Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Author: Paul Wallbank

  • Choices

    Choices

    “It’s too hard to keep up with all the choices. I can’t decide whether to use Facebook or Twitter, Microsoft or Google, Dell or Apple? Doing business today is just too complex…”

    Maybe it’s true we have too many choices but yesterday’s business people had plenty of hard decisions to make.

    Business people a hundred years ago had to choose between steam, gas or electrical power. If  they chose the latter, there was another decision between AC and DC electricity.

    There was a further choice between keeping your horse drawn cart or buying one of those new fangled motor vehicles, which could either run on kerosine or steam.

    So our great great grandparent’s weren’t easier and, unlike the relatively small investments we can make in technology today, their choices could easily bankrupt them if they made the wrong decision.

    When we’re fretting over choices at least those on offer aren’t the simple alternative of whether we send our children down the mine or to the mill at the earliest possible age.

    Instead of worrying about the choices, it’s time to get informed and understand what the alternatives mean. The time to worry is when our competitors, or the market, is leaving us behind because we didn’t care enough to find out what was happening around us.

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  • So you want a freebie?

    So you want a freebie?

    It’s human nature to want something for free and in these days where consumers and businesses don’t expect to pay for information and skills it often doesn’t seem unreasonable to think contributors to your project – be it an event, publication or a start up business – wouldn’t be prepared to do help for free.

    That might be how it seems, but you’re asking someone to contribute their most valuable and scarce asset, their time. So what should you be doing to make it easier for someone to donate their time to your project?

    What’s in it for the giver?

    Your cause could be great or you could be offering some great exposure, either way you need to make the proposition compelling to those you want to do a freebie.

    Keep in mind if you’re an employee of a industry group, university or private business and you’re expecting others to donate their time for free. If your organisation is such a noble enterprise, why aren’t you and your managers donating time?

    Be prepared for rejection

    People have a right to value their time and skills and may be offended at a request for doing something gratis. Unfortunately that’s something you’ll have to deal with as the cost of asking for a free service.

    Just be thankful you aren’t asking author and scriptwriter Harlan Ellison for some work or permission to use some of his work.

    Tell the truth

    Respect those you’re asking to contribute by being up front about your event and the other speakers. It’s absolutely unforgivable to lie about your project when you expect people to donate their time and skills.

    Be discrete

    If someone agrees to participate for free, don’t blurt it to the entire world. That person has made a donation to your project and they deserve respect.

    For a professional, particularly speakers and writers, that lack of discretion could cost them money for future event fees and devalue their brand. Show respect.

    Don’t nickel and dime people

    Again, those who agree to do something for free deserve your respect. Don’t screw them around on parking fees, taxi, or trivial charges, they’ve done you a favour and the least you can do is make it easier for them to get there and home, even if you are too darned cheap to buy them lunch or dinner.

    Don’t get contractual

    Even with paid contributors or speakers things can go wrong as misunderstandings happen, people get sick and volcanos disrupt airline schedules. If something goes wrong, threatening a damages suit against someone who has done you a favour is a bad look.

    Expect to be stood up

    While most professionals will honour their obligations, paid assignments have to take priority. As a freeloader, you have to accept your project will not have the same priority as those the contributor will get paid for.

    Say thank you

    After the event, show some appreciation. It’s good manners to at least send a card and maybe a small gift. For many professional writers and speakers a written testimonial or a LinkedIn recommendation is a nice way of saying thank you.

    Should you be asking for a freebie?

    There’s no shortage of third rate events, webinars and magazines on this Earth you have to ask if you can’t afford to pay for talent, then is your project really adding value? The fact that attendees or customers won’t pay could be an indicator that you aren’t adding value.

    Similarly with the contributors, they may be free because they don’t add a great deal of value. You may want to consider a smaller project where you can pay your speakers, writers or other creatives for higher quality work.

     

    There’s many good reasons for organisers to run free events or participants to donate their time, probably more than the excuses not to do so. Unfortunately in the Internet age, free is being abused and many creatives aren’t getting paid for their time and skills

    For free to work, there has to be respect and some mutual obligation. Someone who does something for free to help your project deserves your respect and support.

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  • 702 Weekends: Understanding Hacking

    702 Weekends: Understanding Hacking

    In the week after 73 organisations have been compromised by hackers, the August ABC Weekends computer spot with Paul Wallbank and Philip Clark discussed the wave of hacking attacks, how it affects you and how we can protect our home and business networks.

    We also looked at how spammers and scanners are moving onto social media platforms and where services like Facebook and Twitter could be going next.

    Callers had a range of questions and comments and we promised to get back to the following;

    Removing malware

    Bagwhat called about a computer that keeps showing a warning from “XP Internet Security 2012” that his computer has viruses.

    This is a classic malware problem and we’ve covered how to clear it in our Removing A Trojan page on the IT Queries website.

    Of all the programs we discuss Malwarebytes is the most effective, however a serious infection will use usually require hitting the problem with a range of solutions.

    Transferring email contacts to an iPad

    David asked how to import contacts from his Mozilla Thunderbird email program into his iPad, the process for doing this requires three steps which we’ve covered at IT Queries in How Do I Transfer Contacts To My iPad or iPhone.

    The iPad forums and Apple’s support website have more detailed information on how to transfer data between the applications and devices.

    Junk folders in Windows Live Mail

    One of the delights of having a decent junk mail filter is you never see the dozens of pointless emails that arrive in your inbox each day. So when an update damages your spam filter, as Windows Live 2011 did for Sue, then it’s a real irritation.

