Protect Your Greatest Assets. The Risks, Protection and your Rights.

Latest security scares leaves us all in a bit worried about what is being shared and what is being hacked,  Sony Play Station resulted in the personal information of 77 million users being compromised at the same time Microsoft X box also had their worries too, although these stories seem to have died down there isn’t one part of me that think everything is OK using your cards on-line.

I don’t do online banking, why would I after my own security scare with Barclays only a few weeks ago, who gave me the best advice ever ” do not put your card details into a website if they don’t offer the chance to pay by Paypal”  Paypal would have checked them out and it gives you a little bit of security.

However, lets not forget that DWP also lost personal data of  25 million people  so its not just information we post on-line but companies inputting data for us.  I am not sure what the answer is as there are always going to be hackers, programs are on-line showing them “How to” so unless security tightens on-line websites and about what is shared on websites then we are always going to be at threat.

Your single biggest asset is your personal data, so why give it away so easily?

1. Refuse to give your personal information over the phone to anyone. ( Banks you will have to change your policy)

2. Refuse to give your information to any third party suppliers ( phone companies need to change their policy and stop selling OUR data)

3. Refuse to accept any call centre incoming calls who ask for personal information.

The plain truth is, banks, insurance companies, mobile phone, energy suppliers, government bodies are giving our data away and their systems is not hacker proof.

Given this and the importance of our data, here are eight quick security questions you should ask before you pass over your information to anyone.

1. Are you only storing the data for your business use?

2. Do you have an ultimate data owner for each system you support?

3. Do you have documented audit trails surrounding our data access?

4. Have you developed a data classification scheme?

5. Do you encrypt everything that leaves the secure data centre?

6. Have you recently undergone a security audit by an independent authority?

7. Do you back up our data often enough and are encrypted tapes or files stored at a remote location?

8. Have you kept your employees completely informed about policies and procedures they need to follow to protect your data

Now, firstly the call centre operative (reading from a script will not know the answer to most of these questions) but there’s a real story to think about here if they don’t know what or how your data is being looked after then they are not fulfilling their duties and following the code of practice so do not proceed with the call and change your supplier, only when we all do this will Banks, Building Societies, Energy Suppliers, Insurance Companies, Government Bodies and mobile phone companies change how they do business.

If you have any data scares name and shame them, perhaps we can then see how big this problem is.

Social CRM: Using the Social web to build and maintain customer relationships – Ian Hendry

Ian Hendry Ian has nearly 25 years experience in the software industry and uses it to great effect working with companies on use of technology to enter new markets and grow existing ones. 
CEO and founder of WeCanDo.BIZ, the online business network for sales leads and business referrals is his third start-up: his first company was ultimately acquired by a US-based e-business security software company during the Dot Com Boom days of 2000 in order to strengthen its European presence. He worked as European managing director for the company before leaving to found Entelegen, a sales consultancy, in which he still play a very active part alongside his most recent venture. 
Ian was the 51,208th user on LinkedIn (who have since tried to sue him!); is a Twitter and Facebook developer; and blogs and speaks on the Social Web in business, customer relationship management and business networking.

“Social media presents new ways to promote yourself and your business. Learn about: 

• Finding new customers on the Social Web and how the way we market online is changing
• Why your most important customer is no longer your biggest, but your most social
• How to cope when power transfers to the customer

Ian Hendry

How to harness the use of video, YouTube and webinar – Dave Griffin

It amazing that only 2 years ago I was producing videos for £10,000+ working for a digital marketing agency we were sold the benefits of a professional looking video for your website, however thisngs have moved on and not only do videos need to be shorter, they also have to have a personal feel to them nowadaya and Business Growth Co-Pilot, Dave Griffin – Co-author of ‘Wealth Accelerators’ & Mentor of The Business Wealth Club in Newbury – Has an unique mix of Business Strategy, Personal Growth, Practical takeaway ideas and infectious energy has inspired audiences all over and made him a sort after business growth consultant and speaker.

Dave is the mentor of The Business Wealth Club in Newbury; this innovative training and networking club is rapidly expanding with clubs set to open in Maidenhead and Northampton in the next few months as well as the flagship club in Oxford, which has been going for 7 years. 

David Griffin

Runs a Social Media Marketing and Business Mentoring company called Business Growth Co-Pilot. He is also the author of a book called “Navigating The Social Media Minefield” and also co-author of the book “Rev It Up!” which helps puts people in the fast lane of the wealth highway  Listen to David Griffin – Podcast  on how you can best use video in your marketing.

