 My name is Stephanie Danwys, and I'm the Inventing Engagement Lead at Always Possible. So, thank you so much for joining us for the second session in the final series of the Recover and Rise SME Digital Accelerator. I hope you're not suffering from the January blues and ready to get your business ready for a really great 2022. So, I think most of us will let you know when you're zooming in from today, it's nice to see you're all over the country. Yeah, so I mentioned I'm joined by Anna-Marie, she's managing the tech side of the meeting. So, in her capable hands, and we'll be answering your questions in the chat function. So, please do reach out to her if you need anything throughout. And we do ask you to meet yourselves throughout just so we don't get any feedback and there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions later. So, make use of the chat function and we'll be sure to pick these questions up. For those who are new to the series, these events are run by Westlux County Council and have been taking place since September last year. So, organised to help small and medium businesses utilise digital tools and gain expert knowledge and advice in how best to grow their online presence, as well as attracting and retaining new customers. So, previous series from Freedom Works and Creative Bloom presented sessions around getting online, customers and marketing and systems and productivity. And this week, we've moved on to the final series run by us at all is possible. We'll be looking at growth expansion and new products. The aim of this series is to help businesses create the right conditions for growth in the digital world, something we can't avoid these days. So, this will include tools for automation, online sales, cyber security and keeping productive while working apart. So, most of us are working remotely these days. I really do hope we'll be able to join us for a range of sessions taking place every Tuesday and Thursday throughout January. So, we'll include the link and how to book for those sessions shortly. I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to our digital champions. So, all attendees from these sessions will now have access to eight hours of free specialist support from one of our seven digital experts. Now, these experts range from specialisms in consultancy, marketing technology and all aspects of digital adoption. And you'll find them all listed here. So, please do take the knowledge from the series webinars and use them to help implement in finding the right tools for your business. So, yeah, these are the people. So, they'll be joining us in different sessions throughout. So, please do reach out to them and get information on what you need to support you. So, I'm also detailing here how you can access your eight free hours of support and will include the link on the chat. You'll all have individual needs on what specific support you need. So, once you've filled this in, they'll be able to put you in touch with the appropriate champions to guide you. So, we'll be continuing all our sessions from series four throughout January. Please find them all listed here. We'll also include the link for them to put on in the chat here. So, today's session, you've already met Emerus up in Nottinghamshire in his lovely National Trust background. Emerus is the director at Cloud Artisans and supports hundreds of clients each year to engage with digital technologies and reach their audiences and members. Through the pandemic, he's continued to work with a range of businesses and organisations to make the best use of technology possible. So, Emerus will be spending this lunchtime with an interactive session that will provide you with an understanding of cyber security and helping you navigate the internal skills your business will need to be digitally future proof. So, over to you Emerus. Lovely, thank you very much. So, I'm going to kick off with sharing the screen. There we go. Let me just. Excellent. So, yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for joining us and thanks for that introduction, Stephanie, and being part of this fantastic programme, actually, and the line up looks brilliant. I look forward to joining the network session in a couple of weeks as well to meet more folks as we go through. So, as mentioned, I'm Emerus and very quickly because I actually hate this sort of thing, to be honest. This is just a little bit around my background and experience as to why I'm here and what I've been doing. So, for the last, so, well, for over 15 years, really, I've worked with organisations of all sizes from leading the technical developments at Toyota Great Britain. And this digital presence client side there. That was back in about 2009, did that for a couple of years. And then I've worked with many small businesses and charitable organisations in various roles, particularly associate roles. And in the last year and a half or so, with always possible as well. So, and then there's other technical and engagement organisations and supporting infrastructure organisations as well. Got some things coming up with Brighton and Hope Community Works for those of you down that way, for example. And UK youth work in a digital hub champion. So, I'll just pull up a few of the bragging bullet points of what I do along here. I think that is, oh, and then the last one that I've just finally achieved is my executive MBA there as well. So, but what some of these things are saying. So, since 2006, I've been winning cloud houses and it's a consultancy led digital and engagement agency. What that means is is that we work with clients to understand the needs of their users, their customers and their staff to develop mainly digital solutions that meet these needs. But actually, whilst I say digital and