the highest levels of professionalism, training, and expertise in the industry. Certification is granted annually to monitoring companies that satisfy all of the requirements of the “five points of excellence:”

  1. Commitment to random inspections and quality criteria standards by a nationally recognized testing laboratory such as FM Approvals, Intertek/ETL and UL.
  2. Commitment to the highest levels of customer service.
  3. Commitment to ongoing job-related education and testing by having 100% of their central station operators certified using the CSAA online training series, the industry standard.
  4. Commitment to raising the industry standards through CSAA membership and participation in its activities.
  5. Commitment to reducing false dispatches.

You can be assured that a company that meets these requirements is one that is dedicated to providing the level of service and protection you deserve and count on.

Tell your salesperson that you want a monitoring company that is staffed by trained, knowledgeable professionals and boasts equipment and procedures that meet the highest standards. From among the thousands and thousands of alarm companies in the USA, choose one of the fewer than 200 that are CSAA Five Diamond-certified.

© 2016 CSAA International.