A few years ago The Discovery Channel aired a reality series called, "It Takes a Thief." The show was really cool because it brought security concepts and solutions into America's living rooms, and did so in an entertaining way. The premise had a former burglar breaking into and ransacking a house while the homeowner watched on TV monitors with the show's host. For participating, the homeowner would then receive a free security "makeover." SSI was so enamored with the program that I wrote a cover story on it and teamed with the stars of the show for a keynote at ISC East followed by a meet-and-greet and autograph-signing session for attendees at our exhibit booth. This enterprise really shook up the industry and drew notoriety.

I bring all this up because The Learning Channel, which is part of the Discovery network, is launching a new security-themed reality show this spring (pilot aired this past October) called, "Mall Cops: Mall of America." Although it is not as directly aimed at electronic security as "It Takes a Thief," Mall of America's (MOA) huge staff of security officers do rely on our industry's tools to help accomplish their mission of keeping the landmark shopping destination safe. MOA's recent conversion of 300 analog cameras into an IP-based solution landed it on SSI's February issue cover with my extensive case study featured inside.

More than 40 million people visit Minnesota's Mall of America each year.

The article includes a sidebar about the "Mall Cops" TV show, for which I interviewed its co-executive producer, Eric Streit. He shared with me additional details about the show's special location, what's involved in the production and MOA's impressive security force. So here is the rest of that exclusive interview along with several bonus photos.   

What inspired this show? Was it the success of the recent Kevin James movie where he plays a mall cop?

Eric Streit: I think, certainly, the success of the film may have played into the title of our series, but the series we’re making is a documentary series about the daily lives of the secured cops. Basically, what our show is that we’re looking at the Mall of America through the eyes of security officers. So, everything they do in their day-to-day life, we’re a part of. Whether it’s lifesaving medical emergencies, whether it’s lost children, shoplifting, disorderly conduct, what we’re doing here at Mall of America is just kind of a fly-on-the-wall observation of the security officers in a professional environment and just watching them do the work that they do. It’s really very fascinating. I don’t think people realize that the Mall of America has better training for their security force than most midsize city police forces. They have a K-9 unit. It’s amazing the training that goes on here. So many of the officers are veterans of the U.S. military, which I think will come as a surprise to a lot of people. There is a certain stereotype when you think security officers for the mall, and these guys don’t fit that at all. I think one of the great things this show is going to do is break that stereotype, turn it on its head and show these guys the professionals that they are.

MOA includes 520 storefronts and a 7-acre amusement park.

Was it always going to be that particular mall? How was that determined?

Streit: When you think of a mall, the first one I think popped into anyone’s mind was the Mall of America. It’s a symbol of malls everywhere; it’s a symbol of America. If you’re going to make a show about a mall, Mall of America is always going to be your first choice. We were fortunate enough to establish a great relationship here. I don’t think we ever considered anything but Mall of America because it’s the iconic mall, not just for the country, but the world.

So does the show focus any closer on certain members, or just whoever?

Streit: Basically, we have not asked the mall to change their operations in any way. We basically show up. We have four crews who are shooting, and whatever officers are on schedule are the officers we’re assigned to follow. Whatever calls those officers receive throughout the day are the calls we shoot for our series. So far, on any given day, we’re following four to eight different officers. So far, we’ve followed 35 officers on patrol during the eight weeks we’ve been here.

Beau Johnson is one of more than 140 officers that comprise MOA's security staff.

Were any of them reluctant to be on camera or on the show?

Streit: I think everyone has been very cooperative. There is always some trepidation, but once they had an understanding that we were not there to influence or interfere, there was a real openness and embracing of our crews. Our job as documentarians is to kind of fade into the woodwork and just capture them doing their work and not influence it. I think the production crews have established a great relationship with the officers. I think the officers have been very open and welcoming to us.

How many hours of footage do you have to go through to whittle it down to that half hour?

Streit: Well, it varies. For example, on the day that Sarah Palin came in for her book signing, we certainly got enough content to fill an episode. But other times, it depends on how busy the mall is. It depends on how many calls that security goes out on that day. Sometimes you can get enough footage in a day, sometimes it takes two weeks. There is nothing we can do as documentarians to force or make things happen. The nature of true documentary filmmaking, which is what we’re doing, is to just wait and see. Sometimes you luck out and get an episode in a day, and sometimes it’ll take two or three weeks until you get enough content to fill an episode. It can sometimes be very challenging when you’re waiting on things to happen. The great thing about being here at the mall is there is always something interesting going on.

