On the Editor’s Desk

I’m sure people have seen the Cisco commercials with Ellen Page, the adorable girl from Juno (I’ve not actually seen the movie, but that’s how she’s been described to me by my mom: “the adorable girl from Juno”), who apparently moves in a circle of very network-savvy people, including her doctor, who’s got a full telepresence set-up in his office.

I guess the Canadian medical system does okay by him!

But I was a little blown away to see this commercial from Cisco whilst watching the Celtics choke away a 12-point lead to the Magic yesterday:

Oh, look how cute Ellen is getting a tour of town hall and its super-advanced video surveillance solution!

But I can’t for the life of me get the message Cisco is trying to convey. Is it, “Hey, don’t be afraid of video surveillance - it’s networked, so it can’t be big brother!”? Or is it, “Hey, cute little Ellen Page likes video surveillance, so you should ask your town if they’ve got video surveillance!”?

I mean, they don’t actually convey what value this system could possibly have. There’s an officer staring intently at screens, but even the least-initiated must intuit that there’s no way one woman looking at all those screens and nonsense could possibly pay any sort of attention or catch any crime happening. And it comes off looking like a toy - who’s going to take video surveillance seriously as an important security operation if it’s being presented with colorful “we’re all part of the human network” bubbles and what not?

It basically just comes off as surreal, like video surveillance for Oz or something. It’s not something that would actually be in MY town, that’s for sure.

One of the consistent themes to emerge out of this week’s TechSec conference is that, for the large part, the physical security integrators of today are not prepared for end users’ needs today, and are even more ill-prepared to be satisfying end user demands in the very near future.

(The caveat being that I’m talking about relatively large-scale projects. It may be that light commercial alarm systems with a bit of video and access control are being well delivered. That portion of the market is under-represented at TechSec because there aren’t really “end users” in that market. It’s unlikely the local retail shop has some kind of security director. It’s just the owner of the store. Is he happy with his system? I have no idea. That person is hard to query on a large scale.)

So, it would seem that a new breed of integrator needs to emerge (or is emerging) to address these large-scale jobs, like power stations, water districts, airports, retail chains, transportation agencies, and the like. But what will that integrator of the future look like?

First, it’s perhaps most instructive to look at the integrator of today.

I’ve talked about this in the past, but it continues to be concerning that end users seem so dissatisfied with the performance of their security systems - and the performance of their security system integrators.

So, why are they disappointed?

1. The products being sold to them are being marked up unreasonably, in their opinions, because they can go find the same products online for significantly less. Why, they wonder, are they paying for labor plus a huge mark-up?

This is driving down margins for systems integrators, and creating a race to the bottom of out-bidding on price, of course, and I’ll get to what that means later.

2. There is too much of a focus on technology and products and not enough focus on policy and design. This is why they are turning to consultants, because they feel they’re just being sold pre-packaged systems and are not being consulted by integrators on the problems they want to solve.

One end user at the show told a great story about calling up an integrator to get a quote on a video surveillance system in a warehouse. The integrator asked what the square footage was. He told him.

“Okay,” the integrator said, “that’ll be a 16-camera system. I can be out there to install it next week.”

The integrator (maybe it’s generous to label the company that way) never even looked at the property, or asked a single question about the end user’s concerns, and was ready to sell him a system. I fear this is too commonplace an occurrence.

3. When it comes to the network, security integrators just don’t understand. End users are having their IT departments get involved in the sales process and they’re being told the security integrators just don’t have a clue about end-point security, about trusted appliances, about network access control, about denial of service attacks, etc., etc.

Security integrators are trying to meet demands for IP-based products, but aren’t willing to invest in the training or people necessary to do this in a responsible fashion. End users are unimpressed, to put it lightly.

4. Security integrators don’t have the project management skills to deal with the large-scale security projects that are being spec’d. I’ve heard this from manufacturers, from consultants, and from end users alike. Why do you think Genetec created a professional services division? Because the integrators are doing so well deploying their product?

