WHEN IN DOUBT, LEARN SOMETHING NEW

Mar 1, 2005 12:00 PM, LARRY ANDERSON, Editor

It has been said that education is a refuge in adversity.

Today's security directors face adversity every day of their lives, whether from criminals who would do their companies harm, or from corporate types who would deny them the resources they need to do their jobs, or even from the clock that ticks away only so many minutes — usually too few to get everything done.

And, yet, how few of us take refuge in the educational opportunities that the industry has to offer, whether trade show conferences, ASIS meetings, or the many higher-education options listed elsewhere in this issue (page 46)?

If you're like me, the memory of a classroom is buried in the remote past, at a different stage of your life. Not that you have stopped learning, more like you long ago replaced the teacher-and-blackboard scenario with The School of Hard Knocks or The Tough Lessons of Experience.

But the sea of change in our industry suggests a need to further one's education just to keep up.

There is plenty to learn about computers, networking and other technologies toward which much of the security function is gravitating.

There is also plenty to learn about management and corporate issues, which increasingly are impinging on the daily work of security. There are leadership lessons. There are formalized approaches that can fill in the gaps of what has been learned over the years on the job. There are fresh insights that new college grads are bringing with them to the workplace.

Education obviously cannot take the place of experience. But it can supplement the value of that experience and allow one to maximize the benefit of that experience in new ways.

And education can refresh your outlook just when you think you have seen it all — or worse, when you think you know it all.

Knowledge is a valuable thing, a refuge in adversity. Let's not let it be an under-appreciated weapon in the security professional's arsenal.

YOUR THOUGHTS

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This month in Access Control

• Targeting The Customer
• Electronic Pedigrees
• One Hero Among Many
• Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• More from September's issue