LITCAM March 2010
When:
Thursday 11th March
6pm onwards
>
Where:
West London
Featuring:
SOME Project
of the 7C Alliance
and
Art on “Life”
by Ron Best
with
Complimentary Wine
Selected By Members
CV Writing and Marketing / How Agencies Work
February 26th, 2010A seminar on How Agencies Work as well as a workshop on CV Writing Tips and Techniques will be held on Thursday March 18th at the Institute of Directors, 116 Pall Mall, London. See below for more details, or to register interest in attending and reserve a place, then email register@7c-alliance.com
Background
Mark Compton, from Fisher King Associates, was engaged as an Alliance Partner by the 7C Alliance last year to provide advice and assistance to those 7C Alliance members who are independent contractors, aka freelancers, on good recruitment practice both by and in using recruitment agencies. This draws on his background of 20+ years in IT and technical recruitment as well as reputation for high integrity and value as a recruiter.
Mark’s and other Alliance Partners’ engagement, and introduction of Trusted Recruitment Agencies to members of the 7C Alliance’s Open Practice Technology Network, are all part of an “open practice” approach that the 7C Alliance initiated in 2009 to enable greater awareness and understanding of how the recruitment marketplace operates from the contractor’s perspective. This includes professional support and advice for the wider local UK community of independent IT and Telecom (ICT) contractors on how to engage and best manage the supply chain for their services end-to-end, using the 7C Alliance concept of there being “7 C’s to consider for survival and success on contract“.
As part of this initiative, Mark and the 7C Alliance started doing live events and trialed two presentations in West London last year that are now to be presented again on March 18th, 2010, but this time in Central London.
Overview of CV WorkShop
This will be a panel-based workshop on CV Writing and Marketing Tips. It will include techniques for both writing your CV for agencies to pick up on in the current market but also for following up and getting agencies to read and submit it.
Mark will give us his advice on what agencies expect and how they use your CV, if it is accepted.
Matt Miller, Director and Founder of the 7C Alliance, will share 7C Alliance Members’ understanding based on experience gained from his coaching as well as 7C Alliance Limited’s independent research into the UK contract recruitment market over 5 years. This reprises the highly successful workshop that we trialed in September last year as shown on 7C Alliance’s blog at the following link: http://bit.ly/8RDo5v
This workshop will be from 2.30 to 4 pm.
Seminar: How Agencies Work
This seminar will reprise the presentation that Mark gave to members of the London IT Contractor Alliance Meetup (LITCAM) group at a meetup at the London Chamber of Commerce in July last year.
This seminar will be from 4.30 – 5.30pm and include advising how contractors can leverage understanding of how agencies work in sourcing and applying for contract work through them.
Mark will also give advance notice at that workshop of what contracting management structures contractors are best to use in line with new legislation on the Agency Worker Directive (AWD), aka Temporary Worker’s Directive, which is now due to be introduced following the UK Elections and most likely in 2011.
Registration and Fees
Unlike the trials of this workshop and seminar last year, there will be a fee for each of £55 to members of the general public – or £100 to attend both.
A discounted offer of £45 each per seminar / workshop is available for members of the OPTN group or LITCAM list.
Please note that spaces ARE limited on both of these – and we will hold more if they prove as popular as they were last year.
Other Workshops
On the same day there will also be two workshops on Interview Techniques held by Lindsay Maclean from ielevate.
These will be held earlier in the day and be 1 hour each, with one at 11am (Workshop A) and the other at 12.30pm (Workshop B). They are the same workshop but just geared to allow for the fact that some contractors may want to attend in their lunch-hour – and as much get a few tips on what they can do to improve their presentation as much as their interview techniques from Lindsay in the 12.30pm time-slot.
A separate blog post on this will feature shortly.
2010: A Year for SUN, Clouds and The Weather?
December 19th, 2009Having just read Bob Evans’ latest article in Information Week about Larry Ellison’s comments on Oracle’s acquisition of SUN Microsystems – and what that means for the future – I thought I would share some predictions that a few good friends, colleagues and I have thought are likely to be “in store” for us in 2010 when it comes to technology and what business is going to be doing with it (or perhaps needs to think about doing ??).
