Category: advice

Protecting your data

The News Of The World scandals show why our data, and that of our clients, is worth protecting.

As we continue to be amazed at the scope of the News of the World hacking scandals, it’s worthwhile considering how valuable our personal and business information has become.

This is no news to companies like Google and Facebook, who have built businesses worth hundreds of billions of dollars on our willingness to give away personal information.

Even if it’s unlikely that we, or our customers, are going to be the target of the London tabloids or the paparazzi, our information is still worth protecting and here’s just a few ideas on making your business a bit more secure.

Phone message banks

At the core of the News Of The World out is the newspaper’s abuse of other peoples’ messagebank services where reporters, or private investigators hired by News International, have accessed messages left on mobile phone services.

Calling this behaviour “hacking” is giving it more credit than it deserves, accessing mobile phone message banks is usually easy because the victim doesn’t change the default PIN code the mobile carrier uses for mobile accounts.

So the first thing to do when setting up a mobile service is to ask your carrier how to change the PIN codes for your mobile account. While you’re talking to them ask if they offer an SMS service to notify you whenever your phone service is accessed remotely.

With any electronic device you buy it’s sensible to change any default passwords or PIN codes or passwords when you set them up as a matter of habit.

Passwords

One of the biggest weak links in our online business and private lives is the use of passwords.

We tend to be quite careless with how complex we make it and who we give it out to so it’s worthwhile being careful with the sites we use for our critical passwords.

As well as making them complex, say a long phrase with a character acting the space like Mary&had&a&little&lamb, you should change them on a regular basis as we’ve seen many passwords been leaked by businesses this year.

Secret questions

Another thing to consider are the secret answers to questions many providers ask you to set up.

Questions such as your mother’s maiden name could be easily figured out by a professional or determined investigator and social media sites like Facebook can make this even easier.

US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was caught out by exactly this in 2008 where hackers figured out her secret passwords from public records.

Using hotel and public networks

We should also keep in mind that phone hacking is only one part of corporate security, earlier this year there were allegations Federal government emails had been compromised by Chinese organizations.

This almost certainly happened through plain text passwords being sent through hotel or public networks. It’s wise to make sure that Secure Socket Layer (SSL) access is required on all your remote access.

Tighten your own organisation’s practices

We shouldn’t forget however much of the data in the News Of The World scandal has been accessed through paying off staff, allegedly including the royal palace bodyguards.

It’s difficult to see how you can protect yourself against corrupt workers however you can reduce the risk of your organisation  giving out details by restricting confidential data to a “need to know” basis with access logging enabled.

“Blagging” – or to use the horrible American term “pretexting” – is pretending to be someone else to get important data. Again, slack procedures by various government agencies and private organizations have been responsible for much of the data being given away.

There’s no doubt too many organizations are cavalier with their customers’ information and hopefully the recent hacking events along with the News Of The World scandal will force businesses to start taking user privacy seriously.

For smaller businesses, we have to show respect to our customers and have the procedures and trained staff in place to make it difficult for the blaggers to compromise our systems.

Measures can include refusing to give out passwords and identifying data which the customer should know as well as insisting on sending details to a known SMS number or email address.

As reprehensible as the behaviour of the journalists, their editors and the News International management is, we should have no doubt that the tactics employed by their private investigators are widespread in everything ranging from domestic disputes to industrial espionage cases.

Given the value of our, and our customer’s, private and commercial data we need to take security seriously.

For years we’ve been warned that cyber warfare would break out one day, the various corporate data breaches and The News Of The World scandal show the battles have been closer than we thought.

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Planning for change

In a time of change we need to be flexible

Last weekend’s ABC Radio spot looked at setting up a blog. There’s a whole range of reasons why you’d one to build one; to start a business, to publicise a charity or to show off your hobby.

We were lucky to get food bloggers Thang Ngo from Noodlies and Rebecca Varidel from Inside Cuisine calling in to tell their experiences of setting up successful websites.

One common factor for both was they had started off using the free Google Blogger service and then moved up to the more robust and scalable WordPress platform as their sites took off.

