On Friday, April 17, 2015 at 3pm, ISC West 2015 was officially over, and while a huge sigh of relief followed by a round of applause could be heard among laughter as the lights in the convention center shut off, I must admit, it’s a bit disheartening to say good-bye. After all, not only for the past 2.5 days are people flooded into the convention center, beating their feet around a showroom floor of more than 1000 exhibitors, but personal connections are being made, business is getting done and relationships are being established.
I had an amazing breakfast at the Grand Lux with Middle Atlantic’s Rebeca Villareale and Megan Knedler, both in the company’s marketing department. We had the chance to bond over food, which by the way, this is the best way to create a relationship. I truly believe food has a magical way of bringing people together, but don’t take my word for it:
We also discovered some amazing ways in which we can work together to enhance the security industry as a whole, so keep an eye out for that too!
As most of you know, I use Twitter to establish connections within the security industry, and ISC West 2015 was a great outlet in which to meet the amazing people who represent a variety of companies.
Entering the Costar Video Systems booth, I was met with a huge smile and a friendly hug from Marketing Manager Kyndall Pritchett. We have been talking and supporting each other via Twitter for about 2 months now, and I finally got to meet her face-to-face. It was an instant connection as we talked about life, the security industry and ISC West. Pritchett even invited me to Costar’s training session on April 30th so I could learn more about their offerings. Stay tuned for live Tweeting during the training session!
I mosied on over to Flair Electronics’ booth to give them a big Texas “howdy” and 
meet with Christine, marketing director, who I have also been tweeting with on Twitter. Flair, a provider of high-quality reed switches, water sensors, perimeter detection sensors, door alarms and custom products, was founded in 1967 and is currently undergoing a major marketing revamp under the direction of Christine. It’s nice to see security companies embracing the modern by adding a bit of “freshness” to their marketing strategy.
It was hard to say good-bye this year to so many amazing people representing fascinating companies, but there’s always next year and in between, there's always Twitter!