    The repair for this is actually quite straightforward, and we’ve covered this in Windows Live Mail Junk Folders Not Working at IT Queries.

    Once it’s finished, you’ll be asked to reboot the computer and the problem should be fixed after the restart.

    Reinstalling an Antivirus

    Norton Antivirus is bugging Sharon to buy a new versions of their software and she wanted to know if it was worthwhile.

    The free Microsoft Security Essentials is a good substitute for Windows computers so there’s no need to update the Norton service.

    With Nortons it is important to completely remove the program as it will clog up the system, so make sure it’s properly uninstalled and then run the Norton Removal Tool to make sure all the Symantec services are no longer on the computer.

    Our next ABC 702 Weekends program should be on Sunday, September 11 at 10.10am which we’ll confirm closer to the date. Subscribe to our newsletter or watch our webpages for upcoming events.

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  • Binary thinking in a digital world

    Binary thinking in a digital world

    In a time when the retail industry, like the music and newspaper industries before it, is going through major changes thanks to the Internet there’s a tendency to think in black and white – that you’re either online or you aren’t.

    This is a mistake as the choice between going online or not isn’t a black and white issue, it’s a matter of degrees.

    A good example of flawed thinking was the announcement that Just Jeans would close 50 stores and move to online selling. This idea ignores that Just Jeans’ management has little online retail experience they would be better to be using an online presence to compliment their existing strengths and drive traffic into their stores.

    A bricks and mortar store still needs online presence, even if there’s no intention to sell online. A shop or café needs a website that at least tells customers who they are, what they sell, where they are and when they are open.

    For many businesses, online is a new channel and opportunity that complements existing channels. The web, and particularly social media tools, offer an opportunity to connect to customers, build loyalty and spread the word about the business.

    Even the online tools themselves suffer this where we have arguments about whether a business should use one social media tool like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. The real answer is you should have a presence in all of them, even though most businesses will find one channel is more effective than others.

    Similarly an online business needs a credible physical presence such as real call centres, phone numbers and office contact details. Indeed the lack of customer service is the Achilles Heel of many online retailers.

    A lack of understanding that there is little real difference between the online and physical worlds is shared by many in the community; the idea that what someone does online is not related to their reputation or legal responsibilities in the real world persists despite it being constantly proved wrong.

    In the online world the answer isn’t usually one choice or another, it’s a matter of how one channel will help you more than others.

    Thinking you have to use one tool at the expense of others or make a choice between being wholly online or ignoring the Internet totally is a false, dangerous choice.

    A more sensible way of dealing with the online world for established retailers, or any existing business is to experiment with what works for their customers and markets.

    It may well be that shutting down physical stores and moving online is the solution for some, but for many others it will make more sense to use what the online world does well to build on existing advantages.

    For the retail industry, salvation is probably going to lie in providing service. It’s those managers and business owners that see qualified, helpful staff as an asset rather than a cost who will thrive in the next decade.

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  • How secure are our computers?

    How secure are our computers?

    Today’s reports of an “Unprecedented Cyber-espionage Campaign” thought to have to have originated in China is a reminder of how insecure most of our computer networks are.

    Computer security company McAfee has a report on Operation Shady Rat that goes into the details of how the attacks worked and their victims, it makes interesting reading and emphasises how widespread industrial espionage is.

    In many ways, this is a sophisticated version of the News Of The World “hacks” where journalists and their private detectives took advantage of users’ slack security measures to access phone message banks.

    To carry out these “Shady Rat” hacks which ­– unlike the News Of The World’s actions – deserve the title of “hacking”, the perpetrators sent emails with attachments that took advantage of known security flaws to get inside the victims’ networks where they could access confidential documents.

    What is truly amazing is how many of these large organisations, presumably with good sized IT budgets, were running systems that hadn’t been updated to the latest security patches.

    This is a problem that goes back to the late 1990s and is something that every computer user, whether a home, small business or large organisation needs to keep up to date with.

    Ignoring security releases is just plain dumb, although some organisations defer installing them because of the risk some of these updates may break critical business applications, a dangerous situation which usually indicates underinvestment in IT systems.

    An interesting aspect with Operation Shady Rat is how email was used to deliver the spyware, increasingly social media platforms are becoming the way for scammers and crooks to attack systems.

    Most Facebook and Twitter users would have received messages along the lines of “hey, you’ve lost weight in this picture” (sadly I haven’t) or “you should read this”. The links in those messages are almost always malware designed to take control of the user’s computer or social media account.

    Many people, particularly small business owners and home computer users, say “hey I don’t have anything confidential on my system to worry about”.

    Even in the unlikely event your system has nothing of value to a crook, this misses the point that the bad guys can use a compromised account or computer to launch attacks on more lucrative targets. Most infected emails and social media messages come from other victims’ services, making it harder for authorities to find the source of attacks.

    Simple security precautions are to use the latest web browsers, which is essential if you’re using cloud computing services, and accepting all trusted security updates for your system.

    You also need to be using your judgement as some of the more clever scammers are posing as being updates from trusted companies like Microsoft, Apple and Adobe so if you think something is suspicious, ask or check it out online.

    Strong passwords are important along with restricting access to sensitive documents, the latter probably being the most surprising weakness of all in the Shady Rat data thefts.

    In an era where our IT systems are essential to work and business, we have to start taking computer security as seriously as we do physical and personal safety. Locking the obvious entry points and strengthening weak areas are obvious and comparatively easy first steps.

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