Rebecca and Thang’s journeys, which is common for many businesses and entrepreneurs, illustrates how our plans have to be flexible and the tools we choose must be able to adapt to changed circumstances.

The nineteenth century German general, Helmuth von Moltke, said “no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”. The same is true of business plans; none survive first contact with the realities of the marketplace.

As our businesses adapt to the ever changing economy and the needs of our customers, we can’t afford to get locked into static tools and responses. Our choices have to reflect that we will make mistakes, assumptions will be proved wrong or our customers, suppliers and staff will change.

Being flexible and open to new ideas is essential to survival in the 21st Century economy. The days of doing things because they have always been done this way are over.

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Business Web Essentials

A free e-book to help your online presence

In conjunction with Microbusiness Week, a New South Wales government initiative to help smaller and startup businesses, we’re happy to release our Business Web Essentials e-book.

This e-book is free to all subscribers of our newsletters lists the online tools that can help your website be more effective online. While it’s aimed at business users, if you’re a blogger or community group running a website you’ll find most of the information in the book will help you as well.

Business Web Essentials lists the important web hosting, search listing, social media and cloud computing services that will help you promote and track the progress of your online presence.

Subscribe now to our weekly newsletter and receive the e-book free of charge. If you’re an existing subscriber, you’ll get the link in our regular newsletter.

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Why manners matter online

Good manners go a long way on the Internet

Yahoo!7’s attempt to reduce bullying and offensive behaviour in their forums and comments illustrates a problem we have in the online community — that many people forget their manners when they connect to the Internet.

Manners matter online because there is no divide between your behaviour on the Internet and in the physical world. What you say and do online can affect your personal and professional life.

In previous posts I’ve looked at how this affects business people and politicians, but poor online behaviour such as bullying, offensive language and just downright poor manners can affect all members of the community, even if you aren’t online yourself.

Much of the problem lies in that people forget the Internet is a global medium, what you post from a computer in Parramatta can be seen by someone in Paris. Many also think they are anonymous online when it’s actually difficult to cover your tracks.

So here’s a few ideas on how to be a good cybercitizen;

You are what you tweet

Keep in mind everything you do online can affect your job, your family and your personal assets. All the rules and laws of the physical world apply online as well.

If you wouldn’t do or say something on the street, then you probably shouldn’t do it online either.

You are not anonymous

Okay, you signed up to a forum with a false name and setup a dummy hotmail or gmail account to confirm your identity. You are still not anonymous.

Upset enough people or seriously break the law and you will be found. Being truly anonymous on the net actually takes a lot of effort .

Show respect

We all have ideas and opinions which the Internet is a great medium for spreading, be it using social media tools life Facebook and Twitter or in forums and comments sections on websites.

Regardless of how good your idea is or how passionate and well founded your opinion is, there will be those who choose to disagree with you. Respect those views and don’t get offended when dissenters, however shallow or ill-informed appear.

Be helpful

If someone is asking a silly question or is clearly new to an online forum, be polite. Don’t put them down or call them names, just help them or direct them to where they can get assistance.

Take a deep breath

If someone has got under your skin and you’ve written a savage reply, think before pressing the “submit” button. Often, that witty riposte doesn’t look so clever when you’ve calmed down or looked at it in the cold light of morning.

Avoid foul language

Swearing online makes you look low rent, just as it does in the real world. Save the invective for when you’re with your mates in a private forum. The Internet is generally not a private forum.

Walk away

Sadly the Internet attracts trolls who enjoy upsetting people and provoking strong reactions. Don’t join them.

If you find someone is upsetting you or sucking you into a vortex of pointless arguments, just walk away from the discussion. Block them, unfollow them, defriend them.

In the worst case, if you’re finding one online venue such as a web forum or social media site attracts people who upset you, stop using it. Your life is too short to be sucked into negative, carping discussions with people who thrive on criticism of other’s hard work and ideas.

The Internet is becoming the repository for our culture while our society has a lot of negativity we’ve also done great things. So rather than be part of the negative aspect, be part of the solution — be bright, welcoming and honest but most of all show respect to your fellow online citizens.