Trends:
- • “Business Out Of The Box” – full industry business process flow models packaged and ported
- • Better quality credit, debt and risk management solutions that are integrated with business operations and not just geared to compliance
- • Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), especially anything CRM-related, brought back inhouse and more fully automated (thanks to social media!)
- • Cloud Computing hotting up (thanks to Oracle buying SUN)
- • Getting into the Cores of Computers - as a lot of software is still written to run in a single thread and so unable to fully exploit multiple cores. [ Thank you to fellow 7C Alliance member, Bruno Girin, for sharing this ]
- • Green Energy getting some traction through Green Transport solutions
- • IT outsourcing nearshore (i.e. offshore – but EU only), rather than farshore, due to a mix of data protection as well as carbon footprint considerations
- • Data relocation due to data protection laws being enforced
- • London gearing up for The Olympics – but also better transport in general, such as Crossrail
- • Mergers and Acquisitions in the Banking and Financial Services industry continuing – and Santander especially one to watch
- • Mobile Applications more intelligent and prominent due to smartphone technology maturing. Indeed, will adoption and use of the smartphone reduce the cash we carry in our wallet and replace the credit card altogether? Click – or slide – on the link to the left for an expert’s view on this!!
- • The “One bill only” concept emerge through businesses such as Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer’s, Tesco’s battle out extending the “one stop shop” supermarket concept to every aspect of household consumer life. Especially watch Sainsbury’s Bank, Energy, Telecom, etc – and these seeking to go one step further than Marks and Spencer’s Finance, Tesco Talk, etc
- • Recruitment practices reviewed and reengineered in large corporates such as BT, BP and anything else beginning with “B” for British - and also “C” for Computer too…
- • Smartphones, such as the iPhone, Nokia Maemo, Google Android, RIM Blackberry and Palm WebOS becoming commonplace – but the battle being for corporate features, such as email, and consumer features, such as instant messaging with smart handsets
[ Acknowledgement: Thank you to fellow 7C Alliance member, Bruno Girin , for correcting me on whose phone is whose from original post on this, and for sharing his interested observer's view on where the war is being waged ] - • Social Media beginning to be used for managing the remote workforce and replacing use of the workplace for meetings and knowledge-sharing – and so perhaps the emergence of the first “truly virtual office“?
New Skill Requirements to enable all of this:
- • CRM, ERP and SCM solutions integration: following rise and rise of Oracle, after its take-over of SUN
- • Reengineering businesses for effective use of social media – especially in recruitment! Business process mapping, how to manage SEO and “tag cloud” searches on discussion threads, blogs and web-sites that enable greater sentence-like context-based search capability.
- • Knowledge and Document Management tied in with Social Media Management – and so boom in use of Sharepoint, PCDOCS, Open Text’s Livelink, Oracle Mix etc
- • Mobile applications development: Java, Linux, Apple
- • New HR Supply Chain solutions geared for intelligent context-based searches rather than keywords: Oracle HCM
- • Data Centres that are moved to sustainable locations – and so migration design, application server management and migration, etc required
- • IT integrated with renewable energy, and generally more energy-efficient and sustainable – and so skills in virtualisation, power-saving air-conditioning systems, etc
- • Applications integration and migration as well as virtualisation – all becoming paramount as part of the move to the cloud environment as well as “Green IT“
- • Database redistribution and disaggregation as well as data migration - due to dangers found with where data is located in public clouds and so move to prove clouds or even back to good old distributed database solutions!
- • Data Centre relocation project management and server migration
- • Remote project and service management practices, such as PM Online, to complement remote technical support such as PC Anywhere, remote PC, etc. Watch what BMC , IBM, Numara and other leading ITSM Framework solutions and service desk support providers do – and get ITIL certified!!
- • Social Media management practices evolving and integrated into both the workplace and daily lives of everyone – including use of the Smartphone and Smartphone applications
To discuss this list, and add your own predictions to it, then please join me in 7C Alliance’s Open Practice Technology Network - which is run and managed as a discussion group on LinkedIn
P.S. What do we call the name of this new decade we are entering? As it will be no more “the noughties” from now on!!
