ASG hosting The Great Conversation event in Seattle

SEATTLE—The Aronson Security Group (ASG) is hosting The Great Conversation in Security event here at Bell Harbor International Conference Center, March 6-7, 2017. The theme for this year's two-day forum is “Security Risk Management in 2017—The Risks, The Challenges, and The Opportunities.”

The Great Conversation in Security is a forum started by ASG and The Sage Group in 2003 to fill a perceived gap in the risk, resilience and security market, with the goal of creating a community of innovators and practitioners who would share their best practices and their future strategies with each other in a trusted community.

“I knew, from experience, that the behavior of the vendor ecosystem composed of product, consulting and integration companies, were not collaborating,” Phil Aronson, CEO of ASG, told Security Systems News. “The CSO purchasing products and services from these companies was not connected to the latest developments in risk mitigation, benchmarks of key performance measures from other companies, or the innovations that were occurring as a result of leveraging people, processes and emerging technology. I wanted to be a part of making that change.”

One of the unique conversations this year will involve risk managers speaking with their counterparts in security management about new and unique ways to quantify value, mitigate risk, and drive organizational behavior that protects lives and assets.

“There is a gap that needs to close between the enterprise risk managers and the CSO,” said Carol Fox, vice president of strategy for RIMS, the Risk Management Society, told SSN. “The value of the organization is at stake.”

Another session will focus on the “Insecurity of Security” technology and how to take proactive steps today to mitigate the risk. “Security systems are not secure,” William Plante, former head of Business Continuity at Symantec and now principal in the Enterprise Security Risk Group (eSRG) of ASG, told SSN. “We have asked a leading IT security consultant, Rodney Thayer, to provide us insights into why this is true on the first day of the forum. On the second day, we will explore what the industry is doing about it.”

Yet another one of the conversations will dive into the values of the organization and how it drives behavior creating a force multiplier in a culture of security or a culture of risky and inappropriate behavior. Other conversation will cover such things as the campus of the future, critical communications and how to organize and execute within a crisis.

The Great Conversation faculty will also address developments in technology that can ultimately create the 360-degree dashboard for an organization as well as provide predictive intelligence.

“As the host of the forum, ASG has many relationships built over time with the technology companies that help sponsor The Great Conversation,” Nigel Waterton, ASG's senior vice president of corporate strategy and development, told SSN. “They keep us appraised of what is on the horizon and provide us a glimpse of the future. We have integrated them into the conversation along with consultants and thought leaders in many of the core disciplines. This should be one of the best conversations we have ever participated in.”

Ron Worman, managing director of The Sage Group, added, “At the beginning of every conversation is the promise of a revelation that leads to action that, at times, can change the world. When we have industry veterans like Mike Mason, CSO of Verizon and Mike Howard, CSO of Microsoft, return year over year to share their insights and learn from others, we know we are having an impact in helping the security industry on a path to value.”