To all who attended last week’s Central Jersey Think Tank meeting, thank you! For those of you who missed out, we have summarized key points from the meeting.
As we strive to continue to improve the flow of the table discussions, we modified the seating arrangement for all guests. During our February 28th meeting, attendees were given the option to sit based on their interest for further discussion. There were 4 different categories:
- Marketing
- Legal
- Finance
- General
As the Marketing tables quickly filled up, we will continue to reserve at least 2 tables for marketing discussions moving forward.
Below is a brief recap of the activities that took place at the February meeting:
Speaker: Fernando M. Pinguelo, Esq
Fernando M. Pinguelo, a trial attorney and Chair of the firm’s Cyber Security & Data Protection and E-Discovery groups, devotes his practice to complex litigation with an emphasis on cyber security, data privacy, media and employment matters.
Key Points from Mr. Pinguelo’s speech:
Instances of Cyber Security Breaches / Not Following Protocol
- Horizon was recently given a penalty of $1.1M by FTC for not protecting their customer’s information.
- Background:
- A Horizon employee’s laptop was stolen; customers’ personal information was infiltrated. Management tried to say that their employee was negligent with the laptop and that they weren’t liable for the theft, however, as the company, you are on the hook for your employee’s actions.
- Summary:
- Your team needs to meet your standards and follow them.
- Each employee needs to know what the company policy is
- As business owner, you need to make sure policy is being followed
- As a business, you have a commitment to your customers
- As a business owner, you need to draw the line as to what is promised to your customers and keep it.
- Laptop that was stolen was not issued from Horizon, therefore not encrypted.
- Horizon’s first mistake was not recognizing employees were developing work-arounds out of convenience (not following policy).
- Your team needs to meet your standards and follow them.
Whether company size is small or large, you need to protect your investments.
- Small company example – Spends countless hours and thousands of dollars on an app being developed, organizes legal compliance from Legal Zoom for cheap rate.
- Susceptible to not being protected as company grows.
- Need to protect your investment.
- Cannot follow “advisors” lead with how they handle protecting their customer’s information.
Topics for Discussion
The open format of the meeting allowed for more collaborative discussions at each table. Below are a few key topics that were examined:
- Finance Table – Continuing on the Cyber Security discussion, reversing the process of how information is transported out of the company.
- Walk backward as to who has access to what files? What can be downloaded?
- Do you have protocols and security measures in place to protect against security risks? Having a policy is important, but is it addressed and reviewed with all employees in an ongoing manner?
- Marketing Table 1 –
- Opinions shared as to how to market yourself depending on what stage of business you are at.
- Covering both what works and what has not worked.
- Marketing Table 2–
- Marketing projects shared amongst group – both successes and failures
- Discuss new opportunities to make more impactful impression.
- Best processes for ongoing follow-ups, continuing to grow relationships.
We are always looking to expand and improve the quality of our membership. Think about your business associates: Which ones would profit from a group of fellow business owners discussing important topics of the day? Be sure to invite them to our March meeting on 3/28!