About Matt MillerMatt is a Business Member and Founder of the 7C Alliance. His capability is in the following areas:
For a full profile of Matt’s capability and request his advice or services to assist, please send an email to contact@7c-alliance.com or call 7C Alliance Limited on 0844 844 2470 to arrange a time and place to meet and talk with Matt. |
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| 7C Alliance Limited is a business registered in the UK, reg: 05127352 and is proud to manage the administration and support of the 7C Alliance. See http://www.7c-alliance.com for more details about 7C Alliance Limited |
Contractor Health Check Calls – A new initiative from the 7C Alliance
December 8th, 2009Interested in knowing more about what 7C Alliance members think of the regular 7C Alliance events, the value they have got out of them as well as their observations of the current contracting market?
Well, the 7C Alliance Contractor Support Analyst team asked these very questions while doing the first trial of the new contractor health check call initiative.
The intention of these calls is to determine:
a) What 7C Alliance can do to help the group, as a whole, to increase its opportunity
b) What can be done to help an individual member specifically with increasing their opportunity, according to the needs and goals that they advise on becoming a member (which is based on the 7 C’s)
c) What the individual member can do to help themselves
For the first and only time, we have decided to publicise the responses we have received in the 7C Alliance discussion group and are interested in feedback from other members on this initiative as well as the Open Practice Technology Network at large.
If you are interested in reading the results of the first round of Contractor Health Check Calls, please join the 7C Alliance LinkedIn discussion group by clicking on the link to the left or by cutting and pasting the following into your Web browser: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1542397
Once you have joined the group, you will be able to read and participate in the discussion by following this link: http://bit.ly/70U9oh. We look forward to your contribution to the ongoing discussion!
Written by Stuart Brown, an Associate Member of the 7C Alliance.
Meetup in The Midlands
November 26th, 2009To better understand the needs and status for IT and Telecoms contract work in The Midlands area, 7C Alliance is getting a few IT and Telecoms contractors, small consulting businesses, contractor recruiters and (hopefully) a few end-client contacts from those attending the Oracle User Group (OUG) Conference, together in Birmingham on Tuesday, 1 December.
We will be meeting up at The Old Fox Theatre Bar, 54 – 56 Hurst Street from 6.30 pm onwards. Read on for a few more details about some of those confirmed as attending as well as for more details about The Old Fox and registration of interest to attend.
Special Interest Guests
Jane Fisher, who runs Organise Limited – a Mobile Phone Application consulting business – will be attending along with co-founder and Technical Director, Mark Slight.
Jane knows a lot about both IT and Telecom contracting in The Midlands area from having been both a business analyst and project manager there for many years. She recently wrote a poignant and heart-felt blog about the impending closure of Ericsson, a once very profitable Telecommunications business based in Coventry, and is interested to meet others to talk about how we might be able to revitalise businesses that were once iconic like GEC, or otherwise bring more business to The Midlands area.
Mark has worked for a number of telecoms companies since leaving university. He was involved in the company that put the first Smartphone OS on a mobile phone back in 1997. He has written software for all of the Smartphone platforms and has developed for other handheld devices as well. He has led software teams designing VOIP, IM and MMS and worked as a consultant. He is a hands-on mobile software expert that likes to embrace new technologies.
Organise Limited is a new venture that Jane and Mark have started up this year in response to interest in what can be done using the new generation of smart phones – and is a sign of the initiative being taken by a new generation of entrepreneurs emerging in response to the downturn in the traditional market for contract work.
7C Alliance Members Attending
The following people will be attending from the 7C Alliance and 7C Alliance Limited:
Stuart Brown, the author of the very well-received 7C Alliance blog on “How to stay positive while looking for a job” and an Associate Member of the 7C Alliance. Stuart provides services to the 7C Alliance on a voluntary basis for facilitating sharing of knowledge about Social Media, including raising awareness of its value, as well as currently being on a part-time contract to 7C Alliance Limited where he is working as a CRM Business Analyst reviewing and refining the Contractor Support Analysis and Contractor Resource Administration functions.