Take the PSIM software category. These software packages are incredibly complicated to deploy - so much so that the manufacturers can’t scale because the integrators don’t have the skills to do the installation and to mange it themselves they’d have to hire hundreds of software engineers to manage the deployments, which only come along once in a while. These guys - VidSys, Orsus (now Nice), CNL, Proximex - have a seeming value proposition, but they can’t seem to get out of the gate because they can’t develop a cadre of integrators that can get their software out into the field.

Is this because their software is overly complicated and impossible to deploy, or because the integrators won’t staff up to take on the challenge of the deployment? It’s hard to know. But at least part of the problem is a lack of software engineering skills possessed by the integrators, and a futher part of the problem is a lack of project management skills.

They can’t seem to think big enough.

5. Those large government contractors - Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, etc. - don’t seem overly interested in the commercial, non-governmental market, and when they do enter the space, end users have a hard time getting their attention.

There was general agreement that end users want access to upper management and want accountability from their integrators. This is hard to get from multi-billion-dollar companies.

So, what do integrators need to do and look like in order to solve some of these problems?

This was addressed most clearly in a panel discussion that featured Bill Bozeman, who runs PSA Security, a product-buying co-op/distributor for some 300 security integrators; Paul Cronin, who runs 1nService, a somewhat similar organization for IT-focused systems integrators; and Pierre Trapanese, president and owner of Northland Controls, a systems integrator based in San Francisco.

The panel came about because I asked Bill and Paul to put together something on how physical security integrators and IT integrators can partner to approach jobs. This was a theme of theirs when they announced a collaboration between their two organizations last spring.

However, their message when they finally came and presented is that the whole partnering thing really just isn’t happening. Basically, just one of Bill’s 300 security integrators had taken advantage of the relationship and cheaply joined 1nService. Virtually none of them was interested in reselling IT products and doing IT integration. Nor was any crossover happening between companies who were members of the two organizations. No partnering was happening.

About eight of the 1nService guys had joined PSA, mostly to install IP video, which Paul said is a rapidly growing business driver for his members. Essentially, the IT guys are just coming in and taking the business and don’t really care to work with the PSA guys, or at least don’t feel like they have to.

In Bill’s opinion, if it wasn’t for the security knowledge needed for installing access control systems, he’d be really scared for the future of the physical security integrator. As it is, he’s not exactly bullish.

However, Pierre was on the panel, Bill said, because he represents a company Bill feels can succeed going forward. In fact, he said Northland had grown more rapidly than any PSA member he’d ever seen (some 10 times in the last four years) and because of that actually flew out to San Francisco to personally take a look at the operations and try to figure out what they’re doing so right.

He was especially impressed with Northland’s ability to quickly expand with overseas offices, something Bill said he’s tried to do on more than one occasion and with more than one company, and failed every time. So, what can we learn from Pierre, Bill, and Paul when it comes to addressing the five problems above?

1. Product mark-up. The recession has driven margins down, and they’re not coming back up. There was general agreement on that. But Paul was a bit incredulous that security integrators were ever marking so far up in the first place.

IT integrators largely live on 8-10 percent margin mark-up on product sales, with as much as 55-60 percent of all revenues coming from service, he said. This happened when the market commoditized in the 1990s, and that put a lot of integrators out of business who were dependent on product margins.

Those that survived switched to a service model, and Paul said the Y2K concerns solidified this business model when integrators realized they could be vital to a business’s overall operations and that they could sell themselves as long-term partners with their customers.

Bill estimated that security integrators are now living on gross margins that are half what they were in the 1990s, but that most integrators have not changed to the service model, and were thus trying to survive on jobs being bid at 18-20 percent gross margin, with almost no recurring component.

This is not how Pierre does things.

Get this: Pierre said Northland had a good year in 2009, and didn’t win a single bid. That’s right, not one bid in 2009, and they were profitable.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. They just couldn’t get their bids low enough, and were unwilling to take unprofitable jobs.

So they focused on servicing their existing customers, and managed to do that pretty well. And when they do sell products to those customers, they tell them exactly what the mark-up is and why they’re worth it.

Security integrators of the future will have to live on low product margins and develop long-term relationships with their customers for which they are paid on an ongoing basis.

These companies do exist. It’s the model Stanley uses, though they focus more on light commercial. It’s the model DTT uses, though they focus only on quick-serve restaurants.

