Frances Hesselbein, an American businesswoman and who wrote numerous books about leadership and organizational culture over three decades beginning in the mid-1980s, offered this insight while serving as the CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA: "Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed—the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day."
Change is transformation and vice versa. When it comes to business operations, organizational transformation involves making fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with shifts in the market environment. However, this is a narrow definition that overlooks other reasons and ignores other rationales. When it comes to my industry – the business-to-business media industry -- B2B digital transformation is, first and foremost, a fundamental change in the way companies do business with one another. It is about how they buy and sell from one another, how they partner and collaborate, and how they reach their end users, which are our readers and audiences.
Over my 35-plus years in the security media industry, I’ve observed change that has been slow and sloppy. Media companies, for the most part, resembled Leonardo DiCaprio clinging to one of Titanic’s heavy wooden doors as he bobbed in the Arctic Ocean’s frigid waters as the ship sunk. Print defined us as an industry until it didn’t. As digital technologies rapidly advanced, print media was threatened, and when the internet launched an entirely new approach to reaching an audience, transformation exploded.Don’t misinterpret my musings on today’s publishing realities as a lack of respect for everything print. I grew up and worked at two major daily newspapers back in the day of fancy electric typewriters occupying vast newsrooms. Thunderous, massive printing presses on-site that ran non-stop printing multiple editions. When I moved to B2B publishing, it was to launch a new security technology tabloid in the mid-80s (Access Control) and several years later, my second launch – Security Technology Executive magazine (Security Technology & Design, later renamed). Print is my baby.
However, with market conditions as they are and our audience’s changing appetite for content consumption, digital is now my daddy. In the magazine world, we are going through the same transformation driving most organizations. That digital revolution has dramatically changed the business case for printing hard copies of our magazine. It has been a natural progression; adopting digital tools and channels to share the valuable information that Security Technology Executive readers expect.
Our editorial team thanks you for subscribing to Security Technology Executive magazine. Our team of editors and designers work hard to provide the information critical to equip you with the business arguments needed to purchase and implement security technology and services, and how to manage and mitigate risk. Each issue provides perspective through end-user case studies, consultant-contributed features and columns, expert roundtables, and technology implementation articles written by our collection of industry professionals.
And we will be able to do even more as we migrate STE from print to digital format. With embedded video interviews, podcasts, webinar recaps and enhanced interactive graphics, our staff is excited about the future of the industry’s top end-user media platform. The content that STE editors collect will still be available on our website, either in the main area or in the member-only portion where a (free) membership gives readers access to even more information.
Effective with this February/March 2023 issue, you will receive the digital version of Security Technology Executive rather than the print version. Our message will be mobile, it will be interactive and compelling, it will be comprehensive, and it will remain your most relevant read in the security industry.
Since I began my column with a message, I’ll end with one here. Nick Candito, a serial entrepreneur in today’s business landscape says: "Companies that change may survive, but companies that transform thrive. Change brings incremental or small-scale adaptations, while transformation brings great improvements that ripple through the future of an organization."
STE plans to thrive not just survive, We invite our readers and advertisers to join us for the ride.