Matt Miller , Founder of the 7C Alliance – and Managing Director of 7C Alliance Limited, the business responsible for coaching and marketing top quality IT contractors, as well as facilitating or assuring other support services available to them. Matt himself is a contract Business Systems Consultant and Project Manager with a focus on effective delivery and support of Enterprise Applications to support Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) business processes. He also has product-specific knowledge of Oracle Server technologies and Oracle E-business Applications – and so will be attending the Oracle User Group Conference in Birmingham from 30 November through to 2 December.
Registration of Interest to Attend
Please email contact@7c-alliance.com if interested and able to make it along, along with name, contact details and interest in Oracle, IT and Telecoms contract work.
More About The Old Fox
Click on the following link for more details about the pub: The Old Fox.
Further Discussion on IT and Telecoms Contracting in The Midlands
For further discussion on the status of IT and Telecoms Contracting in The Midlands, as well as meet and chat with Jane and other 7C Alliance members online, please join the 7C Alliance’s newly rebranded Open Practice Technology Network , which is operated and managed online using a LinkedIn discussion group
Talk the Walk To Win Work – and Make A Few Friends Too!!
November 20th, 2009Last Thursday, 12th November 2009, 7C Alliance was proud to have Diana Lowe, a professional networker, give a talk on “The Art of Networking” at the LITCAM Monthly meetup.
Diana started well with her intro that engaged the group on how helpful it is to know what makes us notable and known when networking. The example of David Beckham – and his ability to “bend it” on the playing field – helped identify those interested in football by contrast with those who know him better for being able to “strut it” on the red carpet with Posh Spice or on the catwalk. So, when networking, we should also be aware of what others are likely to know and be interested in, as well as what makes us good or interesting to talk to.
Diana also gave a few tips to help get the group started in networking on the Vinopolis wine tour that followed the talk.
These tips were as follows:
1. Have a Goal
2. Prepare a 30 second advert
3. Ask Open Questions
Sound simple? Maybe, but how many times have you been to a networking event and not known where to start, who to talk to or what to say? If so, these tips are for you – and here’s a little more on each to help you do what you have to do
Have a Goal
This amounts to:
Prepare a 30 second advert
In IT and other areas of technology, it can be challenging enough to help explain what you do – let alone make it interesting in explaining your edge in it.
To help you, you need to perhaps discuss it with others to get the idea – such as using a great discussion similar to one recently on LinkedIn about how to explain “Enterprise Architecture”, simply, to The Board in less than 160 characters. You may have heard of such things referred to before as an “elevator pitch”
Once you have a simple catchy definition of the area you work in – and one you think that the listener may need to know and be interested in – then you need to practice it.
This combination will:
Ask Open Questions
This makes the person you are talking to “open up” – and allows you to find out more about them and their relevance to you, as well as make the conversation flow and them more interested in you
Open questions start with: Who, What, Why
So what’s the value of these tips?
Diana referred to recent blogs on other IT industry professional sites where support has recently been given for IT contractors to be able to “talk the walk”. This is never truer than when having to meet someone in a social setting, and especially when you only have a short space of time in which to introduce yourself and get them interested in what you do. So Diana’s tips help with that.
But How Do I Get To Know Who I Need To Meet?
It also helps to have some support from the hosts of the event in providing some means to help you know who you need to know.
7C Alliance Limited has developed a structured approach to networking, using a mix of its guest profile list and networking coordinators, that helps guests identify who is relevant to them based around common skills and knowledge elements in technology, or other areas of known interest. This helps make it easier to meet and get to know who you need to know readily.
What’s more, where they are happy to share them, the guest profile list even includes a few things about what the person likes to do socially as a way of having something more than just “shop talk” to talk about with them…
The rest, beyond identifying who you need to get to know, is certainly helped by the tips that Diana shared.