It can be painful to make that move, of course, and it takes capital. The residential community knows all about financing growth by ceding product margin in exchange for lucrative long-term contracts. Systems integrators need to find funding sources for making this transition, and train their sales people to understand selling for the long-term instead of selling to win the bid on price alone.

Of course, it’s hard to win bids in the first place if the end users are buying on price. That’s why it’s vital to develop relationships with the customers you do have and to show your value to end users before the bid process starts.

2. Selling solutions, not technology. This is something that many people have been talking about for years, but the message still doesn’t seem to be getting through.

End users need help understanding how to use the technology. They need integrators who can consult on problems and apply technology appropriately so solve specific issues that are important to end users.

This came up in Paul Bodell’s presentation on video wants vs. video needs. He outlined a scenario where a school was concerned about graffiti and an integrator sold the school a megapixel camera system to help them make identifications.

Great idea, but why are you selling them a system that records megapixel quality at 20 frames per second? Do you really need thousands of images of that person tagging the wall? Or do you just need a few great images you can use to make identification. The integrator sold too much system, with too much storage, and it was ultimately too much cost for solving the problem, which left the school district unhappy and unable to use that money to solve other problems.

The integrator of the future knows sales people need to be trained on what the technology can and can’t do, and need to be trained to ask end users lots of questions before they even start to talk about technology.

3. Understanding the network.

This one is easy.

The integrator of the future invests in Cisco-certifications, Microsoft-certifications, and engineers and techs in general that are well trained and know their products inside and out. Yes, this sometimes means actually paying for product training, as crazy as that sounds to integrators used to being given free training by manufacturers.

Bill talked about the tough job of realizing that all of his 300 integrators in PSA can’t be trained on all of the manufacturers’ products that would like to sell through PSA. These software manufacturers are not going to give everyone expensive training for free, and, in fact, want to be able to hand select those integrators who do get to resell their product.

How do you tell your member companies: “I’m sorry, but you’re now allowed to resell that product?”

But that’s what has to happen. Unless you’re interested in investing in the right people and the right training, you’re not going to get to resell the right products in the future.

4. Project management skills are vital.

This is similar to the point above.

The integrator of the future will be staffed with high-level, expensive business-people who understand project management.

Pierre told a story about how his competition was incredulous at the salaries Nortland was doling out. How can they possibly be profitable and pay those kinds of salaries?

Well, because the people worthy of those salaries generate better revenue, obviously.

Bill said the integrators of tomorrow need to be staffed by Stanford MBAs, and they’re hard to come by. I would say: “Bollocks. Standford MBAs are a dime a dozen right now.” Security integrators need to understand that you don’t have to be a “security guy” to be valuable to a security integrator.

Where are the security companies at the job fairs at the major universities? Why are security companies telling recruiters like TSS that they only want to hire guys with experience in the security industry? Why do there continue to be about zero women in the security industry?

Because the security industry does a crappy job of recruiting and is seemingly unwilling to pay for high-level talent.

The security integrator of the future will not be relying on $12.50 an hour techs to be the face of their organization to the customer. The integrator will increasingly see themselves as white collar, with multiple valuable talents, including everything from product installation to software development to policy consulting.

5. Here’s the good news.

The security integrator of the future will likely be a mid-sized independent company with revenues between $5 and $25 million.

When the IT industry changed rapidly, Paul said, there wasn’t a vast swath of consolidation amongst the installation companies, and there continue to be a huge amount of mid-sized IT companies that are Cisco resellers, etc.

He said the smaller companies were more agile, more able to change to suit end user demand, and more likely to provide exceptional service to end users because the upper management was likely to be directly involved in the projects.

It’s these mid-sized security integrators that can stand to benefit so much from a few good hires. One or two Cisco engineers. An MBA. Maybe a talented marketing professional to go with that project manager. Yes, you may have to take on salary, but if you hire right, they should pay for themselves.

And if you hire them young, fresh out of school, you’ll get them cheap, and they’ll be computer savvy and likely to quickly understand the new developments in security technology without having to be “security guys.” Video on the mobile device? Yeah, they get that. Network access control? Um, duh, that’s kind of important. Privacy concerns? They’ve lived their whole lives online. They know what to protect and how.

