 Welcome. Thank you everybody for joining us. We're pretty excited to have this opportunity. My name is Leo Dust with Group 337. Special opportunity really to have a conversation with some folks. We'll do some introductions in that. But I want to thank Accelerize, want to thank Security Matters, Andrew Landing and the team for asking us to help participate and have a conversation really about an upcoming event that is happening called Accelerize. It's through the Security Industry Association. And it's a conference that's very dear and near to a lot of us that are within the industry with focused on young professionals and growth. And I think what we're purpose here today, what we're hoping to do is to have just a conversation to highlight a little bit about what makes it special, give a little bit of flavor of what we're going to see at the show, have a conversation really and really with the ultimate goal, hopefully getting everybody excited with a massive amount of signups and then people participating. So hopefully you can keep us honest about how we do this. But so with me today, though, three special guests that I think can show you sort of the breadth and depth of the show and really the industry as a whole. Tracy Larson with WeSuite, Todd Broderick with ALC, recruiting, Zach Morris with ADT. I want to thank you all very much for taking the time to join. Thank you. No problem. So why don't we kick this off? So Accelerize, it's coming up August 23rd and 25th. It's an online show, which has been in person in the past, but through everything else that was going, it's now moved online. A ton of energy. Like we said, really focused on a young professional focused on growth. All of you are participating in a different way. I thought maybe if you would, if you don't mind quickly just do an introduction to yourself. And then if you could talk about how you're participating, why it's important, and really like one thing that you're looking forward to. So Tracy, why don't you kick it off? Sure thing. Hey everybody. I'm Tracy Larson. I'm the president of WeSuite. We're sales management software focused on this industry, working with lots of integrators. And we've actually participated now really from the beginning. We are a sponsor. And one of the sponsorships we did last year, which we are repeating this year is the Trivia Night. And it was a lot of fun. So be sure that's Tuesday on August 24th, 7 p.m. Eastern, join Trivia Night. It's a lot of fun. It was a great networking event. And it was one where also you learn some really random crazy facts that can keep you kind of laughing and talking with other people. So I really enjoyed that. And I think what I've really seen year after year is that the education just keeps getting better and better. You mentioned energy levels. That's probably the thing I appreciate most. And I'm really looking forward to several of the sessions, but mostly yours, Lee. So maybe you'll share a little bit about what that's going to be. But yeah, that looks like a good one to me. So excited. It really wasn't necessarily that set up. So as many people think, but no, I appreciate that. Yeah, we'll get into a little bit of what we're doing there. But thank you, Tracy. I appreciate that. So, Todd, what about yourself? What are you participating? What's important to you? And then, you know, what is the something you're looking forward to? Cool. So my name is Todd Broderick. I'm with the LC Consulting, we're a national physical and cybersecurity recruiter. First of all, Lee, thanks for the opportunity to be here today. We're excited. This is our first time being an event sponsor for the Accelerized Conference. Also, we'll be doing a breakout session for any young professionals that would like to engage with us regarding their career or road mapping in their career. So not only were you a sponsor, we'll also do a breakout session and talk about careers. Very cool. Thank you very much. And, Zach, last but not least, you participated, I know, heavily in this. So maybe you could speak a little bit about that too. But then, you know, what else are you doing there? Why is it important? What's something you're looking forward to? Yeah, for sure. So I'm Zach Morris with EDT Commercial. And you're right. I kind of get to engage in a bunch of different ways here, both on the steering committee of Rise that's kind of putting this whole thing on, but on top of that, as well as a sponsor from an organizational standpoint and as a speaker on one of our panels. So I kind of get to see this through a bunch of different lenses, which kind of makes it a unique experience for me. But on the same time, I think there's also a lot of opportunity for me to kind of get a get a view on a bunch of different ways in which companies are being able to engage. And on top of that, being able to kind of, from a young professional standpoint, learn a ton and kind of get to grow in the way that we're hoping most professionals get to get to grow through this conference. Yeah, no, and I appreciate all the work and energy that you all put into putting this type of thing on. It's sort of like you create the arena for all of the rest of us to participate in that fact. And it's, I find it's one of the places that we talked about the energy side, but I get definitely more out of it than that is put into it. It's really also the future sort of where our industry is at is things are evolving and they're changing. It's a great way to attract talent to do that. So myself personally, we're participating. We sponsored one of the sponsors of the events, which we did last year as well. We came a little bit bigger at this point. And I've really enjoyed that opportunity and sort of the exposure that it brings a smaller organization like ourselves and to be able to get our name and what we do out. It's a wonderful way to do that. The importance, in my opinion, of it is to really, you know, show the