Further Events on Networking
Diana, Stuart and Matt look forward to hearing from people interested in coming along to a workshop in the New Year where you can learn a few more tips from Diana and practice the art with others in ways that will help you to achieve what you need and want to do. Such as using it to get yourself a new contract job – but also to have some fun in doing that too (like we did in the course of the Wine Tour last Thursday).
Thank you once again to all those who came along – and especially those who came along from St Paul’s Speakers, a Division of Toastmaster’s International, to support Diana.
Written on behalf of the London IT Contractor Alliance Meetup (LITCAM) Group and the 7C Alliance by Matt Miller, Director, 7C Alliance Limited
National Freelancer’s Day – November 23rd
November 19th, 2009
Did you know that there was a day set aside for us? It has been initiated by the Professional Contractor’s Group and is intended to get recognition of the contribution that freelancers make to the economy. Check out more details on the National Freelancer’s Day web-site
How to stay positive while looking for a job
November 13th, 2009A colleague of mine was recently wondering how to stay positive when they had been looking for work for awhile, especially considering the current economic climate. They also wondered about the best way to secure that elusive offer.
Hmmm, these are tough questions, but speaking from my personal experience as a ‘professional job hunter’ (and getting better with every attempt!); there are a number of things that I have found can help to keep you going.
For me, these have been:
- • Knowing that there are many opportunities out there and it will take a number of attempts to get the right role. The UK employment market has been improving over the last three months, and while it may not be at the heyday of a couple of years back, it is better than the first six months of 2009. Each interview attempt will better prepare you for your next go.
- • After an interview, always seek feedback. If you get the call that you haven’t been successful, remember to ask the recruiter why – you deserve it! Don’t take anything personally – remember, there are multiple candidates and only one person can get the role. If the recruiter doesn’t have any feedback from the client, ask them nicely to follow up with the client. You don’t need a detailed report – just a couple of key points that you can work on for next time.
- • Reflect back (in a positive way) as to what you can do better next time. What was it that you need to focus on? This is where a little recruiter feedback can go a long way! Was it the questions you are asked about the role, your description on how you would manage something or did you not demonstrate enthusiasm about the company and opportunity?
- • Keep and develop a support network. No one person is an island and it is incredibly important to share your thoughts and to support each other. Your network can consist of other job seekers, family and friends. Consider mixing your network – meet people both online and in the real world. I keep in touch with a number of job seekers who encourage me when going for an interview, and I in turn do the same to them. A win-win situation!
- • Consider practicing your interview technique. Practice by writing up half a dozen likely questions and having a family member or friend question you in a mock interview. There are also some brilliant online videos which ask questions which you can practice your responses such as jobsite. On the flip side, if you have a computer with a web camera, give some consideration to using it to film yourself giving answers to some likely questions. You may feel a little silly, but it can reduce any feelings of anxiety and it could help you to spot some of your personal traits when nervous such as “ums” or “ahs”, playing with your hair or touching your face. When you are conscious of these, you can work towards minimising them.
There are many other tips out there that can help, but these are some that have worked for me. Of them all, I think the most critical is making sure you have a support network and remember, this network is a two way street – if you support others when they need it – you will be supported in turn!
If you are interested in discussing some of these further, look at joining the 7C Alliance discussion group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1542397, where some great discussions are taking place with regard to the type of help that people need to secure their next contract.
Written by Stuart Brown, a member of the 7C Alliance
About Stuart Brown:
Stuart is an Associate Member of the 7C Alliance. He provides services to the 7C Alliance on a voluntary basis for facilitating sharing of knowledge about Social Media, including raising awareness of its value, as well as currently being on a part-time contract to 7C Alliance Limited where he is working as a CRM Business Analyst reviewing and refining the Contractor Support Analysis and Contractor Resource Administration functions. He can be contacted at 7C Alliance Limited by email to stuart@7c-alliance.com or found on LinkedIn through clicking on http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stuartkbrown
About The 7C Alliance:
The 7C Alliance is a Professional Association of IT, Telecoms and other independent technology contractors and consultants who come together to support each other through coaching, mentoring and marketing activities based around each and every member’s set of 7 C’s – which is what they have realised and accept as being what each and every contractor needs to be aware of for survival and success on contract.
