On Tuesday 7th of July, the Brightlands Business Club held its second online event of the year via MS Teams, as Covid-19 measures still prevented a live meeting. Whereas the first online event on the 28th of May held some mystery and anxiety for many members, this second online event already had a more familiar feel to it.
Glancing back; our first ever online event was well received and appreciated. Although not everyone agreed with what our last speaker had to say. So if you’re still wondering why he can, and you cannot, see quantum energy, consider paying a visit to your optometrist and ask them for a special pair of glasses
One thing that we received as feedback is that = understandably- the online events don’t offer the same social and culinary opportunities as a live event. Especially the dinner, drinks and bites afterwards are missed by everyone. So this time we arranged to finish with an online wine-tasting at the end of the event, catered for by the high quality St. Martinus Vineyard in Vijlen, on the very southern border of the Netherlands. Participants received a selection of 3 wines at home. The owner Stan Beurskens took us through his life journey and the history of this family-run business. His energy, enthusiasm and passion for life were contagious – could it be due to the wine?
But the main reason so many members attended the online meeting had do with the topic and the first two speakers, who shared many insights with us on doing Marketing & Sales in a authentic and modern fashion, as well as the delicate aspect of cyber security and protecting yourself and your company from cyber attack and extortion.
First was Paul Denis of Morris & company, who took us on an insight into his company and career. His main message was to (a) engage with the customer and (b) marketing is science, not luck. Don’t blatantly sell your products, but get to know your customer and then ‘offer’ your solutions/products to them as if they were a friend or partner. No more ‘hard sales’. Paul obviously enjoyed creating and running his own company and being able to set your own authentic culture. Run your company in line with who you are and what you value, then you don’t have to ‘run’ your company.
During the presentation, some members went into a discussion with Paul on whether the AVG (data protection & privacy act) has effectively sabotaged sales & marketing efforts for small companies. Paul had a different and pragmatic view for the members. The AVG was primarily aimed at unrequested mass-mailing /spamming. The short of it is, that if you are doing a mass-mailing to recipients that haven’t explicitly opted in, you’re in conflict with the AVG. If however you met someone briefly 5 years ago, exchanged business cards and kept it, you are still entitled to send them a personal (i.e. one on one) message. Always provide an implicit ‘opt out’ to the recipient if he does not want to communicate with you and you’re compliant with the AVG. Furthermore, you can assume that you can send information mails to anyone you know well – for example, those you are sending a bill to as a company – as long as there is an opt-out option available to them. So don’t be too scared by the AVG. Build up good relations with your contacts, and if in doubt, keep the communication personal!
Second was Maria Genova, Cyber security expert and author of various bestselling books. She really engaged the audience with interesting quizzes and educated us in a playful fashion. She challenged us – you probably think no-one is interested to hack your phone, your PC, as you consider yourself not to be an interesting target for hackers. However, cyberspace is a level playing field – crooks from anywhere in the world can and will break into your devices. regardless of where they are located.
We were also asked to think – what do you keep on your cell phone? Your address and other info? Of course! Photo’s in various levels of explicitness? Maybe! Passwords? Well, yes for some… Is this wise?
Some key learnings were; your company may have the best firewall and the best antivirus programs in place, but if one of your employees clicks a phishing mail then you’re probably… phucked.
In IT security, always think about where the weakest link is. Almost always, these are the ‘regular’ users, not the IT dudes. Regular users usually click on a bait mail or are casual with passwords. So educate your regular employees on what to look out for! If they ever do accidentally click on a malicious mail, make sure they are encouraged or even rewarded to report it as quickly as possible. Sweeping it under the carpet and pretending nothing happened is bound to lead to disaster later on as the hackers can roam your network for months and sabotage your company and extort you.
We learned lots of less enjoyable and wonderful facts. Less enjoyable – most SME companies that suffer from ransomware do not recover and go bankrupt. That any 7 character password takes less than a minute to crack. Wonderful facts- a 14 character password, even if it only consists of dictionary words, takes many years to crack. And every special character you use makes it much more difficult to hack.
A practical possibility for making a long and safe password is to use a sentence you can easily remember. Oddly enough, Maria used the example sentence “I-hate-my-mother-in-law”, but that could be coincidence.
Another valuable tip is: never use the same password for many/all sites you visit. If hackers for example hack one site you visit, then your other accounts are effectively breached as well, if you use the same password for all sites.
Lastly, one easy way to enter many complex and unique passwords automatically, for every website you visit, is to use a password manager program such as Passkey. Apple users can use their free and built-in KeyChain application as password manager. Password manager programs generates, store and use different passwords for your convenience. All you then need to remember is one password, to activate this password manager program –make sure that that password is uncrackable!
As there was way too much information to share in such a short time, the business club arranged for every business club member the bestseller cybersecurity e-book of Maria “komt een vrouw bij de h@cker”, which is full of practical tips and tricks.
Gift for the members of the Brightlands Business Club. Enjoy reading, but please note: due to copyrights, the book may not be distributed for free.