support to the young professionals, but then also, I think give it the opportunity to allow the external like for people that don't necessarily, where do I find young professionals? How do we recruit? What are they talking about? Sort of where do we find the next leaders of the industry? I think being in the importance of me is to be able to allow that to happen. So anyway, that we can support to do that. And the thing I'm looking most forward to it is outside of doing it. But as you said, Tracy, I'm going to be keynoting it and I say, we I'm actually doing it with my wife and partner. And what we're trying to bring is a presentation and a perspective of somebody inside the industry and that's somebody out. And we talked through sort of her her impressions of what's going on with with me. We pretty open and pretty vulnerable when it comes to how we're handling life changes. And we presented last year. And then we're asked to come do it again. We're going to show sort of where things have changed. And for those of you, everyone knows things have changed a lot through the past year. So excited to do that. She brings a ton of energy. It's a wonderful thing that we get to do together. It's, you know, people get to finally start to see the way I we live and we work and the rest. So it's fun on that end. So I appreciate the opportunity to do that. Saks, specifically on yours, your presentation, we wanted to talk about hopefully this will spark also a conversation around, you know, and I'm going to look at my sheet because it's a long title, but there's a panel of you on the 24th of 245. It's called Securing Values, Choosing Your Path to Profession and Partnerships. On it, you'll have Scott Dunn and Kelsey Cornell of AXIS Communications, Mark Fack of Allegiant, and Kim Hooper of Amazon. I think that's a great showcase of most of the conferences in our industry are so heavily tactical and technical. And it's about product and things like that, where this is, you could see between me talking to my wife and then talking to open about sort of life challenges in that that we have and how we tackle them to here you're talking about values in the path and feedback. So can you speak a little bit about like what it's going to be about, you know, why, again, I'd like the importance conversation they have here. And then I've got a question for you after you do that. So talk a little bit about what people could expect. Yeah, for sure. So it really kind of derived from as we look at the young professional kind of body or the audience that we're really attending this, we want to kind of take on topics that we feel are going to be most applicable to them. And when we look at the young professional kind of body or group that are that's out there, one of the things we see over and over and over again, it's that when they look for both companies that they work for or partner with as they do business, it's not simply just a blind pursuit of profit. It's significantly more focused around kind of what values does that organization have? What are some of those core pieces that go in there? And so we're going to kind of dive into some pretty in depth questions from everything from ethics and what it means in 2021 and moving into 2022 of kind of identifying out kind of who's responsible from an ethical standpoint in an organization and kind of where that balances all the way to, hey, when you're selecting a job, how do you how do you best identify what core values organizations have? Or if you're picking your next partner you're engaging with, you know, from a B2B standpoint, how do we kind of identify and look into, okay, what is that company's stand for? What's important there? Because that is such a huge kind of topic of conversation. And we have such an amazing group of people having those conversations and coming from different backgrounds and different perspectives within the industry. I'm excited to hear what they have to say. I'm obviously going to put in my two cents, but I think there's going to be a lot in that panel that's going to be really exciting. Yeah, no doubt at all. And I think, Todd, if I was to reach out to you on this coming from the recruiting side, I mean, what are you seeing from a values conversation, if you would, because again, it's not just the technical sort of attributes that somebody has. I mean, your thoughts on how that is shaping and changing as even not just young professional, but really anybody from an industry that I think for being honest, is not always been open to having these types of conversations, right, is a very blocking attack on a wide scale. But now as people are looking for jobs and looking for people, how do you see from the recruitment side, Todd, into the values? Well, I think it's an important time in the industry, especially with all the newer technologies and even the expansion and explosion with the access control and IP video. So I think from a young professional standpoint and understanding what our clients and our partners are looking for, I think it'll be able to give us some insight on what the young professionals are looking for, but also help them give them some insight on what our clients and our partners are looking for from a career perspective. So I go back 25 years in the industry and when I look back at when I started in the industry and the advice and guidance that I was given by my mentors, frankly, it was invaluable. So I think that part of this conference will be incorporating that in the discussions and really given the young professionals the opportunity to hear from, you know, hear from our side and also hear from their side on how we can help them roadmap them in their career. So I think it's an exciting time. Yeah, no doubt. And then Tracy, thank you, Todd. Tracy, when you think about like with your product, that partnerships are a big part of what you do on that side, right? And Zach mentioned looking at ecosystem side