Further, these mid-sized companies don’t have a huge infrastructure that will make moving to a service model quite as painful. It’s these mid-sized security integrators who are likely to be able to secure funding for making the transition, if necessary, without needing a huge influx of capital.

Conclusion: Some of these moves toward the future involve painful decisions and investment, yes, but nothing I’ve outlined seems impossible.

Yes, the manufacturers could help in the transition by building products that are easier to install and have fewer highly technical requirements. Yes, they could work together to create some standards. That would help.

However, much of an integrator’s value going forward will result from knowledge and ability, not from having a particularly good relationship with a particularly strong brand in the industry.

If I tell a good integrator today that she’ll be able, in the future, to compete on intelligence and skillset instead of price and vendor relationship, I think she’ll like that just fine.

Imperial Capital, home to two of the security industry’s most well-known financial analysts, John Mack (former CEO of Protection One and owner of USBX) and Jeff Kessler (former analyst at Lehman Brothers and an organizer of the Securing New Ground conference), has had plans in the works for an initial public offering to raise some funds, but things apparently are getting gummed up:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boutique investment bank Imperial Capital Group Inc postponed its initial public offering, an underwriter said, citing market conditions.

The Los Angeles-based company had hoped to raise about $107 million in a deal that had already been downsized.

The bank, which offers sales, trading and advisory services, had hoped to sell 6.7 million shares for between $15 and $17 each.

It’s not like Imperial hasn’t been busy in the security industry. They advised on the Protect America and DTT funding deals in just the last few months. And it seems as though the capital markets are freeing up a bit, which is good news for Imperial.

Plus, they seem to actually be doing well:

Imperial Capital more than doubled profits in the first nine months of 2009 to $13.9 million, but said in its prospectus that most of its investment banking engagements are single deals and not ongoing relationships.

So, I guess that’s at least a little ironic. As Imperial increases the valuation for external companies when it sees more recurring revenue (John Mack has long been an advocate of commercial integrators getting more recurring, revenue, for example), it’s being held back by a lack of recurring revenue on its own part.

And, yes, I understand that security is just part of what they do. But still. Ironic, right?

Well, he looked smart well before TechSec (I mean, he’s 50 and wears a ponytail - you can only get away with that if you’re really, really smart or make your living selling dope or playing music), but now he looks especially prescient.

Following his TechSec address that in part focused on virtual worlds and their use in security, I came across this bit about SAIC buying something called OLIVE, which is basically a virtual world-creating company:

OLIVE is a market leading software platform that enables customers to deploy their own persistent and secure 3D Virtual Worlds where users can collaborate over networks. OLIVE’s real-time virtual world technology enables interpersonal interaction through life-like human avatars. These avatars are three dimensional virtual representations that provide a human-machine interface for networked computers, enabling remote users to experience, collaborate, train, and learn. The platform currently supports virtual world implementations in healthcare, financial services, energy, transportation, retail, government, and higher education markets. OLIVE adds a branded platform to SAIC’s simulation portfolio, and enhances the company’s offerings to an expanding simulation marketplace.

There’s no purchase price, but they’re picking up technology and 12 people from Forterra, which has raised $65 million in VC funding. Was the buy similar in size to recent Orsus/Ioimage buys? Seems possible. Interesting to think of virtual world technology being valued by an integrator of security/government contractor at the same level as PSIM or analytics technology.

Really slammed, per usual, with making sure the conference goes well, etc., at TechSec, but wanted to post the recorded versions of our keynote speaker, Frank Yeh, this morning.

At one point, we had about 20 people watching live via the web, which I’ll count as a small victory, since no one’s ever done it before in security that I know of, and I can’t say the quality is awesome, exactly. But, hey, I did it with my phone.

Or, rather, Leischen did it with my phone, and you can hear her from time to time. Try to ignore that.

So, UStream seems to have broken the hour-long recording into two pieces. In the first, you’ll see Tim Purpura, our publisher, and then me, address the crowd. I don’t think we totally shank it. There’s some interesting stuff there. Then Frank talks and you’ll hear all about how cloud computing, virtualization and virtual worlds will affect security. You won’t be able to see the stuff on the screen very well, which is too bad, since it’s kind of important, but, hey, if you really wanted to see it all that badly, you’d have gotten your ass down here, to be frank (ha! Frank! - I crack myself up).

