Selling technology to cops: 3 ways to make them interested

Nick Selby and Dave Henderson want you to know that cops DO NOT hate technology. You just have to know how to sell them on it.

By Nick Selby and Dave Henderson

April 01, 2011 — CSO —

In practical terms, making a professional transition from the world of information security and information technology to law enforcement is a lot easier than it might seem at first blush. On the one hand, I'm constantly astounded by how badly technology is leveraged by the cops. Cops are pretty slow to adopt technologies unless they absolutely have to, and even slower to adapt to them culturally.

On the other hand, I never -- in all the time I was in IT, in more than 1,000 interviews with vendors, no matter how much they wanted to -- I never had a technology executive hit me with a TASER.

I've been spending a lot of time with cops this past year -- in fact, I became sworn in as a cop myself. I work part-time. And I am constantly amazed at the similarities between the two worlds. When I'm on patrol, I see cops suiting up to take on a range of stuff from run-of-the-mill traffic stops to honest-to-goodness bad guys. When I was working with banks and businesses, I'd see infosec people firing up their keyboards to take on a range of threats that ranged from pedestrian annoyances to break-the-bank intellectual property thefts.

The similarities in personality are striking, too. And what's more, the similarities in attitude towards technology are breathtaking. Come to think of it, the manufacturing firms and banks and utilities weren't in all that great a hurry to adopt new technologies either, unless they absolutely had to.

But because they're slow to adapt, many people think that cops hate technology.

That is a red-herring.

Cops do not hate technology. Cops hate technology that makes their job harder. And cops hate technology that looks to solve problems we didn't know we had, as opposed to processes which drive us crazy.

And so do IT people.

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The national local law enforcement market
There are more than 17,000 local and county and state law enforcement agencies in the US, more than half of which have 10 or fewer officers. They, and our communities, desperately need vendors to offer innovative solutions to life-and-death problems. And despite the bitching and moaning -- which they do because they're by necessity frugal with taxpayer money -- when they need it, when it's compelling, they can get the money. It might take a while. But they can get it. If you learn their needs, and can be creative with how you sell it, you can do very well.

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