The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

Oct 1, 2004 12:00 PM, LARRY ANDERSON, Editor

How much has the job description for corporate and institutional security directors changed since Sept. 11?

Surprisingly, the answer is “not so much,” at least according to a survey by ASIS International that measures the major areas of responsibility, work-related tasks, knowledge and skills.

Every five years, the ASIS Professional Certification Board that oversees the Certified Protection Professional (CPP) designation conducts a survey of recent CPPs to ascertain how the security job description is changing. The goal of the survey is to make sure that the testing and other requirements for the CPP designation still accurately reflect the best practice of security.

Results of the most recent survey suggest an evolving industry vernacular — the substitution of “Information Security” for “Protection of Sensitive Information” — and an increasing challenge of categorizing new duties. For example, CPP questions about identifying people on a “watch” list could appear under “Personnel Security,” “Information Security” or even “Emergency Management.”

A third change identified by the study is a new division of “Security Management” into “Security Principles and Practices” and “Business Principles and Practices.” Most security professionals live with this dichotomy every day in the form of a delicate balancing act of security needs to business needs.

If, as the survey suggests, the scope of security jobs is largely unchanged, there have certainly been changes of a type the survey was not designed to measure.

In how many of our post-downsized companies do security departments find themselves lacking needed resources and having to constantly reassess priorities to maximize the effective use of what resources there are?

How many of us find our days are busier than ever, moving at breakneck speed, allowing little time to reflect on the big picture? How many are slaves to the very technologies that were supposed to make things oh-so-much easier — the e-mails, the PDAs and the constantly bleeping cell-phones?

We all recognize the importance of emphasizing the basics in everything we do. As the ASIS survey suggests, the basics are pretty much the same.

Except that somebody pushed the fast-forward button on the cosmic remote control.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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