Technology has been responsible for a range of industry sweeping changes, where jobs, careers and even entire workplaces have been fundamentally changed and even eliminated. These kinds of changes have impacted on security as well.
In general, technology change has brought a range of benefits, at least to those not directly impacted by loss of jobs or functions. However, it has also brought two other trends.
In the one, we have technology implemented because it provides some kind of image and credibility. In discussions with one provider in Europe, he mentioned that the design of a control room which had a huge set of monitors spread out in front of the operators, had not been done for effectiveness, but rather because the mayor of the city thought it looked impressive and wanted visitors to admire it.
In truth, the number of monitors and layout was totally inappropriate to effective viewing. The purpose of the technology had been lost to the end-user, in fact it was entirely secondary to the personal view of the sponsor of the technology. There are probably many examples of this, and not just in CCTV but across the entire security spectrum. These can be flagship sites where the technology has a ‘wow’ factor, but underneath the quality of delivery is poor and simply just doesn’t match the expenditure. In some cases, people then get coached in how to address the demands of the technology. For example, if the technology is supposed to assist in delivering a better solution, then coaching is done on how to deal with the way the technology is measuring the effect rather than the original standard of delivery itself.
Too good to be true
This kind of imbalance with expenditure may have nothing to do with personal image though. One of the characteristics in a fast moving technology industry is for sales people to push equipment which sounds too great to be true, or is beyond the functional levels of the sites who implement them. The result is technology that is mismatched to the rest of the systems or operational capabilities, that is sometimes abandoned, or is used in some kind of crippled capacity. A result of perhaps unrealistic expectations, poor integration potential, or just over-represented technology.
An additional area that I have mentioned in a recent article, is that the technology is outstripping the ways that people see the position and calibre of the people who are appointed to use it. In this sense, it is part of a true displacement technology trend where jobs are changing so fundamentally, that the old ways of staffing positions no longer work. What seems to be expressed as an ‘Uber’ effect, based on the dislocation that Uber is having on traditional markets it is getting into.
People who are wanting to take advantage of technical innovation are being held back by the capacity to man and operate such a function. In this sense, the delivery potential inherent in the technology is there, but unlocking the potential is proving difficult to achieve.
Substituting service
There is another trend occurring with technology that is providing an interesting psychological insight. In this kind of case, organisations or companies are introducing technology as substitute for actually delivering the service. The technology which is supposed to provide the solution effectively becomes the end point in itself, and is held up in a PR sense to how that progress is being made. In the meantime, nothing is effectively being accomplished, except for the apparent existence of a solution.
So, for example, the provision of an app to report a fault, absolves the responsibility for actually delivering a service. We have had rollouts to great fanfare and publicity of the ability to report things or to telephone call centres, only to find that after reporting, nothing gets done, or it is almost impossible to get through to the call centre.
This is probably seldom done deliberately, and the creation of the technology to facilitate contact is well meaning. However, the failure to deliver then is hidden by the fact that they have put a system in place to buffer them from the direct consequences. In some cases, the technology itself gets blamed, which means the service providers are taking an indirect hit on their services.
The implementation of technology is not a simple process. It needs to form part of a strategic intervention where the operational requirements associated with the new technology are thoroughly thought through even before implementation. Also in line with this, is that the possible side effects are thought through, and the implications of those side effects on the full system functioning.
In many cases, a great new technology puts so much strain on the rest of the system, that you start replacing a whole range of older equipment that was working perfectly well. However, the bottom line is thinking through what you want delivered from your system, and how you can measure this. This is not just a technology issue, it is a management, human factor and compliance issue.
Dr Craig Donald is a human factors specialist in security and CCTV. He is a director of Leaderware which provides instruments for the selection of CCTV operators, X-ray screeners and other security personnel in major operations around the world. He also runs CCTV Surveillance Skills and Body Language, and Advanced Surveillance Body Language courses for CCTV operators, supervisors and managers internationally, and consults on CCTV management. He can be contacted on +27 (0)11 787 7811 or [email protected]
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd. | All Rights Reserved.
printer friendly version