mainly digital, we do actually look at what is that sort of offline and online? What's the whole sort of it's the human element and aspect of this work as well. Often, we work with sort of web applications or websites, but there's also strategic planning, telephone systems, domain names. All those things that basically anything that people need to be online as well. So, alongside my practical work, and I obviously get to see a lot of the sort of needs of organisations, a lot of different people and the groups and networks that I'm a part of that you can see here on the screen. And that's the things like the global leadership network, the Institute of Leadership and Management, where I'm on the board of through to more locally in Leicestershire, the digital skills partnership. So, working with colleagues there and the Institute of Directors, where I'm on the branch committee in the Midlands as well. So, sort of trying to talk to, deal with, represent, find out a lot of information from various businesses. So, I'm hoping that over the coming hour or so, this will be very, very helpful to you. I've sort of tested it with a few people in terms of, right, I'm not going too far into unbelievable digital futures, but it should all be very grounded. I've requested for this to be more of a meeting format rather than the typical webinar format, because actually there's going to be a few interactive things, and I'm going to ask you some questions as well. So, oh, and actually a note I've made here, just check in my notes, quite an interesting one, the Executive MBA that I've been on, for example, with the university, which, which was apparently it's quintuple accredited, which means like loads of, loads of good things. And the business school being the guardians University of the Year, two years ago in the modern University of the Year before that, all these things, and yet throughout COVID have had to pivot massively into their digital sort of technology side and implement significant change. So I made a note of this because actually I thought it was quite relevant to think, even in quite a large institution that's actually very well respected and renowned for its sort of work in that way has struggled. And I've seen that not only I'm actually an alumni fellow there as well, so I get to work with students on a sort of semi staff style role. But actually being in as a student myself last couple of years, just sort of seeing it from every angle and how much they've had to deal with. So if you're sort of thinking I'm small business and I've I've managed to survive through this well brilliant because yeah i'm sure you obviously have done and even big organizations have really struggled a lot so you're not alone in that certainly one small organizations, but also even the big ones and have had a lot to do as well. So yeah on that sort of hopefully more slightly sort of positive note, as I say we've got about 80 minutes now for the rest of this session. And it's all about future proofing your business in the digital world. So that's quite a vast topic, as I mentioned i've tested this with a couple of people and try to bring you know useful things for you, but please do ask any questions as we go through pop them in the chat and so on a flag that to me because I can't see the chat window right now, despite having four screens in front of me. And and yeah we'll cover some top tips and have some opportunities for you guys to discuss your own sort of concerns, add any additional tools that you use or things that you've heard of. Because there are literally hundreds of things out there and i've just chosen to share a few sort of tested ones that I know work for you, so the topics as mentioned already we've got. And so sorry about that. Not quite sure what's yeah sorry i'll go on to that one in a second i've managed to yeah we go put these the wrong way round these should have all come up a minute ago so there we go even someone that works with tech every day can. mess up his animation sequence on on the slide so sorry about that. And but over the next 18 minutes and we've got cyber security for growing businesses emerging technologies. The skills that you need in your business and then we'll come back to your questions and also there's some links at the end, which is more for when the slides can be shared to you, so you can reference them and I was then going to go on to a little bit of etiquette around. zoom and such like which we tend to use, and it was just to say feel free to raise your hand if you have got particular question or think that you want to make clarification from. And and i've also added their reminder, you know if you've got tools that you use and i'm talking about particular topic and i've maybe mentioned a tool. Please feel free to share that tool yourself in in the chat as well, and we can sort of crowdsource some of this. Information for everybody and last of when we are in the breakout rooms and just try and sort of ensure that you limit yourself to sort of one key contribution at a time. So that everyone gets a chance to talk and I can never quite. pronounce the the right formula for this, but if you are one one or five people so your end then only speak and an end amount of the time so. Something like that is how it's meant to go so yeah just trying to try and hopefully help everybody to contribute and get some thoughts in because discussion can be really useful just to understand what other people doing. And learn a bit from as well, so that is one of those things i'm going to launch straight into a little bit of interactivity. So we're going to use something called padlet this time my other go to tool is something called a jam board. As well, but we're going to use a padlet today, so there is a link there, and I believe