Eskenzi Blog

Hallelujah! At last the Information Commissioner  is showing some teeth  with the recent  announcement that  from 6^th April 2010 companies who lose information that ends up being breached because they didn’t’ adequately protect it could end up being fined by up to £500,000 and possibly face imprisonment!!

 As most of the breaches that occurred in 2009 were mainly Government screw ups – it’ll be interesting to see who’ll be publicly hung out to dry first – my guess is it’ll be a government body – now won’t that be an interesting dilemma as the  government works their way towards an election.   On the subject of being caught with your pants down and having to have them cleaned -  we’ve just issued our second laundrette and mobile security survey for Credant technologies to find out how many memory sticks are left in laundrettes. It’s a survey to illustrate how easy it is to lose information in even the most unlikely places.   Unbelievably the number has halved from over 9000  to 4,500 compared with the same period last year – well we thought this was a bit strange especially as we’ve been doing these sorts of survey’s for  15 years and  know that most users don’t give a stuffing about security so why have they dropped in number.  In delving a bit deeper and talking with Credant’s “consultants at the coalface” they say it comes down to memory sticks which are just no longer the flavour of the month. It would appear that people are downloading data onto their smartphones and blackberry’s – or onto their funky little netbooks which are a whole lot heavier and therefore a bit more obvious when handing them across the laundrette counter.  Are netbooks and smartphones going to mean the demise of the memory stick? With the latest Information Commissioners Office announcement I think companies are going to be a whole lot stricter with what they allow their  users to download onto their mobile devices as they sure as hell won’t want  their  dirty laundry hung out to dry in public! This can only smell fresh news for all of us in the IT security industry – roll on 6^th April!

When we were in New Zealand over Christmas our mates were amazed that we couldn’t wait to get back to Tel Aviv in Israel for a sales kick-off meeting with Tufin Technologies one of our Israeli clients! Our mates impression of Tel Aviv was a worn torn third world city, amidst camel dung and Shishas!  It couldn’t be further from the truth. Forget Hampstead or Nottinghill for cafes and restaurants, behind the facade of huge giant modern office blocks are the most incredible chic and classy hip dining establishments where people will use any excuse to meet up with friends or colleagues to eat what is truly the most fantastic and great cuisine.  They also make the best espressos and cappuccinos in the world. Apart from the huge variety of amazing food, they don’t do chain stores very well, so the shopping is both exciting and unique.  There is also a buzz and tempo in this city that I haven’t recently experienced in any of the other big cities that I’ve visited – it’s an energy that you get totally pulled into.  It’s also the epicentre of the IT security industry which has spawned many a successful company such as CheckPoint and RSA as well as many of our own clients such as Tufin, Cyber-Ark, Imperva and Pursway.  If you get a chance to visit Tel Aviv do, it’s cheap to get to, and great great fun!  Thanks Tufin for giving us the opportunity to visit you again.

I came across a very interesting blog recently by Cindy Kim on ‘The Future of PR – How PR Firms Can Get on the Ball!’

It is well worth a read if you are interested in how to approach Social Media PR, I whole heartedly agree with all that Cindy has written and would add that when incorporating social media communication into the Marcomms strategy the organisation needs to get involved from the CEO to tech support. Much in the way that if IT is implemented to effect change management without the buy in from the business units and the executive team, social media interactions must follow through the culture of the organisation. There is always innate talent in an organisation which social media has the power to free and give voice to. It is even more important in social media interaction for all communication to be consistent, honest, and get your message across, to do this there must be fundamental buy in from the top down. Every employee can potentially become an ambassador for your organisation, so an internal comms campaign is essential to support their efforts.

Neil Stinchcombe – Director

I’m truly excited. Today we’ve just issued our first web 2.0 social media press release for Credant Technologies, who I thank for allowing us to use them as our first client to try out this new technology which has been sent out alongside the traditional release to all those other press who still prefer a traditional lay-out. We’ve produced a video and a cartoon to accompany the release and it looks fab (can I say that myself?). The story is a goodie too – Quarter of people admit they spend 2-6 hours a week working in bed, 57% of their partners hate them for it and most are using their devices which are stuffed full of sensitive data with very little security. See the link http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/05/prweb2434214.htm.
The bloggers are going to love this story and we’re hoping to get it on TV and radio. That’s the beauty of these survey releases – you never know who is going to run with them. You spend days priming the press and hoping they’ll run with the story – then it’s a bit like a snowball you have to watch it gather moss and it can take days before you can say ‘hey presto’ you’ve got a biggie in The Times or on the BBC website. There is no greater pleasure in the world when you get national coverage for a story that you’ve dreamed up to get your clients names ‘in lights’. So I’ve done my bit, I’ve spoken to all the influential journalists there are to speak to, I’ve sent the release out globally and now it’s a waiting game – a nerve racking, but exhilarating one, but what PR is all about. It’s all about thinking out of the box and making Credant in this instance, the news of the day, the talk of the town, the end point data security specialists that everyone’s talking about! They’ve been prepared to try something new and invest in a video and cartoon to make this story have even greater legs – we’ve worked as a partnership and that’s what successful PR is all about – working with your clients, having fun coming up with concepts, executing them and trying something absolutely new that you hope will fly. Watch this space – because I think this will be a biggie!

Yvonne Eskenzi – Director