About 7C Alliance Limited:
7C Alliance Limited is the company, incorporated by Matt Miller – the inventor of the 7 C’s concept – to provide services to The 7C Alliance. This includes the setting and management of online forums, facilitating the provision of coaching and mentoring services, industry-level and professional meetings, events and training as well as other activities to support the professional development and lifestyle of the independent technology contractor.
London IT Contractors Monthly Meetup – Network like a pro!
November 5th, 2009The next monthly London IT Contractors Meetup is all set to go. It will be held next Thursday the 12th of November commencing at 6:30pm in Bar Blue at Vinopolis, situated on London’s South Bank (a short walk from London Bridge rail and tube station).
The evening will include a short talk on how to network effectively for work by someone who is setting up a business to help people do this (and see below for details on them and this talk), followed by some great networking opportunities while taking the Vinopolis “Grapevine Tour”.
Read on for a few more details about the night and speaker, or register online as indicated in the section below.
A Little Bit About The Vinopolis Wine Tour
Vinopolis is a well-renowned venue for showcasing wines from across the world in one place – and their Grapevine tour gives a good introduction for novices and enthusiasts alike.
The price listed on the web-site for the wine tour is £19.50, however if more than 20 people register interest to attend, then we will be able to get a discounted price of £18.50.
The tour includes:
- • Admission to the Vinopolis Wine Tour (1.5 hours in length)
- • A ‘How to Taste Wine’ session
- • 5 regular wine tastings
- • A Bombay Sapphire cocktail
- • A Vinopolis tasting notebook
Click on “Vinopolis Grapevine Tour” to go to the site and get more details.
A Little About Diana Lowe and “The Art of Networking” Talk
Prior to taking the wine tour, 7C Alliance is proud to announce that it will introduce Diana Lowe, who will give a short talk she has developed through attending Toastmaster’s entitled “The Art of Networking“.
She has developed her public speaking skills, and this talk, through being a committee member and mentor at the St. Paul’s Speakers, a Division of Toastmasters International
She is using this talk as an opportunity to present her and her new business, which is based on following her passion to help people grow their careers and improve their interpersonal communications. Further details on Diana, and her new business, can be found out by using the general enquiry facility through the 7C Alliance web-site, along with a message: “Diana Lowe and The Art of Networking” as well as any specifics about what you are interested to know.
This will be a great opportunity to come along and listen to Diana in her first public talk launching her new business supporting IT professionals in getting work. We are sure that she will provide some very handy networking tips as well! If all goes well, the 7C Alliance will consider engaging her business as an Alliance Partner and using it to help support its members in developing their public profiles and sourcing work through networking.
Special Guests Confirmed As Attending
Already invited and confirmed as attending are a number of other special interest guests including:
- • A Business Continuity Planning (BCP) Manager of one of the world’s largest investment banks, who is also a prominent member of Toastmaster’s, a group that assists people with developing their skills and profiles in public speaking
- • An expert from iELEVATE, a business specialising in interview techniques, mentoring and life coaching – and 7C Alliance’s newest Alliance Partner
After the wine tour concludes, attendees can continue to network and then adjourn for dinner at a local pub or wine bar.
Registration
Please register your attendance by going to the Contact Us form on the 7C Alliance web-site, and select London IT Contractor Alliance Meetup (LITCAM) Mailing List” along with a statement in the query section I would like to attend the Monthly Meetup on Thursday 12th November“.
N.B. In registering for this event you will also be added to the LITCAM list for future events – unless you request otherwise in the query section.
Registration is required by close of business on Monday, 9th November.
This event is open to any IT contractors and independent technology consultants. If you are not an IT contractor, or do not work in IT, but would like to attend, then please send a request to attend as a query using registration method stated above – and please state interest.
Looking forward to a great evening, in a great setting with some great people!