Here’s part one:

Here’s part two:

Likely, by the time you read this, I’ll already be knee-deep in TechSec Solutions, but on the off chance you’re up as early as I am and have nothing better to do than read my blog, here’s a quick reminder to check out our keynoter, Frank Yeh, being streamed live at 8 a.m. Eastern at www.techsecsol.com.

Assuming I don’t screw that up, I guess.

Anyway, I’ll be posting updates throughout the day at my Twitter account: www.twitter.com/sam_pfeifle.

I haven’t really seen much activity from Intel in physical security, other than a team-up with GE to get into medical monitoring and the fact that their chips are inevitably in servers used to store video footage, etc. They’re not close to as active as, say TI, Stretch, or any number of other chip manufacturers, however.

I mean, they’ve never sent me a press release.

However, if this video is any indication, they’ve got a security and surveillance division primed and ready to go. I’m not sure if it indicates to me they really understand the market, but it’s well produced:

“Storage tapes are being replaced by digital media?” Ya think?

And why do people always demonstrate LPR with stupid little matchbox cars in a well lit environment? What’s the point?

But it will be interesting to see what Intel has planned for the market.

I found this on the Internets, but it’s a password protected site, so no sense linking:

“The owners of local security installation and service company Sensormatic Hawaii, Inc. have sold the business to another local owner.

The Halawa-based company’s new name is Pacific Security Integrations, Inc., and will be managed by the new owner, Richard Osborne Jr., who is also president and CEO.

All of Sensormatic’s employees are being retained by the new company.

While Sensormatic Hawaii’s business was focused primarily on commercial and military security in Hawaii and on Guam, Osborne said he plans on expanding products and services, which include video surveillance, access control, parking control and gates, and security alarm and monitoring.

The company’s clients include Ala Moana Center, the City and County of Honolulu and The Queen’s Medical Center.”

I’ve got a call in, but they’re not awake yet.

So, in answer to Steve Nutt’s question yesterday in the comments of my “kick you in the shins” rant (see below), and because I’m feeling mildly guilty about being so negative all the time (not really, but I think I’m supposed to say things like that to make me slightly more endearing), and I’m high on the page views caused by making a list of 10 things yesterday, here is a list of 10 ways I think you can use Twitter to make your life slightly better.

Remember that I’m an editor, and would be lying impoverished on the streets if I was forced to make money by actually selling things, and that I’m frankly surprised every Thursday when another check is directly deposited in my bank account, so I’m not going to give you advice on growing your little business into the next Wal-Mart. That’s caveat one.

Also, I think those of you who want to just do, do, do to Twitter, and then have awesome things happen as an effect, just don’t quite get Twitter. You have to approach it almost like a living organism (your cat, say - dogs are too loyal to be like Twitter) and sort of keep it around as company, gaining some benefit from feeding it from time to time and seeing what happens.

So…

1. Worry first about whom you’re following. This is really Twitter’s sweet spot. Go search around for the people and organizations you’d like to keep track of. Many people do this via rss feeds (actually, it’s not many people, it’s a few people, otherwise Twitter wouldn’t be very popular - rss feeds accomplish 90 percent of what’s valuable about Twitter, in my opinion, but people just didn’t all agree to use an rss reader and so we’re stuck with Twitter), but if you follow people like your favorite trade-site writer (ahem, @sam_pfeifle, ahem), you can keep up with what’s going on in the industry without having to go look for it. It comes to you.

Personally, I like to follow a lot of physical security people (you can check out my followers on Twitter, just as you can check out anyone else’s followers), but I also sometimes follow my favorite sports writers, or authors or bands I like. Then I unfollow them when they get annoying. Try someone out for a while, and if they’re not showing you information you want, get rid of them. No one will be offended.

Do you use Google alerts? Twitter is like Google alerts, only if Google alerts got drunk sometimes.

