Glimmers of Hope …

Okay, so 2022 hasn’t started out the way we wanted. For me, personally, my son tested positive for COVID on New Year’s Day, along with half his school over the past few weeks, a story that is being repeated in cities across the U.S. as we enter year three of what seems like a recurring nightmare we all can’t wake up from.

Wait, Paul, I thought this blog was supposed to be about glimmers of hope? Yes, hope. Seems like that is all we have to hold onto these days, as we all try and persevere and shake off this “pandemicky” feeling ... yes, I coined a new word, pandemicky – you’re welcome!

But getting back to hope, results from this month’s News Poll do offer some glimmers of hope, as more than half of respondents are looking to travel to more in-person events this year, starting with ISC West, March 22-25, in Las Vegas, Security Systems News’ very own SecurityNext Conference, April 25-27, in Nashville, Tenn., and PSA TEC, May 16-19, in Denver, Colo., all three of which are on my calendar to start the year.

Speaking of SecurityNext, working on the education program has given me renewed optimism that we can get back to some sense of normalcy in 2022, as the collective mindset of the prospective speakers who I have spoken with has been overwhelmingly positive. Hard to believe that our inaugural and highly successful SecurityNext conference was almost two years ago in New Orleans, right before the “you know what” hit the fan.

And speaking of us wishing we can go back in a time machine to before this all happened, we are going to need that aforementioned collective mindset from the security industry to shake this pandemicky feeling for good, and get on with our lives and our businesses again.

In regard to 2022, Charlie Brown, the eternal optimist, comes to mind. All of us right now are like poor Charlie, ready to kick 2022 through the goal post, hoping Lucy will not yank the football – another year – away yet again …