anemory is going to be showing the link in the zoom chat for you. And if you could pop on to that would be brilliant. And you should see just as you can see all my slides here what questions, do you have today and what digital or cloud tools, do you already use. When you click on the plus icon that you can see the slide there, you should then get a little pop out type thing like you can see on the right, and you can, as I've sort of typed in there. You can add more add your question and then add any more details or links and things as well, so if you don't mind popping onto the padlet and. Everybody contributing some thoughts ideas is everyone got managed to get access to that one. If you struggle at all going on to the padlet or adding anything or someone's added brilliant, thank you. feel free to add it into the chat function instead say two questions on that what questions, do you have today, what are you hoping to find out when you were coming in here. The second thing is what sort of tools do you already use. If you can please try and add a notice to why or how you use that tool as well so Monday.com trailer both sort of project management essentially tools, although people use them in various ways, which are brilliant. And if you're having trouble either adding it on there or even into the chat feel free to just unmute for a moment and you can share with us and will someone, one of us i'm sure we'll type it in for you. air table someone's added yeah or as a CRM an event management that's great we also use a table. Quite a lot for sort of editorial planning and planning out a year so scheduling as a tool, which is great. Mero for design of events and content absolutely another sort of whiteboard style tool, which is great. And there's no questions for today in there yet so far, so this is great maybe i'll just say a few more words and we'll head off a little bit earlier, but. I would love to know what you yeah what you wanted to find out today, if you had a question about tech or digital in any way. And feel free to share it in there, because I will try and address it either as we go through the slides or at the end and try and give you something useful and i've got a bit of a break. planned in but i've literally got it on my plan break for everyone and for me it's about going and checking any research I need to do to answer a question that we haven't yet done so. Honestly, please feel free to ask so. Excellent and we've got another tool here camera for social media templates, which is fantastic and so i'm going to move on to our next slide. Now, but obviously the paddle is there you've got the link feel free to drop into there any other point over the next half an hour so and add a question that might come up. Or if you want to show any other tools, then feel free just a way of us sort of again essentially crowdsourcing those in there. Or you can add your thoughts into the zoom chat so we're going to start today, then on cyber security so i'm hopefully you'll maybe back now with the zoom and can see my slides okay. Can I get a nod or something Olivia would you mind nodding if you can see my slides all right excellent Thank you marvelous so cyber security. A big word quite often oh actually sorry. You know what before I go into the details of security I nearly missed all so many tools and technologies that we can use anemory, would you mind sharing the very first poll for me. So we've got a poll here excellent there we go, so the question is how prepared, do you feel from racing the future of your business digitally. So just a sort of choose one that sort of relates to you, so how do you how prepared, do you feel from racing the future of your business digitally. So we're not at all a little bit pretty much ready or already prepared excellent and are you are there we go lovely so we've got a little bit and pretty much ready. So that's good i'm glad that everyone's got a little bit of confidence and but on the most part here hopefully to learn a bit more about being ready for the futures we go so that's perfect Thank you very much everyone. So I will start then on cyber security, so what is it well cyber security is the application of technologies processes and controls to protect systems networks programs devices and data from cyber attacks. Ames to reduce the risk of cyber attacks and protect against the unauthorized exploitation of systems networks and technologies. And so that quote that I found in terms of a definition is on the slide there as well, so when you've got them, you can reference back to it, but that is a lot of words to basically say trying to keep yourself safe in the digital world. And away from harm and where possible and so cyber security is in part about what is mainly about mitigation. it's not just about what you can do afterwards, however, having said that, as my next point here is best to understand and reduce the risk from cyber security that's first of all, so that's where cyber security really does. Come in and but if something does happen it's also about ensuring you can take action so that you can recover quickly from any problems, so for me that is around sort of backups i've got that isolated data sets. And you'll find out why that's very particularly important in a couple of minutes time, but essentially that's about having. Different sort of backup files and not everything on one server or that sort of thing, so I think I maintain three different. Three locations for a lot of my files and things like that and as well, so actually they are isolated so if something happens, I can go and get to them quickly and easily in some way. offline versions of key information i've also suggested we're using a lot nowadays and i'm very much an ambassador for cloud technologies and using things in in