A strong and vibrant society is built on respect and manners so let’s make our online communities how we’d like the world around us to be.

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12 rules for using the web

Twelve tips to stay out of trouble on the Internet

I’m currently writing a book, provisionally titled Seven Steps to Online Success. One of the chapters looks at using social media for business and I included twelve rules to keep businesses out of online purgatory.

On reviewing that chapter, the rules really apply to the web in general. So, with a little bit of editing, here are the 12 rules for using the web;

1. Show respect to everyone. Even people you find disturbing, you’ll quickly learn the Internet is mankind’s gift to the disturbed, deluded and downright deranged.
2. Listen. Once you’ve filtered out the crazies, you’ll find the collective intelligence of the web can be quite powerful.
3. Converse. The big currency in social media is conversation, by joining in with constructive comments you enhance your reputation.
4. Be constructive. Add value to the conversation
5. Positivity. The web rewards the positive more than the negative, by all means post critical comments, but it’s best to for your posts to be more positive than negative.
6. Be honest. Social media has a horrible way of catching people out, so don’t tell porkies.
7. Associate with the smart kids. You’re judged by the company you keep, just like in the school ground.
8. Don’t constantly plug your services. You’ll be branded a spammer and shunned.
9. Social media is not a numbers game. Don’t obsess about the number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends. Quality beats quantity every time.
10. Never post when drunk or emotional. You will regret it.
11. Step away. If you find a social media channel is taking up too much of your time or passion, take a break.
12. Learn. Use what you’ve learned.

Seven Steps to Online Success is due out in Australian bookstores in June. In the meantime, my new business Netsmarts is running workshops helping businesses use Google and News Limited’s free local search services to grow their business.

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So you want to be an entrepreneur?

Do you really want to start your own business?

There’s a school of thought that starting your own business is the passport to independence from the rat race or liberation from the servitude of employment.

A lot of blogs, books and writers encourage this idea and there’s no shortage of multi level marketers telling you self employment is the pathway to wealth and status.

On his Planning Business Stories blog, Tim Berry looked at one of the other sides of self-employment, that you’ll become unemployable.

Tim’s observations are right, but there’s a few other downsides to consider before trashing your cubicle, cashing out your savings and establishing that radical startup or buying a doughnut franchise.

I don’t want to work for a boss anymore
If you think your boss is an unreasonable swine wait until you deal with customers, particularly those who don’t pay their bills. Then there’s shareholders, business partners, suppliers and the taxman.

You’re leaving the rat race
No you aren’t. As a business owner you’ll find there’s a lot more rats than you thought when you worked for The Man, as the man employs lawyers, debt collectors and HR staff to deal with the rats.

The sad thing is you’ll probably end up being even more in the rat race, it’s just that you may not realise you’re racing the other rats as you aren’t stuck in traffic with them anymore.

I want to be the boss
That’s a noble and fair aspiration. Just be aware that in your own business, you take the risks and responsibilities too.

The boss at BigCorp can often mess up and move onto bigger and better things as the organisation is usually big enough to hide the mistakes and it’s often in senior management’s interest to hide their subordinates’ mistakes from the shareholders or taxpayers. In your own enterprise, it’s your own assets at stake.

I’ll get a better share of my rate
A common gripe with skilled workers, like plumbers and lawyers, is they get ripped off by their employer who pockets 3/4 of their hourly rate.

When you start your own operation, you’ll learn the existence of overheads and soon realise why you were only paid a quarter of what you were charged out for.

The only way to get rich is to work for yourself
Kind of sort of true, except there’s a big survivor bias in that saying. The people who do really well out of building a business receive accolades and boasting rights, those who don’t get quietly on with their lives if they are lucky.

In a capitalist society we reward risk, and the biggest risk you can take is setting up your own business. If you’re successful you’ll be rewarded, but the risk of comparative failure is high which is why successful entrepreneurs get more money and accolades than successful managers or politicians.

You’ll work fewer hours
This is probably the greatest myth of all, usually perpetuated by someone selling a multi level marketing scheme. In truth, you’ll work longer hours and many of those will be unpaid as you chase up debts and fill in government paperwork.

