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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Campus Safety, Education, School Safety

What is more important and more valuable than a student’s life?  What is more important than an employee’s life? What is more important than any human life? Cameras to record the violence? A PC for every student? A football game? Coffee for Faculty/Staff? Hundreds of other lower priority purchases?  None of these are more important or more valuable than a human life, yet Education Leaders continue to fund hundreds of projects BEFORE funding is invested in proven strategies and tools for saving the lives and saving futures of students and others. How many more lives must be lost and futures ruined before Education Leaders adaptRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Campus Safety, Education, Financial, Government, Health Care, indicators, Legal, Risk Management

Disruptive Innovation is (DI) is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leading firms, products, and alliances. Human Intelligence (HI) is the intellectual capacity of humans, which is characterized by perception, consciousness, self-awareness, and volition. Artificial Intelligence (AI) the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks and make decisions that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, etc. Artificial Intelligence has received a lot of attention as a new futuristic solution, however, it must be pointed out that Artificial Intelligence can only make “goodRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, First Preventer, First Responder, Prevention

No matter who you were cheering for… the Super Bowl was exciting, history-making, and it provided super valuable lessons for anyone who is responsible for leading a team or an organization! First valuable lesson If you want to be a “winner” you need BOTH Offense and Defense. There is an OLD SAYING that “Defense wins championships” … but have you ever seen a team win a championship with the score 0 to 0?  No! To win a championship the Offense must do their part too. Second valuable lesson The Super Bowl showed how a good Offense can come back even after a horrible start andRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, Prevention

2017 predictions for Information Security and Cyberattacks. People are and will continue to be the Weakest Link! Because most organizations only provide annual information security training and because most deliver the awareness training for the wrong reasons (one or more state/federal compliance requirements), they are not really addressing their weakest link – People’s lack of ongoing awareness. Annual compliance training efforts are not actually addressing the weakest link because people cannot, and do not remember a training session for the next 364 days. If people think the awareness training is just for compliance, they will continue to just get through it and not pay attentionRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*

Because 99.9% of people prefer PREVENTING over REACTING/RESPONDING to incidents, attacks, lawsuits, and tragedies. Dangerous Gap #1 – nearly every organization has invested almost 100% of Safety/Security budget in: First Responders (Security personnel, Emergency Personnel, etc.) Re-Active Shooter Drills (good drill for First Responders) Security Products Reacting to an attack (Alarms, Mass Notification, Signage, etc.) Security Cameras Reacting and “recording” the attack for forensics Emergency Response Plans Business Continuity Plans PR / Communications Responses Dangerous Gap #2 – What you focus on becomes your reality! What you focus on becomes your reality and therefore, most every organization is failing at PREVENTING because they are notRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, First Preventer, Prevention

Numerous surveys reveal: 99.9% of people WANT a shooter to be prevented from arriving at their organization rather than responding to a shooter at their organization. 99.9% of people WANT a terrorist to be prevented from attacking their organization rather than responding to a terrorist attack at their organization. Evidence-based data and lessons learned reveal: Hundreds and hundreds of acts of violence were preventable, but failed to be prevented. More research from the “The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative” by the Secret Service found in over 80% of the shootings, other people knew about the attack before it took place. TheRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, Health Care, Incident Reporting, Risk Management, Workplace Violence

The motto of Healthcare Security and Safety Week 2016 is “Your Security is our Success” and Awareity would like to help you improve Security and Safety all 52 weeks of the year! There are significant differences between Security and Safety, Safety is focused on Preventing (First Preventers) while Security is focused on Defending and Responding (First Responders). The differences are validated in hundreds of post-event reports that also reveal common gaps, silos and disconnects… as well as reveal something else… most incidents and tragedies were PREVENTABLE. Focusing on First Preventers Currently almost everyone relies on Security and Law Enforcement Officers to stop violence, but SecurityRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Connect the Dots, First Preventer, First Responder, Prevention

Burlington/Seattle. New York. New Jersey. Minnesota. Orlando. San Bernardino. Chicago… and on and on. How do communities, states, and nations stop mounting violence? It requires leadership across organizations, communities, states, and nations to actually make changes. Leaders from all levels of government (and organizations too) have been “talking about preventing violence” and “talking about changes” for years, but in reality people are creatures of habit and rarely change until the pains get so bad they have to go from talking about changes to making changes. How much more pain will you and your community allow and endure before you start making changes? What Changes NeedRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Campus Safety, Connect the Dots, Education, Legal, Legal Precedent, Prevention, School Safety

Attention: All Higher Education Chancellors, Presidents, Boards, Regents, Vice Presidents, etc. this court decision may be have just set a very important precedent for all Higher Education institutions when it comes to Preventing violence. Tyrell K. Okoro, 23, was awarded $823,869 for non-economic damages and $76,131 for medical expenses by a Baltimore jury on Sept. 7. Okoro’s complaint argued that, the university and its police officers “should have known that its failure to properly address violent crime on its campus had created an environment that would subject its students, including Okoro, to an unreasonable risk that they would become the victim of violent crime.” Okoro’sRead More →

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In: *Connecting the Dots Blog*, Campus Safety, Connect the Dots, Education, School Safety

This question was the topic of Awareity’s latest Higher Education webinar in August 2016 and part of an ongoing series of webinars focused on mounting challenges in Higher Education. The evidence is alarming and overwhelmingly clear that: Sex assaults are happening on every campus People know about the sexual assaults Lives are being ruined and lost have been lost Reputations of institutions are being seriously damaged Reputations of Administrators are being seriously damaged Lawsuits are expensive and coming from victims and perpetrators Bottom lines are taking BIG hits Federal investigations are targeting 225+ institutions Why are 225+ Higher Education institutions under federal investigations? The evidenceRead More →