and the way that ethics plays into that and the values side of it. If you could speak to maybe just a little bit, like what are, how do you see, especially as a product that in a company that takes, like I said, you know, brought together, right, as a full solution on that? And what are, what are you seeing when it comes to the value conversation? I think that the values like everything else in life, they start at home. And so your own corporate DNA is really important. And we spend a lot of time on that at WeSuite. It's very important to us that in our culture is pretty young culture and a very diverse culture. So I think that we as owners are very aware of, of those kinds of topics. Because really at the end of the day, we're working with people. And you've got to have great people with great product in order to really succeed. So we look for the same in our partnerships. And those are, I include in partnership, anyone we work with. So when we're working with a client, it's the same. We really look to kind of match cultures and, and I think you get a lot of that as soon as you meet leadership or you meet people, you understand how they're led, how they're managed. So I think that all of us have become, I would say, not just more aware, but more open to conversation and sharing. And to me, that's part of what forms a great partnership and helps people really succeed together, even from outside organizations. So I think it's important. No doubt. And it's interesting too, is sort of the reshaping right now of what's happened, right? As sort of the values and a lot of different conversations and things that got kind of not necessarily exposed, but they've shifted and they've changed and the companies have to respond to them now. And so it's a very timely conversation to have on that. And I guess that leads me to a question here that I had on it, though, was I thought maybe you can jump in as a little bit specific to it, because people have a little bit of flavor, right? So do companies' values change over time? And as a young professional and someone that is a young professional there, what do you suggest an individual should do to keep up the speed on your own changing values, but also on their companies? You may come into an organization for certain reasons and the values align as you grow and you change and things happen and life happens and the rest of the company's changed, maybe there's leadership, all of that. How do you approach that? Or what advice do you have? Or how do you view it? Yeah, no, that's a really great question. I've had the opportunity to be with my organization for quite a bit of time so far. And you see as time goes on, I think when a lot of people were entering their jobs, kind of what's called 10-ish years ago, the idea of businesses kind of posting out what their core values were or talking about that really fluidly wasn't something that necessarily happened a lot. And so as time has changed and this has become more of a hot topic, I think a lot of times people are starting to hear from their organizations, probably maybe a little bit more publicly than historically, what those values are and it kind of gives you an opportunity to have a little bit of moment of self-reflection on, hey, where do I sit with where these values are? What does that look like for me? And what I kind of always go back to a look at is how do you play the role of a change agent within your own organization? How can you actively take a role to shape what those values look like? And in the panel, we actually have a couple of questions where we talk about that, kind of whose role is it to kind of determine what those values are of the organization. And I think everybody kind of gets an opportunity as young professionals, as leaders, whatever role kind of you find yourself in in your organization to really take an active role in those values that you have. And if you feel very passionate or pushing towards something, that's something that you can change and shape and have a voice for it, if it's through a kind of business employee relations group, you know, and taking kind of a little bit of a stand specifically for something you may think or be really passionate about, or if it's simply something of, hey, you know, how you conduct business on a daily basis, what does that look like? I think there's so many different ways that you can kind of let your values show. And in turn, I think for most organizations if their employees are passionate about a topic or if they're pushing value, especially in 2021, at least, most businesses have an opening year to kind of hear that and change those over time to develop. And then, you know, I guess, unfortunately on the back end, if those don't change, then you have the opportunity to move kind of to an organization that shares those values. Yeah, absolutely. That's a wonderfully said, and I would agree. And I think, I mean, if we're being fair, there's also the opportunity to allow some of that stuff to shape and take form on that side. Exactly. Exactly. There's been a lot of changes, a lot of flux, you know, that you think the current climate and the conditions that we're currently in right now to allow those organizations also to sort of either molt and sort of some of the old stuff that works and then bring in new or I think we call them old truths and new truths a lot where, you know, our industry has been really heavily focused on old truths that exist and I would say values and the rest where it's like, we come from a value organ like an industry, right? It's like keeping bad people out, keeping safe and safety. That's you can somebody expects it's a value that that that our industry is sort of like built off of and that has changed. And now we're letting like the right people in the diversity and inclusion conversations that are happening at this point, the ability for young professionals actually organizations taking risks