On the rare occasions you do get to sit down and catch up on the news, you’ll learn to dread reports that the government is going to “simplify” or “reform” something. This will almost certainly mean more paperwork for you.

Keep in mind that no politician – be they Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Liberal, New Labor or Labor – is “business friendly”. At best they are sympathetic in the way a non-lethal host parasite is to a warm mammal.

You’ll never work in this town again
Tim’s article makes this point well, that if you spend any considerable time working in your own business – be it a startup, consultancy or small business – you’ll find it difficult to get a job in the corporate sector.

I personally found this after 12 years of running a moderately successful business, basically I was told all of that experience was irrelevant to a corporate management position. In big business terms, I’d have made a better career move if I had been driving a bus for those dozen years.

All of this isn’t to say you shouldn’t strike out and build your own business, for many of us it’s the course in life that suits us and what we work best at. But it isn’t the lifestyle for everyone.

We certainly shouldn’t be saying those who aren’t suited to this lifestyle are bad or inferior people; most folk simply don’t want to take the risks and demands on family, finances and nerves that running your own business entails and this is fair, sane attitude to take particularly in a time of uncertainty.

Successful entrepreneurs have certain skill sets and a focus which can be tough on families, friends and children. For many there’s an element timing and luck as well.

For the success of a capitalist society, we need to celebrate and reward the entrepreneurs and risk takers, but before anyone dives into a start up or small business it’s best to understand the risks and costs involved.

Good luck.

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Shopping safely online

how to avoid traps when shopping on the web

The New York Times’ story on Tony Russo and his online sunglasses business is a reminder of how we should be careful when shopping online. Just because a website appears on the first page of Google or offers what appears to be great prices, we shouldn’t be suspending the same rules we’d use when shopping at the local mall.

So here’s some thoughts on buying those big ticket items online;

Know your prices
Before venturing online, check what your local stores are offering so you know what the prices are locally. For some items, you may find the nearest department or speciality store offers the best deal.

What is the list price
If you’re buying a brand name product like shoes, books or sunglasses, visit the manufacturers and distributors’ websites. Know the range available and what the prices are from the source. You should also note what are the current models just in case you encounter any superseded stock online.

Ask your friends
You’ll find many of your friends and relatives have been happily shopping online for a while, ask them where they are buying. They’ll be able to tell you what works for them along with some traps to avoid.

Do your search
Search for the products you are looking for using two or three search engines; say Google, Bing and Yahoo!. Don’t just choose the first result that comes up, have a look at five or six of them across several pages.

Check their stock levels
You don’t want to deal with sites that don’t have any stock as this can indicate a shoestring operation. Also keep in mind if different online retailers are reporting the same stock levels, then they are probably “drop shippers” who don’t hold the stock themselves but deliver straight from the distributor’s warehouse. Drop shippers usually don’t offer much beyond cut throat prices so be aware that after sales service is usually not their strong point.

Do some research
Once you’ve found what appear to be legitimate retailers, check out their reputation by doing a search on the business. For US based retailers you can also check out the Better Business Bureau or Consumerist.com. Make sure you go beyond the first couple of pages.

Watch out for shipping costs
One of the biggest traps for online shoppers is high shipping and insurance costs. Check these before submitting your order as sometimes you’ll find a cheap headline price is padded by extortionate courier charges, this is a common problem on eBay and other online auction sites.

Use a credit card
With a credit card you have some protection in the event of a dispute. Other forms of payment, particularly cheque and money order, give you little if any recourse should there be a problem. Paypal isn’t recommended as the service is know to tie all parties up with paperwork and inconsistent policies when there’s an argument.

Check your statements
After an online shopping binge, watch your credit card statements closely for any irregularities. Keep in mind if you are buying from overseas sites that you may get stung by unfriendly exchange rates so factor those into your costs.

Take care
The old saw, “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is” holds true on the Internet. If someone’s offering an unbeatable bargain at an amazing price, be skeptical and take care.

Online shopping opens a world of deals to the canny customer and offers real value for money for the right products, so taking a little care to avoid the crooks is well worth the effort.

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