Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis Theme

1-677-124-44227

184 MAIN COLLINS STREET WEST VICTORIA 8007

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM
Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies
Top

Blog

Falling Short of the Legislation Mark

GDPR Is Coming

I want to talk about the latest trend at the moment, which is GDPR.

I know it’s a hot topic and there are so many so-called experts out there and there is a lot of confusion, but I’m not going to dig deep into GDPR.

What I really want to talk about is the lack of planning that businesses have for such a fundamental piece of legislation.

We’re working on our inbound marketing site today, so many people have been coming to say, Mike, I’ve still not sorted my GDPR out.

For the record, this pitstop video is being recorded on the 21st of May, 2018, so for you who are relevant on this, GDPR legislation comes in on the 25th of May.

This is not new, we’ve known about this for months and years.

It’s coming in, and plus you could argue it’s a bit of an exaggeration and it’s all being blown out of all proportion.

My view on that is that the existing data protection laws are what they are, that the GDPR is a little, well significantly more detailed than that.

Last-Minute Larry

Just jumping in, what I want you to have a think about today is, what other key pieces of legislation do you not have a firm grip of?

Are you what I call a Last-Minute Larry, who just sat there waiting for it to come and pass, or hoping somebody’s going to pass you through.

Another situation today that, I saw last week, two or three clients saying Mike, I’ve still not sorted it, still not sorted it.

So I actually took the weekend out, and we did our GDPR compliance back in October 2017.

I don’t want any pats on the back for that, but when something comes out, I take the time to study it.

I put time aside way in advance and then I sort of get the baseline right, and really get on top of that, and think, right, I’m not going to be rushing at the last minute.

Then, of course, there’s legislation, not necessarily changes, but more information comes out, and more things are known about it, and more people have got views on it.

I can always make those small dialler adjustments and change what we did back in October, which we did in March and again in April this year.

But I’ve got two or three clients panicking.

Don’t Panic! Put In The Effort

So what I’ve actually done is put a little bit of a package together to try and help people, shortcut it, put it there, and then send it out.

Now there’s a cost to do that of course, and like I’ve said, I’m a big fan of you that pay with your wallet or you pay with the time and the knowledge that you put into it.

But what I’ve been so surprised about is how poor people are addressing it.

Sending a quick email out saying something along the lines of,  you’re on my list, will you click here to continue to opt in?

Now you know that’s just an existent list.

You’re not even obliged to send it to an existent list if you’ve got documented proof of an order or that they’ve got the specific consent in, legal consent.

But they think that sending an email out, because that’s what everybody else is doing, or doing the world famous I’ll take a big company’s email, I’ll copy it, put my logo on it, change a few words and send it out, and that’ll do me.

The emails I’ve seen, “oh, do you want to keep opting in?”

But they’re not even considering updating the privacy policy or the cookie policy.

I just struggle to understand why businesses today don’t take legislation seriously.

They scrimp and scrape, they don’t hire professionals, they don’t put the time in.

Take Legislation Seriously

If that’s you, you’ve got to really, seriously get a grip of yourself because governance in any business is going to mean the difference between a healthy profit and potentially going out of business.

So what I really want you to get out of this blog is to take a look, I’m not just talking about GDPR, that’s just something I want to talk about what’s on my mind today.

Have a look at, is your licensing, is your legislation, is your legal stuff all right?

If it’s not, you’ve either got to sit down, study it, work with the authorities.

But like GDPR, you can work with the ICO, the Information Commissioner Office, they’ve got some great resources, good webinars, good videos, good documents.

It ain’t that difficult once you actually thin it down and get on with it.

So whether it’s GDPR, whether it’s any other type of governance, I really want you to take a look at it, document down are you compliant.

If not why not.

What’s the authority or the regulation that you’ve got to work with, what you’re doing about it, and feel better about it.

Also, don’t leave it until the last minute.

Mike Midgley

Mike Midgley is the Strategy Director at 6teen30 Digital and a dynamic digital entrepreneur, nxd, strategist, public speaker and host of TheOpenMike Podcast show & Co-Host at The Inbound Podcast. Mike has achieved successful six and seven-figure exits over a 25-year career, raised in excess of £1.6m [$2.5m] in Venture Capital and highly experienced with franchising.