on on new people within the night. It's just totally very, very different. And I'm interested to see the the appetite that a lot of these places have because you know, generational, there's a lot that's different there where a lot of times you weren't supposed to or allowed to and it was seen as maybe weak or whatever like to bring some of those emotions and values to the table now. So I'm interested to see how the the refactoring of our of our industry happens around those values and whether the opportunity I think those that will embrace it and do it are going to be set up for a long term opportunity to not only attract the right proper talent but I think they'll meet the customer where they're at at that point too because the people are going to be looking for not just to be a transactional relationship but then sort of a value based one. I'd also make a comment on career change you see over the last year and a half we've seen more candidates that are making career change for value in culture than previous than pre-pandemic. So I think everyone's mind has changed or shifted and so I think it's very different than it was a year and a half ago. Zach, you were going to say something too? Oh yeah, I was just I was going to kind of mention to your point that you brought up of the kind of organizations being willing to to kind of change and adapt as as this has come on. I think where we see that a lot on on our side from a rise committee standpoint is organizations willingness to engage and jump in on things like Accelerize kind of doubling down on some of the things that young professionals see in me in need and businesses being willing to say hey we're going to invest in our our young people's future we're going to invest in kind of the young professionals that are either in our organization or the ones we'd like to bring into our organization and and kind of see what what they're interested in. I think a lot of the businesses that have chose to take part of us Accelerize what an awesome opportunity for them to be able to hear either directly from the young professionals through the platform we're using and then as well through the topics that kind of we've all chosen to hear and talk about I think that that shows right there that there's already a great group of people that are already invested in hearing what the young professionals have to say. Absolutely Tracy your thoughts? I think that you know one thing I've learned since I'm an old professional that I've been in this industry a long time and there's something about this industry that just kind of hooks you and I think a lot of that is that it's an industry that does care. The other thing that that has been really I would say I appreciate very much about my career is that you know the willingness to change and the willingness to embrace change because it does happen and you know most of what we do is enhanced by being open right and learning from other people and I think that that's something that really attracts me to this group which this year you know when I went through and looked at all the different speakers and read their bios and read the things that they're speaking on which I would encourage everyone to do. I think once you do that you'll see that you know $199 is like totally worth the price of admission or get one of those buy one get one deals but the the neat thing for me is to see people who I've worked with stepping up and taking leadership roles at conferences like this sharing their own knowledge that takes some guts to do that and I think that that's something that we should all embrace embrace change embrace being open to learning and embrace sharing because it is how the industry grows and changes so that'd be my two cents. I appreciate that very much and I think we're all old at this point in the industry so sorry so we're with you it's fine it's you're all right so now I appreciate everybody sharing that I think you know if anything hopefully this can give some little insight into exactly what's going to happen if we can't you know I have all the different shows and everything that we go to this is the one that I believe you get much much more from participating and being there and gives you great exposure like you all talked about so it's the August 23rd to the 25th it's online, Accelerize, SIA, you mentioned the buy one get one free we're doing one of those so if you sign up you'll actually get a free one that you can give to anybody I would challenge the companies in our industry that are you know looking to give back and to participate there's no better place for you to do this if you've got a group of young professionals you want to do professional development this is a wonderful place to do that it's smack full of a bunch of good conversations the networking I was on the tool today they're using this new tool that to be able to engage in the go it's pretty I mean I found it to be really cool and work that there'll be a URL that we'll send out I want to thank you all very much for taking not only the time to participate the sponsor to organize it but to come here to share this conversation and to join me and and do this because it's yeah hopefully this shows that it's it's it's a community that we're participating in and these are the ways that these community gathers together and just creates great stories and conversations so thank you three for for doing that and then also want to thank SIA, Erin Mann, Kelsey Carnal, the Accelerized Leadership Team, Andrew Lanning, Security Matters, Jake Brown, everybody that has given us the opportunity to share our personal beliefs of sort of why this is a good place to invest your time and your money and we look forward to seeing everybody there so thank you Todd, thank you Tracy, thank you Zach. Get out and register right? What's that? Get out and register. Let's make it a movement. All right well thank you very much appreciate it. Thank you.