Blogging: The Core of your Social Media activity – Sarah Arrow

I struggle with this myself, finding something to write and finding the time and Sarah leads a team of over 100 bloggers worldwide on her multi author blogs, one of which made the top 100bwebsites for women (Forbes) when it was just 6 months old. The only UK entry. Martha Stewart invited her  to a party, Stephen Fry left a kiss on one of the multi author sites and Kriss Akabusi has just joined her team of bloggers. She hates bloggers that drop names but understands why they do.  And Sarah is going to share her secrets…

Blogging for just 4 years, going from prolific to pro blogger, publishing ebooks at the rate of one every 2 months means Sarah has the blogging know-how through experience rather than theory. As she puts it “If I hadn’t of learned to blog I would have to cold call and I wouldn’t want to be doing that that now would I?”

Sarah Arrow talks about how she went from a naïve blogger – helping the family courier business survive the recession and generate new customer enquiries (despite her first blog post informing people the courier van was white, had two doors and four wheels and was in Sheffield with some space available!) to professional blogger and earning a living from it in just 4 years. She shares some of the really valuable practical tips she has learnt that can make a blog even more successful. Sarah will cover many more in her session at the Bracknell event in June

 

Visit our site http://www.varietyevents.co.uk for more details

Follow The Leader – Ant Hodges

“I thought about following you… then I decided not to.” – What is there to think about?  Well quite a lot really! Ants topic on twitter really does give us all something to think about, I get lots of clicks from USA “tweeters” and politely say that I am @KeepingBIzLocal and there is no benefit to following me as all my events are local but then Ant got me thinking, should I really being turning away these followeres.

Well that is what Ant is going to be talking about and how you should be engaging with fellow Twitterers

His seminar at the next Social Media Conference on June 17th  will give you some different ideas about how to grow your own Twitter following and get the most out of building relationships and being social with others online. weather you have a twitter account or not Ant will show you “how to”

• A Twitter account

• A mobile device or laptop with connection to tweet

• An open mind

We will dig deep into best practice techniques and also some of the deep dark secrets from the underground of Twitter ‘gurus’ and internet marketers.

What you will get out of this session:

• A strategy for gaining more followers on Twitter

• A structure to managing your time in Twitter

• Knowledge on how to use Twitter ‘Properly’ for business

Ant has a strong background of leadership in the design and marketing industry, helping organisations harness the power of online marketing and combining them with more traditional marketing strategies. Ant leads teams and individuals through digital and new media planning and strategy implementation. Firstly though, he makes sure that the activity YOU think will work, is in line with your brand and values held by your target market. His specialism is relationship based marketing online – covering Social Media, Email Marketing and Website Design/Usability. Ant works for  in Swindon – an integrated online marketing agency. He is also a founder member of The Social Media Guys, a talented trio of experienced social media enthusiasts, all of who are speaking at this event. Graham Jones will be talking about LinkedIn and Nigel Morgan will be focused on Facebook.

Visit our site http://www.varietyevents.co.uk for more detials

Social Media what’s it is all about!

As I return to work after what seems a lifetime off and going through the mountain of emails!  I was pleased to see activity was still going on whilst we were out and about,  Adrian Moss had been busily doing some Podcasts whilst we were all enjoying the sunshine! so thought I’d share them all with you.

Following on from the successful Social Media Conference in Bracknell in February I spoke about what is being done for the next one in June. Check out our website for both Sales Conference and Social Media Conference.  I spoke with Adrian about the feedback from the previous attendees has been used to add extra value to the next conference via more in-depth practical ‘hands-on’ workshop sessions with additional speakers including one on what ‘apps’ to use to help people save time using social media, which Paul Allen is running. Listen to my Podcast here and  (Book here)

Sarah Arrow talks about how she went from a naïve blogger – helping the family courier business survive the recession and generate new customer enquiries (despite her first blog post informing people the courier van was white, had two doors and four wheels and was in Sheffield with some space available!) to professional blogger and is earning a living from it in just 4 years. She shares some of the really valuable practical tips she has learnt, that can make a blog even more successful.  Sarah will cover many more in her session at the Bracknell event in June Listen to Sarah’s Podcast

Dave Griffin runs a Social Media Marketing and Business Mentoring company called Business Growth Co-Pilot. He is also the author of a book called “Navigating The Social Media Minefield” and also co-author of the book “Rev It Up!” which helps puts people in the fast lane of the wealth highway. Listen to David Griffin Podcast

Graham Jones is a professional speaker, psychologist, consultant and author who specialises in the way people use the Internet. He uses that knowledge to help businesses make more money online by ensuring that what they do on the Internet truly connects with real people. He has written 26 business books and is an award winning writer. He has been running workshops and speaking on the conference circuit since he set up his own business in 1984.  Listen to Graham Jones Podcast

Finally Paul Allen is a social media consultant providing clients with a graduated level of service at different price points to suit all budgets.