MOA's security officers are highly trained and the force maintains its own K-9 unit.

How big is the crew on a show like this?

Streit: On a show like this, we’ve got four crews with three people on each crew. We’ve got 12 people on most days, plus myself as executive producer and my production manager. We have 14 to 15 people. We’re working six-day weeks, but we have seven-day coverage. Two crews take a day off when the other crews are working. It’s usually nine in the morning until the mall closes. On weekends, we’re here for a couple of hours after they close.

What has been the most unexpected aspects of working on this program?

Streit: So much more goes on here at Mall of America in regard to security than anyone would ever imagine. I was blown away when I got here. It was mind-boggling, the depth and training these guys have, the background they have. They wear bulletproof vests. It is unbelievable. I honestly had no idea until I got here and started walking around with them. I was amazed. It’s certainly not what we expected.

Read about MOA's upgraded video surveillance system in February's SSI.

As a reminder, the show will begin airing on a regular basis on The Learning Channel (TLC) this spring. Let me know what you think.

As always, thanks for reading ...

Scott Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

One of the ongoing issues with Samsung in the North American security space has been confusion between the Samsung Techwin and Samsung Electronics brands, which we’ve talked about before. Will GenNx360’s involvement and the new structure help provide some additional differentiation between the companies in the marketplace?

Steve Walin: You may not be aware that Samsung has announced the merger between those two businesses. There was an announcement done in Korea about two months ago, and I’m not sure that it made it here to any large U.S.-based announcement so you have the scoop! Effective Jan. 1, Samsung’s video surveillance business and Samsung Techwin’s CCTV business are coming together to form one Samsung security type business. Both companies are literally being merged together, so they are indeed organizations that are being combined and so on. So, where we see this eventually evolving to is that there will be one Samsung product line, and it won’t be called Electronics; it won’t be called Techwin. It’ll be called Samsung. And, we’ll play a major role in rolling that out for the Americas as we have for Samsung Electronics for the last 10 years. Those discussions are ongoing right now, and I think you’ll be hearing some news about how all that’s going to work and what it’s all going to look like in early January. We are really thrilled that this decision has been taken at the Samsung group level in Korea, and that these two businesses are going to be put together and end the confusion that has been taking place in the market for the last several years.

Lloyd Trotter: The good thing about it is I think they saw the same confusion and conflicts, and they took the action to begin to alleviate that. I think with that clarity it’s going to be, “Everybody, now let’s work on what’s important,” and that’s how do we grow faster?

GVI Security was honored for 10 years of service to Samsung Electronics at ISC West 2009. GVI CEO Steve Walin is pictured second from right.

Lloyd, given your background and vantage point, were you very surprised by GE selling off its whole security division?

Trotter: Surprised? No, because the rumor has been out there for quite awhile. I’m a little bit disappointed in that since I got them into the security arena and it’s a space that I still like. Unfortunately, our funds aren’t big enough, but we would have loved to do that transaction.

Did you think it would be UTC?

Trotter: Well, yeah. The normal suspect customers were hanging around. It’s a business that’s roughly $2 billion in sales and it had to be a large player to take it down. I think what I read in the press, they paid roughly a $1.8 billion for it. That’s a pretty big check to write in this environment.

Speaking of the environment, what are you each of you seeing, as we’re moving into 2010 here, for the business community from sort of the big perspective, and more specifically, the part of the industry that you’re focusing on?

Trotter: In general, I don’t think you’re going to see wild euphoric growth. There will be some segments that will fare better than others. Looking at the overall business environment, the good news is I think the worst is behind us, and that we will see some stabilization and some growth going into the future, but nothing that you can get too excited about. However, when I look at security, security didn’t see this collapse that a lot of industries saw during this downturn, and I think that bodes well going forward in the future as well. I think it’s been relatively more stable than some of the other segments that we have been watching.

Walin: From the GVI perspective, I break it down into a couple of areas. First of all, about a third or even a little bit more of our businesses are in Latin America, and I think we had a good year in Latin America. It did not suffer to the extent from the economy that the North American business did. We continue to see growth there, primarily in larger projects, city surveillance and some of the other infrastructure projects that we operate with down in Latin America. In the U.S., we’re starting to see a general uptick in activity and orders, particularly in the K-12 segment. It seems to have held through fairly well, and continues to be strong. But I would agree with Lloyd. I don’t think it’s going to be a fantastic year, but it should be better than this year we’re just finishing.