the old interweb. But actually have sometimes having offline versions of that not necessarily printed but things are saved on a local drive or something can be very helpful. So again, if anything happens with that sort of cloud technology or you can't access it a bit like when. You know visa or mastercard or something goes down as they have done over the last couple of years to in catastrophic terms. You can't access your cash, so this is the equivalent really of going when you've got cash in your wallet to use. Or something so if you can't use the ATM or use use a car machine or something. So that's what we mean by having like an offline version really you're not relying on one place, but you've got what you need locally. And the other thing i mentioned here is insurance cover as well i'm not being paid by any insurance company, but unfortunately it's I think it's one of the most expensive parts of my sets of insurance. I must admit, but insurance cover to help with the cost of investigation and recovery action is I believe available, probably with most insurers nowadays, often referred to as cyber protection or those types of words in the insurance covers that you can get. So again, you want to hopefully like with any insurance never have to actually claim on it, but it can be helpful to have if the worst happens so in this slide we're basically saying try and protect yourself as much you can reduce any of the risks. And first and foremost, and we'll go through what some of those are so that you can identify them and then have backup plans in place as well. So what are some of those threats, and I want to go through some sort of fairly common and typical ones, many of you probably heard of most of these. i'm not going to sort of spend an hour on everyone going into details around them, but if you do have a particular concern or question on one of these feel free to ask the question. Likewise googling any of these terms will bring up many other resources as well, so on back doors, then, first of all that's one that you'll probably hear. Quite often actually more with websites and things and in the movies, where they talk about installing back doors and to things. So it allows remote access to computers or systems without the users knowledge, basically say it's like sneaking in through the back door and using someone's. kitchen hob or something without them knowing that's that's the principle of it, and so that allows them to fish around for data or information or copy files and so obviously it's something you don't want to do because they've got access to everything. form jacking so personal inserting malicious JavaScript code, particularly JavaScript so because that works on the sort of client end on the front end of it. And if you put it into sort of online payment forms harvesting customers card details, for example. And yeah so any sort of form jacking where people can see that data or grab hold of it from from folks as well. And then we've got crypto jacking so a bit more of a anyway newer one has been around a while, but again something that's happening a bit more as people start to consider cryptocurrency. So sort of using digital money, so this is about a similar thing really, but the malicious installation of cryptocurrency mining or crypto mining software. So illicitly harnesses the victims processing power to mine of cryptocurrency so how that one works essentially is you've got it has to do a lot of sort of data processing and tasks. And you can end up actually mining the digital money yourself and not usually just on your own laptop here you need a lot more power than that, which is why these things. Exist, but essentially i'm going to link it back. I'm sure the true technologists will say oh I don't use that term, but they might have opened a back door and then they've been able to install sort of mining software type things so they're using your computer power. And actually I will sort of share that sort of thing both back doors, but also things like crypto jacking especially if you notice your computer always using a lot of power your fans running. You're getting alerts going your low one processing power or something and then that sort of assign that there's possibly something going on in the background, but it might just be a bad piece of software that actually is is right there. But it's doing lots of things or a virus firewall or something doing lots and lots of scanning. But it could also be that someone's installed something without you knowing unfortunately so yeah just one way to look out for it hot over power laptop or computer might be an indication of something like that. So DDoS attacks getting slightly more technical, but particularly at the web level now and and it's called DDoS is distributed denial of service. Basically you flood someone's computer or server or systems with lots of requests, so essentially like a website or something that's how they try and take down a website or follow it with so much. Often either as a distraction or just because they've been malicious or because it's a way for them to disable. Certain other things so that they can install other software or something on the systems that they're targeting because there's a few reasons why people might go and do that. But yeah, particularly if they're trying to like an activism type thing, should we say they want to take someone down and it causes lots of disruption. So just a few more then so we've got DNS poisoning attacks so the domain name system that's basically what runs the world nowadays the domain name system is like the address book for the Internet. So you look say for a web address let's say always possible.co.uk you put that in your browser actually your browser then sends that over to what's called a domain name