Paul  will be MC of the event in June as well as leading a workshop session entitled “The 15 Killer Apps to Manage Your Social Media” In this podcast he talks about what attendees will learn.(Podcast recorded and made available by Paul Allen)

Well that was my thought after Basingstoke Expo…

Well that was my thought after Basingstoke Expo on Friday. After a great day and just closing I was handed a piece of paper written by one of the exhibitors, not only did this exhibitor, minutes before, tell me he made some great contacts during the day. But we gave him the table for FREE as a favour to a new client, Sam Owen’s from Hot Sands Design.

Steve Manning from Active Marketing had handed a pre typed piece of paper, with his business card attached, to every one of the exhibitors on Friday at the Apollo Basingstoke. Slating the benefits of exhibitions and results you get and that he could generate more for you.   I am not going to tell you my thoughts about him or what I said, you can imagine… But would you do business this way?

If he knew how much effort & time that was put into running these local events, then I think he would keep his opinion to himself and not kick a gift horse in the mouth.

We discussed his tactic later, and all said he must be pretty desperate to stoop so low and to be honest any person who uses tactics like this,  I wouldn’t touch or have anything to do with again.  What I will say is these local exhibitions bring business people together and majority of businesses I speak to have a great time and make contacts and win business.  If in doubt, read my linked-In and website…

I wouldn’t touch a business that would go around slating other organisations or competitors and I don’t think the majority of my customers would either; I would love to have your comments, if you read the letter.

 

Ten out of Ten, Fantastic! Social Media Conference

The Bracknell Social Media Conference Feb 18th 2011 was superb,  and that was just one of the many comments after last Friday’s Conference on Social Media.

Dave Griffin started off the proceeding and took us through the use of video and gave some great hints and tips on how best to use video – online and with U-tube with some great clips followed by one of the Social Media Directors Mark White who took us through some blogging tips and how blogging is now at the centre of what we do in social media, It feels I have come a long way using this advice in the last 3 months. Adrian Moss then took us over some podcasting tips and so much so that Nigel Morgan did a podcast on the event and Jim Anning spoke about Mobile Apps and so Nigel then was quick to use AudioBoo to record the summary of the day and you’ll be able to hear the clip live here:  Nigel Morgan – Audio Boo

Ian Hendry looked at the impact Social Media has on SEO and you can watch his video on his link, this was very good and it was felt that his session just wasn’t long enough.

We broke out to do some networking before the afternoon trio of workshops  where Social Media Trio Ant Hodges had the task of showing everyone how not to use Twitter whilst Nigel Morgan took us through how to lose friends on facebook and influence people, this I have to say was excellent as I spent all day Saturday uploading my fan pages.

Graham Jones Internet physiologist ran the workshop, learning to love linked-in and this was again an excellent session.

Before we closed the day with some Q & A Benjamin Ellis co – sounder of Social Optic he showed us all how to build our online community which as well received and definitely ended the day perfectly, which what I hadn’t released was in-fact  exactly what we had just done by creating the hash tag #SMCfeb2011.

We finished the day with Q & A hosted by Paul Allen and overall had great feedback, we I’ll be posting the videos and presentations  online to download at just £9.99 or please send an email and we will happily send you a DVD of all the presentations.

We are now planned a follow up Social Media Conference day on June 17th

Is Barclay’s Banking Mad

I’ve have been trying to find details about useful are banking call centres, after a disastrous morning in town with my bank  Barclays.  I lost my business bank card on Friday and Saturday morning went into town to report it.  It was a trip specifically, because, we no longer have a branch open on Saturdays in Tilehurst.

I went into the branch and was told to use the banks internal telephone, positioned right next to the queue of waiting customers, the phone was eventually answered and I was asked a series of  “ personal” questions, which considering the branch was quite busy,  I had to speak load and give my name, address, date of birth, mothers maiden name, transaction details, DD details, bank details and to be honest, everyone could hear and I am surprised no one has sat there taking down all the information.

I was then told sorry,  I had not passed security as I didn’t know how much was in my account, or the last DD details.

My response was not happy and I slammed the phone down, “idiots” is what I thought, and probably said it loudly… I then decided I had to complain, which I did and was seen by the manager who took my details and cancelled my card and got a replacement all within 5 minutes.

Off we go to finish the shopping and paid by my personal debit card and we were then told, the card had been declined!  Back to Barclays we go, (not to mention the embarrassment of having your declined in Primark!!) We went into the managers office and he called the call centre to find out the girl who I spoke to in the beginning did actually cancel my card, not at one stage did I say I wanted to cancel my personal account card.

It seems the girl had my details on screen for my personal account (not my business) and asked me to confirm DD and withdrawal from my personal account and I was trying to cancel my business card, which had been lost.

