Marius successfully completed the Certificate and Diploma in Security Management and is now completing his bachelors degree in Risk and Security Management at Portsmouth University

Early in January 2020 we asked some of the participants to tell us, on camera, why they chose Silverback, how they were finding the courses, and more generally about their experience with them. Here’s what Ben (Certificate course) and Aaron (Diploma course) had to say.

Early in January 2020 we asked some of the participants to tell us, on camera, why they chose Silverback, how they were finding the courses, and more generally about their experience with them. Here’s what Chris (Certificate course) and Beth (Diploma course) had to say.

Early in January 2020 we asked some of the participants to tell us, on camera, why they chose Silverback, how they were finding the courses, and more generally about their experience with them. Here’s what Steve (Certificate course) and Harry (Diploma course) had to say.

Silverback is a small operation, especially compared to others in the field.  So, it has to be different.  Jokingly, we describe it as small but perfectly formed in seeking to set security-based knowledge against the wider setting of organisations, their management and leadership, along with personal  and professional development.

At Skylift, we recently had the pleasure of hosting the Silverback Security Academy at our field-testing site in Leicestershire.  During the demo, we displayed some of the capabilities our drones could provide at an event site for safety & security.

Introduction

If you laid all the platitudes about organisational culture end to end, I’m pretty sure that you could circle the globe a few times.  I’m thinking of;

Silverback certificate participants take part in a practical demonstration of a variety of IEDs, carry out a rapid search of facilities (op WIDEAWAKE) and learn about levels of LOCKDOWN.

Some years ago, I was running a workshop with a bunch of lecturers and I asked them to read a short article on motivation and discuss it in groups.  At this point one of the participants spoke up and said that she couldn’t do it – couldn’t read the article.

When did you last catch yourself thinking “I never knew that” or “That’s a useful skill to have developed”?  In short, when were you last consciously aware that you had learned something – some knowledge or skill?

We were very excited to welcome our new certificate group, as well as our Diploma participants, to the recent weekend workshop.  The certificate workshop was ‘Emergency, Risk and Crisis management’ and it focused on definitions, approaches and relevant models, exploring them practically through different active learning methods.

Since a small team of like-minded individuals formed the Silverback Security Academy in 2016 I’ve been looking carefully at the demand for workshop based programmes and I’ve listened to lots of people within the security industry tell me about their personal pathways towards professional development.

This article explains how to find your way in the complex world of the qualification system. It's been written to help readers find the right route to achieving the 'right' qualification.

There are many values that the Military taught me, but one, which I continue to think about, is continuing professional development (CPD). It is this experience that I have taken across into my civilian career always looking at how I can grow and challenge myself 

A kid called Bland once punched me on the nose.  I was 12 or 13.  I was at a bus stop.  I was chatting up a girl.  I don’t know what I said or did to upset him, but clearly, he felt that things had gone way beyond dialogue, so he launched off and caught me straight on the hooter, the beezer, the proboscis.

I mean, two heads are better than one, so the wisdom goes, so it must follow that more than two heads, three, four or more must be a good thing. It stands to reason, doesn’t it?

The one thing that I’ve noticed most about the way security teams are managed at some of the events I’ve worked, is the tendency to allocate each security operative a post and leave them there. Now this might be suitable for a short duration event, say three or four hours, but longer events could be managed better.

“T’ain’t what you do, (it’s the way that you do it.)”  Oliver & Young. 1939. Have you noticed that some people have all the certificates and strings of letters after their names like collections of badges, or campaign medals?  But the problem is, they can’t do their jobs very well.  

When I left school I didn’t have a clear idea of ​​what I wanted to do. I had previously completed a course in sociology and studied to be a kindergarten teacher. I soon found out that this was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Now here’s a thing. It’s widely recognised that experts – that is individuals highly skilled in a field of work - often do not know why they do what they do and are unable to describe why they take particular actions.

Have you heard of the Iowa Gambling Task? 

If you haven’t then check it out because maybe, just maybe, it begins to explain some of the background to intuition

As a result of the increasing rates of global terror, the automotive and security industries – like many other industries – are facing new challenges. Bombs stowed in cars, vans, trucks, buses and even planes, can kill and injure hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent civilians, shattering lives in mere seconds.

Assignments can involve some pretty complex situations which will require you to gather your thoughts and ideas. Having considered the outcomes and their significance in a given situation, you'll then need to put 'pen to paper', to demonstrate your understanding.

Experts are often not aware of the skills and strategies that they have developed and use.  They exercise them without thinking. 

Once tasked with our first main assignment we were advised to write out a mind map before progressing further.  This wasn’t something I was familiar with.

Patrick Smith offers two examples from security and medicine which suggest that we can.

Intuition In Action

Calling all aspiring security managers – please read TPSO Newsletter Edition 2. 

Phew! Just finished a weekend workshop to support our diploma module in Logistics & Infrastructure Issues. We were fortunate to kick off with a visit to the Houses of Parliament before delving into the module detail.

Whoops! There goes another one. Turn your back for just a second and a fad flashes by disappearing into the distance. Have I been left behind, yet again? Or perhaps like buses if I wait around another three will turn up at the same time.

Recently, I’ve been preparing a presentation on management fads as part of a workshop on Leadership Trends and inevitably, the topic of fads cropped up. They get to you. Fads do, they get under your skin, they irritate and demand attention - won’t let you go.