Are there any other opportunities that you’re kind of keying into? You mentioned K-12, obviously. Anything else out there in terms of market or technology that you think is going to be robust or a good growth area?

Walin: I think for a mid-mass market, it’s a small- to medium-sized business that has a couple handfuls cameras, or a series of those that are knitted together. We see good activity there and always have. This year [2009] was off, but the whole retail vertical, we’ve always operated very well there. Our products lend themselves nicely, and AutoIP is perfect for that whole retail space. Another area we’ve historically done well in is branch banking for some of the same reasons, although we don’t see that as strong as what we saw in retail, even this past year. So, we’re starting to see a lot of interest in AutoIP in convenience stores and smaller chains like pet stores and bookstores and things like that. It’s not only being used for things like safety and security, but some of these users are using the system for what we refer to as productivity solutions; you know, the ability to remotely look in and see what’s going on in their stores without having to visit. What do the lines at the register look like? How many people are in the store? Which direction do most people walk into the store? Do they go to one particular end cap display versus another? Of course, it’s all kind of manual in terms of looking at it. But if you’re a regional manager covering 35 or 40 stores and you want to see what’s going on, you can do it from any computer today. So, we see that as a driver in retail that’s helping to cost justify these systems.

Do you think the company will get into areas to any extent beyond or outside of surveillance?

Trotter: Clearly, there’s GVI and then there’s GenNx, and we’re exploring all of our options from a GenNx perspective of what else do we do in the security space. It isn’t just going to be one acquisition. I think whatever we do it’ll be complementary to a portfolio of companies. How it all knits together? I’m not sure at this point. But access control is also important, that’s for sure.

Steve, what about under the GVI umbrella? Is that a company that could roll out things other than surveillance or is that purely its focus?

Walin: Well, you know, I’m a big believer in focusing and I have a little saying around the office, “Let the singers sing and the dancers dance.” So, for right now, our plate is pretty full with the launch of AutoIP, which just happened in the last few days, and driving the business with the mid-market. We’re open to other areas, other applications and other technologies that make sense that can help customers. For the foreseeable future, we’ll drive GVI and the surveillance base around AutoIP and the IP cameras while we continue to provide the A1 technology to analog, and eventually that’ll move into the IP. And then we’ll see what happens. We just concluded our deal on Dec. 9 with GenNX, so we’ve had one opportunity to get together and plan strategy, but as the holidays get behind us, we’ll sit down and figure all that out in earnest.

The new A1 camera line provides motion detection, takes analog camera resolution to 600TV lines, and offers built-in analytics for intelligent video and XDR (extended dynamic range).

Maybe it’s a little too early in the game, but do you anticipate doing anything larger or different at ISC West to kind of really make a big impression?

Walin: I think you’ll see our normal good-sized presence. You’ll see a focus on AutoIP and IP cameras on A1. We’ll have our normal great spot and good presence. ISC West is our show and we invest significant resources, along with Samsung, for that venue.

Is there any other specific message you’d like to get out to the installing integrator and dealer market that I can provide the forum for?

Trotter: From a GenNX perspective, I think what we’ve found is a company that we liked, and we liked the products that they are selling and the approach. More importantly, we like the management team that we found there. We’re going to work hard at how do we support that team of people who we think are A players in running faster, growing faster with resources than they could have otherwise had as a public company. So that’s going to be our whole focus. How do we make this thing bigger and better faster?

Can you ballpark what kind of growth you would like to see in 2010?

Trotter: At the end of the day, I think we have an opportunity with some resources to more than double the size of this business over a three-year period of time. We just got to put the actions and resources behind it in order to get there. I think Steve and the team have some great ideas to how they would like to see that go forward. You know, we haven’t had a lot of time. We closed the deal on Dec. 9. We’re going to roll up our sleeves in the first quarter of next year and really begin to put some of those plans together. We’ve got great details, and we’ll figure out how to do them.

If you look at the industry, what kind of growth rate in video do you think is reasonable for 2010? Is it 6 percent, 8 percent, 10 percent?

Walin: My sense of it is analog will continue to run around flat or in low single digits. IP should be in the high teens. I’m not IMS or Frost & Sullivan, but that’s from all of the tribal knowledge you have around in talking to people and reading the reports. It’s kind of what we’re hearing.

That about does it. As always, thanks for reading ...