Nashville’s NAID 2018 Top 6 Takeaways

Posted in Blog

Glenn Laga

Guardian Data Destruction just returned from NAID 2018 in Nashville – truly, the most compelling, successful, and well run NAID Conference ever. We congratulate NAID CEO Bob Johnson and the entire NAID staff for putting together a compelling program of education, networking, business best practices and an eagle eye on the future of asset disposition. It was a busy conference but we wanted to share our top 6 takeaways from NAID 2018 conversations and sessions:

1. Glenn Laga, Guardian Data Destruction Co-Founder and President, was reelected to the NAID Board of Directors for another 3-year term. Glenn’s focus will continue to be on the future of electronic asset disposition in the US and internationally as well as the widespread adoption of onsite electronic data destruction.
2. NAID 2018 provided multiple types of networking with industry associates in a supportive, non-competitive environment to encourage companies to successfully grow their information and asset disposition businesses with integrity. As personal and business data continues to migrate to the cloud, server systems and new form factors, the need for agile businesses that understand the changing technology applications is only growing.
3. The two and half days of educational sessions were enlightening, educational, eye opening and designed for businesses at every stage and size. NAID 2018 keynote speaker Jon Taffer, of SPIKE TV’s Bar Rescue, was phenomenal. His success philosophy for any business is to stay focused on customer reactions. Fundamentally, he believes that everything business owners do in the way of process and sales to grow revenue is to create a desired reaction from the customer. For Guardian, this means finding added ways to wow our VARS, ITADs and end users with the best in service excellence while continuing to provide security, accountability, reassurance, and safety in asset disposition and related services.
4. NAID announced the merger with PRISM International.  The merged umbrella entity, i-SIGMA (International Secure Information Governance & Management Association), will form over the summer with NAID and PRISM International remaining as the main outward-facing brands. With a focus on commercial information management services, the NAID-PRISM merger will provide NAID AAA certified electronic data destruction services (shredding) to clients who are still using tape storage.
5. The annual NAID Conference draws in data destruction professionals from the United States and internationally. For Guardian, it’s an opportunity to solidify our existing international partnerships as well as form new relationships to expand our global footprint. This year, we were pleased to formalize our Japanese partnership so that we can offer the highest quality of e-data destruction services to our clients who have electronic data destruction needs in Japan.
6. Guardian was thrilled to raise $3000 for Wounded Warrior Project with the first ever auction of “Computer Art” created from discarded computer components. Guardian matched each winning auction 100% to double our total donation to this very worthy cause. Based on the enthusiastic response of NAID 2018 attendees, we will absolutely create and auction off artwork for future conferences and meetings to benefit a charitable cause. Special thanks to our auction winners!

“Large Hard Drive Display” Susan Gelfand, Archive Management Warehouse

“City of Heat Sinks” Robert Haskins, Gigabyter

“Small Hard Drive Display” Rick Jackson, American Document Services

“Robot” Karen Fedder, Blanco