2. If you’re at all interesting, some of those people will follow you back. But don’t be worried if you’re not all that interesting to CNN. They’re not going to follow you back, because they don’t give a crap about you. They’re a content generator and that’s what they want to do, push content out. And they want you to lap it up. That’s their job.

The people who will want to follow you are the people who think the content that you generate is interesting and worthwhile. How do you get more followers? See #3.

3. Generate interesting content. If you feed your cat garbage, your cat will die and not be very interesting (unless you like dead cats - I know there are some of you out there). If you feed your cat good, healthy stuff, your cat will stick around for a while and be interesting and maybe sit on your lap sometimes. It will also still puke on your favorite armchair, and Twitter’s kind of like that, too, but you don’t give up on your cat just because he pukes on your chair sometimes, right?

These people who find your content interesting will follow you and then, from time to time, do what you ask them to do (again, much like your cat will sometimes do things you want it to do, like come inside).

4. Help people. This is generating interesting content, redux, but it helps define what’s interesting content. Give people a link to something they didn’t know existed, and will make them happy. If you’re in the security industry, like me, this might be linking to a study they haven’t seen that will help them make a good decision about their businesses (I often do this by linking back to my site, because it’s our business to create page views, but if you don’t make money with page views, just link to the site wherever it is - people will be pleased you pointed them in the right direction).

Or point them to a good discussion of the best way to do wireless IP video. Or where to find a POTS-going-away solution. Or whatever. Think like your “followers”: What do they give a crap about?

Are you at an event that not many people are at, but at which interesting things are happening? Post some highlights that people will be interested in (maybe even use one of those hashtag thingees so people will be able to collect all the information from that event, like, oh, say, #TechSec - when you click on the hashtag you get every post by anyone in the world that used that hashtag). They’ll be appreciative.

Have you noticed that when you help people, they think highly of you and want to help you back? (Yeah, me neither, but I hear it works. I’m thinking about trying it.)

5. Study the depravity of humanity. Really, you should do this, just so you get a reality check every once in a while. See those trending topics on the right side of your Twitter “home” page? Click on the weird looking ones like #thingsyoudon’tsay. Be ready to be floored by the stuff that people post on the Internet next to pictures of themselves.

Watch out, though, this can occupy huge amounts of your time if you don’t watch out. It’s like watching 500 train wrecks in a row. But, really, this is good for you. It gets you out of your little world and gets you thinking about what people are really like.

6. Okay, more seriously, search for terms you care about. I think it’s really funny to search “alarm.” Yes, you get a bunch of people bitching about their alarm clock waking them up (see yesterday’s rant, I guess, about why I want to kick those people), but you’ll also see a lot of comments about people’s home and fire alarms. And you see their pain points on display (false alarms - people HATE false alarms - just a reminder), and that can help you understand your customer better, should you be an alarm company.

It’s like an instant poll of public opinion.

7. Yes, every once in a while, tell people about something you’re doing for which you would like them to give you money in exchange. Remember my caveat about never having sold anything, but I do have a band that uses Facebook in similar fashion and it sometimes works.

If you have something that you think people genuinely want, and you think your collection of followers contains those types of people who would want it, you can feel safe in saying, “hey, I’ve got awesomeness for sale, relatively cheap, come check it out here: http://bit.ly.awesome.”

This will not drive millions of sales, but it could be part of your little marketing plan to increase sales by a few ticks this year.

8. Surf other people’s followers, maybe even your competition’s. Who are other people talking to? How does your message compare to the message being put out by your competition? Can you make those followers your followers by following them and then having them follow you in return? (Hint: You can then unfollow them later and they won’t be able to tell… Not that I would do that.)

9. Surf the people other people are following. Is there a source of information out there that could be valuable to you? Who are you like, and whose interests match yours? Maybe you could learn something from the same people they’re learning from.

Being open to learning is very important, in general, but also very important in whether you’re going to get something out of Twitter or not. If you don’t feel you have anything to learn from anyone else, social media is WAY not for you. Just stop right now and go play more golf or something.

10. Do something on on Twitter that no one else has done before. I don’t know what this is, obviously, but remember that Twitter is completely still the Wild, Wild West, and much of the Twitter “rules” were created by users, like those hash-tags. No one at Twitter said, “hey, if you want to collect posts, use a little hash-y sign and then put an abbreviation, and then people can search for every post like yours.” No, people just started doing that and it worked, and now it’s like Twitter law.

