PERS Summit lines up 2017 speakers

PARK CITY, Utah—AvantGuard has several speakers lined up for its upcoming PERS Summit, to be held here Sept. 26-28, as well as some of the events.

This year's PERS Summit will start with a tour of AvantGuard's recently remodeled facility. “We've got about 25,000 square feet and three levels, and the building will be completely remodeled, inside and out, by the time the event starts. So, people will really get to see—hands on—how that monitoring of the PERS devices works,” Sonja Jorgenson, AvantGuard's director of marketing, told Security Systems News.

Aron Ralston will be one of the conference's keynote speakers. “His story is told in that movie, 127 hours,” Jorgenson noted. Ralston was exploring a Utah canyon when his arm got caught, forcing Ralston to amputate the limb.

One of the speakers will be Eric Allen, an attorney who can speak to certain marketing techniques. “His expertise is � issues that are raised when businesses are contacting customers through texting and automated calls. He really understands that, the regulations, and the new rules that are coming out in 2017.”

Laurie Orlov, another speaker at the conference, is focused on aging-in place.� “She has an interesting background in technology, especially targeted to aging seniors,” Jorgenson said. “She's going to share some predictions about what those technology trends are going to look like in 2017 and beyond.”

The Summit's other speakers have not yet been announced.

“Then, every year, we have a panel of experts in the industry and we talk about a relevant issue. Last time, we talked about fall detection and [the panelists'] feelings about that, and where [the technology] was and if it was really helpful,” Jorgenson said. “We haven't disclosed what that topic will be yet, but that panel discussion's always a big talking point.”

Jorgenson said that AvantGuard hopes to give attendees more access to the presentations at this Summit, which will allow attendees to further review information after returning from the conference. “I think there will be a lot of information, � so, it's a lot to digest in just a couple days,” she said.

The company also sends an anonymous survey to its dealers, which asks about a range of topics, including the software that dealers use or the types of customers dealers are seeing, AvantGuard marketing assistant Alex Flitton said. “We actually have a lot of really good feedback so far,” he told SSN. “All of this information will be compiled and interpreted by some of the experts in the industry, to present to our attendees.”

Networking is another benefit of the event, Flitton noted. “It just puts a lot of like-minded people in a really solid environment where they can interact,” he said.

The Summit will be held at The Chateaux Deer Valley in Park City, Utah. The conference has been here for each conference.