What I am really interested in, is it seems all call centre operations these day are basically a employing people following scripts and when it comes to customer service they fail to train them.  More and more I am getting fed up with discussing my personal information with all and sundry  and call centres call me and ask for my personal information, which I am now refusing to give!

Barclay’s are making Big Profits and this is not being put into training their staff in customer expectation, isn’t it about time some of these profits were put into improving the experience we receive as customers? Barclays are not the only company who needs to look at this, Three and Nationwide really need to improve things and I ask for businesses in mystery shopping to contact them or we will be calling for Mary Portas to help improve things for all of us as Banks don’t take complaints seriously they are accused of fobbing off millions of customers who have genuine grievances.

I question how useful are these call centres when actually it took 3 phone calls, 30 minutes and quite a bit of embarrassment to do something that could have been done in 5 minutes.

But then how are they used?

The Podcaster

I can remember thinking initially, what is a podcast and coming from a radio background I should know, yet when I actually had to think about it I really didn’t have a clue, so how do I create a podcast?

It’s not just audio podcasts as video podcasts are also very much helping build business, especially in the sales and marketing sectors. Through video podcasts, businesses large and small can advertise their wares and services in a modern, cost-effective way. In the past, only big businesses had access to expensive studios where sophisticated advertisements were produced, but now even the smallest businesses like ours, can create high-quality media with just a camera and editing software on the Internet. Even better large budgets are needed to buy space on TV and radio. The internet is free and gives business of any size a worldwide audience of 1.5 billion people.

you watch a video podcast in much the same way, you would listen to an audio podcast.

video podcasts – also called videocasts, vidcasts and vodcasts – combine the audio component of podcasting with visual media.

Adrian Moss better known as The Podcaster is definitely is the man I needed to help me understand and says, “creating a Podcast basically means recording an audio file, and placing the file in an RSS 2.0 feed in the enclosure tag in an item.”

Adrian Moss runs his own Digital Media Communications Agency specialising in audio/video and social media for internal and external communications. Over the last 4 years he has created and managed social media campaigns especially using audio and video podcasts and webinars to maximise outreach and engagement for clients.

Social Media strategies and campaigns include audio and video production in Podcasts and webinars these days to enhance your website or help with SEO it’s all about getting your message out there in the right place at the right time.

There are a number of software tools available to assist with recording and editing an audio file. There are also tools available to create an RSS 2.0 feed, give  feedforall or try TextAloud and  RecordForAll

However it isn’t just about recording a podcast and posting it online, it does have some very tricky issues in copyright and you might want to chat it through with an expert.

Adrian understands how to deliver the content, from concept to scriptwriting, recording and editing as well as post-production graphics, music, special effects and translation either by DVD or CD, online via web sites, through iTunes or YouTube, streamed live, or in webinars, the options are endless.

And it is not just delivery via computers connected to the internet. The rise of the smartphone has seen a rapid rise in the use of applications on them. A recent Report by PEW as part of their continuing series into Internet usage found that 43% of mobile phone users had ‘apps’ on their phone but only 2/3^rds used them.

These are just some of the areas that we will be covering at our Social Media Conference in Bracknell

Many people think you need an iPod to listen to a podcast. The blending of the word iPod and broadcasting has cased some confusion because an iPod is not needed to listen to podcasts. As Adrian says ‘A podcast is a brilliant communication and customer engagement tool. Unlike a broadcast which is at a fixed time a podcast is listened to ‘on-demand’ – whenever and wherever the listener wants. Unlike other forms of marketing its cost per listen/view REDUCES the more people listen over time as it has a fixed cost of production. We have clients who have podcasts that are still been listened to years after their production with a cost per listener now measured in pennies – and reducing! If produced well a podcast can have a very long life and be part of a series helping with customer engagement and education. This makes it a perfect medium to build a long relationship with customers and fit into CRM and User Group programs.

Adrian’s tips is don’t over complicate it and yes anyone can do it, he will explain the how to, at the upcoming conference but as long as you have or can Plug in a microphone into your computer and can install an audio recorder for Windows, Mac or Linux (free software for audio recorders includes Audacity, RecordForAll and  Easy Recorder V5.

You can create an audio file by making a recording (you can talk, sing or record music) and saving it to your computer. Finally, upload the audio file to one of the podcasting sites feedforall has a tutorial on how to upload a file

But if like me, your technical side went missing somewhere in your make-up and yes Mr  Paul Allen I do know my weaknesses!… then use an expert. We have gathered some of the best to join us in Bracknell at the Social Media Conference as well as some networking and a great way to meet businesses like yours who need to have a greater understanding of all aspects of social media