In The Great Conversation, we like to deep dive into specific industries. We find voices that are known to influence others and sit down with them. More often than not, we find a thread of interconnectedness between markets as they face the extraordinary opportunities and challenges of this unique moment in history.
In February of 2025, The Security Journal of the Americas, a digital security magazine, featured their annual Influencer Edition 2025. It is meant to be a compilation of industry thought leaders who can help us analyze current developments and illuminate the path ahead. The conversation spanned such topics as the role of security within an organization, leveraging AI within security, managing risk in a globally changing world, and, especially within the context of AI, securing the core and advancing the core with and through cyber and physical security.
One of the thought leaders the Security Journal featured was Tyler Schmoker. It was a good choice. Not only because of his extensive Army experience, but also because of his work with prominent global security service firms driving revenue growth and operational efficiencies.
He now runs Winsly, a unique combination of management consulting meeting the challenges of the private security industry and corporate security.
It is in this intersection we found nuggets that touch all of us.
With his mindset of “following the data”, Tyler begins at the beginning of the entangled new rules emerging that will dictate our future success.
The first one is birthrate. The second is the education/socialization of those who have been born over the last 50 years. The third is access to skilled labor. The fourth one is the business model (for any organization). And the fifth is the market ecosystem and how each company (with their business model) competes.
The sixth is the ultimate constant, change. It is always occurring. But the pace is extraordinary.
Given these root factors, what are we seeing today and how do we prepare tomorrow?
If the birthrate has changed dramatically over two generations, then you would find key shortages in the market. Those shortages could impact labor costs.
If those birthed are not appropriately “skilled’ to take those jobs by our education and socialization process, then you might have an impact on access and optimization. This, throughout history, has led to innovation through technology (automation).
If your business model is not appropriately addressing the changes in the mindset and skills of these generations, then you also may be missing the generational technology shifts that they should be walking into.
And then you have markets. And there you have innovation and change. And disruption. Positive disruption of the innovators. Painful and, many times life ending, to the laggards.
In business and in the military, you first feel the pain on the battlefield. If you can’t compete, people lose their lives…or their jobs. Innovation often comes out of this existential moment. And we have entered that moment. Automation will occur. Business will adapt. People will be a key to that adaptation. They always have been. Now more than ever we need leaders who can see the road ahead and help their “soldiers” adapt.
And while we are talking, I can’t help but feel, we need to provide an AI Path to Value™: personally, professionally, and, most importantly, to the organization and its leaders. This is not going to be successful through tactical tool implementation. It will require a strategic compass. A blend of strategy, operational modeling, and the wise pursuit and nurturing of people who can activate it.
“I need an AI Path to Value”
This Great Conversation is a roller coaster of ideas and data sets that will stimulate your own conversations. Enjoy!