What Is The Average Age Of Surveillance Industry Professionals?

JH
John Honovich
•Mar 10, 2015
IPVM

Let's figure it out.

Vote in the poll below/inside:

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Ethan Ace
•Mar 10, 2015

I predict 45-54, and also a strong incidence of goatees.

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Ari Erenthal
•Mar 10, 2015
Chesapeake & Midlantic
In reply to Ethan Ace

Growing up, everyone at ISC East seemed to be Vietnam vets with big cop mustaches.

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Carl Lindgren
•Mar 10, 2015
In reply to Ari Erenthal

I was there but my wife made me shave the mustache. Never was a cop, though.

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Lynn Harold
•Mar 11, 2015
In reply to Ethan Ace

Right age range for me, but can't grow the goatee despite my Italian heritage.

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Jonathan Lawry
•Mar 10, 2015
Trecerdo, LLC

This poll only measures those who can drop $200 for an IPVM membership. The "skinny-jeans" set probably can't afford that as easily as us "older" folks. The fact that there are more Y's than Xers, before correcting for self-selecting paid IPVM-ers, is promising.

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JH
John Honovich
•Mar 10, 2015
IPVM
In reply to Jonathan Lawry

Hmm, fwiw, my hypothesis is (somewhat) the opposite.

'Older' people tend to dislike or discount IPVM much more than younger people. "What the hell is this blog?" or "Why would I read a website?" or "Who the hell is this guy?" I've never heard an industry person under 30 tout how they read print trade magazines but in the over 50 segment, they seem to wear it as a badge of honor.

That said, I agree with you that an offsetting factor is people who pay or value reading 'inside baseball' topics on IPVM tend to be older. Entry level field techs or inside sales people are assuredly disproportionately underrepresented in IPVM.

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Brian Rhodes
•Mar 10, 2015
IPVMU Certified
In reply to John Honovich

"What the hell is this blog?" or "Why would I read a website?" or "Who the hell is this guy?"

These are almost verbatim quotes from my grandmother when she asked me to explain my job.

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Carl Lindgren
•Mar 10, 2015
In reply to Brian Rhodes

I am not married to your grandmother, even though my wife has the same attitude.

(and I'm still unsure of the answer to "Who the hell is this guy?")

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Ari Erenthal
•Mar 10, 2015
Chesapeake & Midlantic
In reply to Jonathan Lawry

I bought a pair of skinny jeans, but my wife told me to take them back to the store.

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Jonathan Lawry
•Mar 10, 2015
Trecerdo, LLC
In reply to Ari Erenthal

ok...now we're all just trying to get "Funny" votes to shave a few cents off our IPVM membership.

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Ari Erenthal
•Mar 10, 2015
Chesapeake & Midlantic
In reply to Jonathan Lawry

Yup. How's it going so far?

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JH
John Honovich
•Mar 11, 2015
IPVM

Here's an article about median ages for Silicon Valley companies:

  • 28 at Facebook
  • 30 at Google
  • 29 at LinkedIn

By comparison, the list of various larger companies shows median ages commonly ~40.

So far, in this poll, the numbers are running early 40s which probably is fairly close to actual for the security industry.

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Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
•Mar 11, 2015

I think it might also be interesting to break this down according to possition w/in the industry. For example, I work at a manufacturer, and our oldest employee turned 40 a few days ago. I think it's likely that manufacturers skew more towards the younger side, while integrators and distributors scale more towards the 40ish range.

Btw, I do have a goatee, and it is wonderful.

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Brian Rhodes
•Mar 11, 2015
IPVMU Certified
In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #1

In my mind, certain manufacturers personify older age than others.

I'll let you guess which brands are characterized in my brain as old, frustrated, and grumpy compared to young, brash, and egotistical.

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JH
John Honovich
•Mar 12, 2015
IPVM
In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #1

A, with 91 votes so far, manufacturers are skewing younger than integrators. Let's see what happens when more people vote over the weekend as we promote this further, but I wouldn't be surprised if this stands.

That said, even with manufacturers, I suspect the larger (and 'older') the manufacturer, the older the average age is.

KL
Keefe Lovgren
•Mar 12, 2015
IPVMU Certified
In reply to John Honovich

With the age groups I would be intertested to see what the average amount of years spent in the industry has been per group. I would suspect that the older the group the more years they have been in the industry.

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Undisclosed
•Mar 16, 2015

Surprised the data is returning as young as it is. I'm AARP-eligible and I usually feel like the kid in the room at conferences (and many job sites.) Most of my customers are old enought I can tease them about that time they told the story about deploying maglocks in the Lincoln White House. If this biz is so full of punks how come we all still have stories of co-workers grumbling about this new-fangled IP thing that doesn't work well with crimp-on coax connectors.

JH
John Honovich
•Mar 16, 2015
IPVM
In reply to Undisclosed

The weighted average age from the survey (with 210+ votes) is 44.4, is that really young? :)

That said, I agree that a lot of people in 'power' or decision-making positions in the security industry tend to be 55 or even 60+

GC
Greg Cortina
•Mar 17, 2015
In reply to John Honovich
I must be a decision maker!
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