Answering the tough questions in an interview is a great opportunity to get at the facts. When talking with people about my product, there is often very little time to cover any concerns. Sometimes, people will ask the tough questions, but as often as not, they are too polite to ask. Michael Libbie cuts to the chase.

An interview with Michael Libbie

Michael Libbie of Insight on Business—The News Hour invited me to do a long-form interview (20 minutes), entitled “Making Property Theft Obsolete with Jon Shelness.” Michael’s program is listened to on the 50,000 watt flamethrower of KXEL and is shared around the world via livestream and podcasts. He is very polite and professional, but also gets right to the nut of a topic.

Key Points for Listeners

1:42 A bit about my history in criminal justice and my initial interest in the neighborhood association model of crime prevention.

2:50 The difference between crime prevention (partnerships between police and citizens), crime fighting (police only) and crime deterrence (citizens only).

3:30 Everyone has heard of 911 Emergency and Neighborhood Watch, but there is a third strategy called Operation Identification which MyPropertyID has modernized

4:15 How Operation ID originally worked in the 1960s

5:55 The police need serial numbers, but nobody keeps a record. Closing that gap is what crime prevention is all about. MyPropertyID is the state of the art.

6:40 With the help of Good Samaritans and the authorities, recovered or lost property found anywhere can be returned to the rightful own because of the global connectivity of the MyPropertyID system.

8:00 What if the tag is just removed? Answer me this. If the license plate is removed from your car, can the police get it back to you? Yes! Because the VIN, owner and license plate are stored on a central database.

9:00 MyPropertyID has taken the backend database the police use to trace license plates, migrated to the web and made it privacy protected.

9:40 The MyPropertyID tag numbers are preloaded into the database and tied to the email and address of the rightful owner. Now citizens must enter the make, model and serial number as a DIY

10:30 Three simple ways to enter serial numbers

16:20 Large institutions like universities and corporations have an employee mark property with the institution’s name and a unique number that is recorded on a database along with the serial numbers.

17:25 University property is rarely ripped off because of this strategy, but dorms and residences around campus are.

17:55 I have taken the strategies used by licensing bureaus and large institutions and created a miniatured version for individuals, homeowners, mom & pop businesses and tiny municipalities.