How can you do something that’s going to be come Twitter law (or, maybe a Twitter ordinance or something for your little municipality of Twitter followers)?

Creativity is rewarded on Twitter. Try it out. But don’t be surprised when people dislike it and then write a mean blog post about how they want to kick you in the shins.

Some of you may not have checked out the Twitter thing yet, and that’s more than fine. There are definitely plenty of people who would find very little utility in it. As a news gatherer, it works pretty great for me - it’s my own personal news feed, customized by people who share my interests, but who explore things I don’t get around to, so it’s not as subject to my own biases as a straight RSS feed of news sources. They’re a distillery of sorts. People dig up stuff I never would have seen all the time.

However. (And you knew this was coming, judging by my incendiary headline, guaranteed by any number of online “experts” to increase my blog reads by 116 percent.)

Should you use Twitter, please stop with the following:

1. “@soandso thanks for the RT!” - If you actually wanted to thank that person, you would have directly messaged that person and thanked that person directly. Instead, you put out a meaningless post to the rest of the world to show that, in fact, someone gave enough of a crap about you that they retweeted something you said.

Look at how important I am! Someone retweeted me! Wow!

Just stop with that. Please.

2. “Mmmm. Coffee. Just what I needed!” This is the ultimate cliche the world uses to dismiss Twitter’s benefits. Why do you feel the need to feed into it? Do you think you’re the first one who ever discovered the incredible pepping properties of coffee? Why do I want to read that? Do you think we’ll all sympathize and think, “wow, that @soandso, he really nailed that one!”

3. “Wow. I haven’t been on Twitter in a week. Better post 15 times in a row so that I’ve hit my quota that I have to show to my boss who started this whole social media program.”

Please resist this urge. No one will read any of the posts. They just look like one giant blob of you, and you’re not THAT interesting that I’m going to examine every single one of the posts, which are all probably just self-promotional anyway.

4. “Life is only what you make of it!” -Some Guy Who Said Some Meaningless Aphorisms A While Ago.

Yeah, we all got one of those quote-a-day calendars from our aunt for Christmas, too. We also go to the dentist on a regular basis and read those posters they put on the ceiling. We don’t need Twitter for that, too.

5. “Get ready guys, I’m going to put out a 600-word blog post all in 140-character Twitter posts! It’s gonna be awesome.”

Dude, if you’re trying to teach me about fundamentals of perimeter protection, maybe you should blog about it and then provide a link instead of wasting 40 straight posts in my Twitter feed. It’s also impossible to read and get anything out of.

6. “#physec, #IT, #ISC, #cameras, #ff” - the hashtags serve their purpose. If you’re covering an event that other people are covering, that can be really helpful to pull a lot of stuff together you care about. That I get. But, really, aren’t you just trying most of the time to glom on to a topic and praying that people will search that hash-tag and discover you? I think you are.

7. “Hey, remember when I posted this thing this morning? I’m going to post it again in case you missed it.”

Oh, how savvy of you…

8. “http://bit.ly/aSc25m”

Really, that’s all you’re going to post? A random link that has no indication whatsoever what it points to? Because you’re so trustworthy and brilliant that we’ll follow wherever you point us?

Obviously, you could have been hacked and that’s a spam bot and it’s going to lead me to the web page of death (actually, that can’t really happen to me because I’m on a Mac and I’m invulnerable!), so it’s very unlikely I’m going to click on that. But, just in general, that isn’t very helpful. You’ve got about 100 characters left, guy.

9. “Testing posting from Tweetdeck” - You know how you could test that? You could post something valuable and see if it posts. If it doesn’t, it didn’t work. See how that works? But, you know what, big giant programs that everyone uses generally work. You don’t really need to broadcast a test to the entirety of your little Twitter world.

10. “Look at my blog where I list 10 things that I want to rant about” - God, I hate when self-righteous jerk-faces do this. If you don’t like the way people do Twitter, just unfollow them. Or don’t use Twitter at all, you loser!

Jeez, someone should just take away your right to use the Internet at all.