For Further information and Future Events
For any further information about this event, please email Stuart Brown on stuart@7c-alliance.com or info@7c-alliance.com with ideas or plans for future events. Please call 7C Alliance on 0844 844 2470 to arrange a time for a callback or a meeting to discuss this event or future events
Tangled Web Talk – Information Security and the Data Protection Act
October 26th, 2009The 7C Alliance recently hosted a presentation on Information Security and the Data Protection Act, which was given by Mike Barwise, a member of the 7C Alliance. This presentation clearly covered the finer points of the recently released British Standard, BS 10012:2009 Data protection – specification for a personal information management system.Content wise, this could have been a very academic presentation, but Mike struck a nice balance between the information presented, combined with the real world application of this information and he also managed to keep the potentially dry material up beat and interesting with his personal insights and a dose of good humour.
As Mike clearly put it “The many thousands of smaller businesses that generate the bulk of the UK’s commercial income are faced with a hard task in complying with an increasing burden of regulatory obligations, one of the major components of which relates to information management. The least understood obligations are those relating to the conduct of business over the web and to the management of customers’ and employees’ personal data. The Tangled Web presentation provided a brief overview of the nature of these obligations and suggested an approach to their management, from the position that robust measures distributed among and integrated into established business processes are simpler, more cost effective and safer for the business and its customers than an independent ‘stuck on’ mechanism for formal ‘compliance’.”
Mike delved into such specifics as:
- General disclosure rules such as how important it was to disclose your business name and other particulars on all documents and correspondence
- Some of the considerations that need to be given by businesses who collect client personal data along with the 8 guiding principles for collecting such personal information
- Cloud computing and some of the legal and security issues that businesses can face with putting personal data ‘in the cloud’
- Some of the legal obligations in complying with the various Acts related to Information Security and Data Protection in doing business over the Web.
With Mike tying his talk into the BS 10012:2009, he provided a clear reference point with standards that should be adhered to. Comments arose for a number of attendees that it wasn’t just about compliance, but in fact was good business practice and in many cases, adhering to these standards would improve the marketing of their business and provide clarity to potential customers.
By keeping the presentation firmly in the realm of business, Mike prevented some of the technical aspects from overwhelming and made the entire presentation easily digestible.
Comments received from attendees included:
“Necessary stuff for the savvy contractor to be aware of and if I had the opportunity to hear Mike speak again, I would definitely do so.” Stuart Brown
“Michael’s integrated approach to information security – by making sure it meshes in with the business processes and is not just done as an afterthought – has proven itself to be excellent for helping me with not only improving the information security and data protection that I provide to 7C Alliance members (i.e. not just simply focus on complying with the letter of the legislation), but has also had the unexpected benefit of helping me improve how I market 7C Alliance’s services to members as well as better manage relationships with them.” Matt Miller
“A good public speaker who made his talk funny, interesting, relevant and easy to listen to.” Graham Bishop
“The benefits I got from the talk on Information security were two fold. Most importantly, as a web developer in training, I believe it is important to be able to consult with the client with the content that should be made available on the website, as well as the smaller technical issues such as ‘readable’ font size. Knowing the security requirements and regulations adds value to the service that I can provide to prospective clients and that gives me a competitive advantage. Who would have thought that using the ‘Cloud’ services for data storage and other regular office activities could potentially get you into some serious legal trouble!” Adele Coetzee
All in all, a very enlightening presentation and one which gave much food for thought on the topic of Information Security and the Data Protection Act.
The 7C Alliance is happy to run another seminar where the costs of Mike’s time are shared by the attendees. If interested, please visit the 7C Alliance Contact Us webpage, select the General Enquiry option and indicate that you are interested in attending a Tangled Web Talk.
Alternatively, at an affordable daily rate of £500, Mike is available to look at a business’ online presence and analyse how to integrate information security and data protection aspects into that business. He will also provide a detailed report specific to that business. Mike can be contacted via LinkedIn or through his company, Integrated Infosec.
A big thank you to Mike for presenting this talk and to Matt Miller for organising the event and venue (the rather brilliant Tabernacle). Finally, thank you to James Brenan from Cubism Law for supplying the IT security contact – we will look at covering the legal aspects of IT security in more detail with future talks.
Written by Stuart Brown, on behalf of the 7C Alliance.