server. Or to and will then find out from the records within that so it's sort of like going okay here's the name of the person now what's their telephone number or something and the telephone number in this case is an IP address. And that tells you where to go for that particular website and saying for when you're sending emails or using other sort of tools that might use different different records on the DNS so poison attack. Is where it's basically going okay no you're not going to go to the always possible server you're now going to go over to the cloud answer done server because we want to sell you stuff. So it's redirecting you to somewhere else basically. That's the best way to look at it so the actual effective sites might not be hacked as it's saying here so there's no issue with the person you're actually going to but in between at the DNS level there's some sort of attack that has compromised. So actually you could it could be that you then start putting in any address whatever web address and you keep ending up at the same website or the same place, which is obviously very disruptive. Fishing attacks, you've probably heard, I'm sure of of these over the years. This is more around social engineering so to some extent less about the technical side as some of those other ones. But yes it's a trick used to divulge sensitive or confidential information usually by emails that says here. It's not always possible to distinguish it from you know real real things and especially when they send emails that look so similar to HRC email for example as the big ones, or other companies that might be trying to sell you tell you all your warranties expiring we knew it now or get a years added warranty. Actually you click that and you end up going and start putting your personal contact details in or some other details to think I'm extending my warranty on my car or whatever it is, and actually you're not. You've been sort of a sufficient attack in some way. So that is in essence a part of social engineering which I've got here is a bigger broader term as well. So used to deceive and manipulate that could literally be phoning up so unfortunately the typical snowy here is where someone phones up and says oh your internet seems to be having some problems. Would you mind doing this on your computer or doing that, and we'll try and see if we can restart things but actually what they're doing is sending that person off to a website to put in the wrong information. It may even be linked to the scams around moving money and going all your money has been and is under attack, what you should move it to this organ over to this bank account or something that is another sort of version of social engineering as well. So, yeah. The other one note here is also about clicking malicious links or physically gaining access to computer itself so it might not just be over the phone or something it could be that they go oh, you know, danger danger danger click this link and go and do this or that. So similar to the phishing attack as well because phishing attack is just really a version of a social engineering issue. So I've got a few more that I want to come on to with cybersecurity but I'm going to pause there because there's quite a few of them and some you know slightly technical things going on there is there any anything that anyone wants to raise a particular question on on any of those few that we've been through so far. Yeah, no one sort of. Yeah, that's cool. Brilliant, but feel free to raise your hand or unmute and interrupt if you've got a particular concern or you want to understand one a little bit more. So MITM attacks so man in the middle. Again, I've got the descriptions here essentially when a hacker inserts themselves between you and the device and that you are in the service trying to get to usually it's when you're on some sort of insecure public networks you're in a coffee shop or something like that that's when this can happen especially. So yeah that's sort of again you sort of see this thing in the movies sometime don't you sort of they sit in the cafe or they sit somewhere and they sort of monitor the Wi-Fi and then they and then they redirect them somewhere or they put something up or or there's a way of then capturing you know payment information or login information that people are giving. So the easiest way to resolve this is or to mitigate I should say is using a VPN and we come on to that a little bit later as well. So an exploits particular piece of malicious code that compromise and security vulnerability. So you probably hear a lot you might have even heard in the news recently around go daddy and they're massive you know once you see on TV and they've got owned several other brands and they had a massive issue with their WordPress platforms so again you know widely used piece of software for running websites. And they had a massive sort of security vulnerability issues that weren't patched in their systems with how they deployed and manage WordPress sites that was being exploited to capture people's data. And WordPress in itself unfortunately one of the biggest use platforms but also therefore one of the biggest targets for issues and people which is why it's always very important to install your security updates whenever you've got them regardless of platform software or anything else. You know do maintain them and manage that as best as you can drive by downloads another one so installing malware when victims visit a compromised or malicious website. So essentially they don't necessarily know that they're doing it or they're taking action without quite realising it so they might click a link. Again it could be from an email it could be on a website itself someone's changed the link itself and it downloads some sort of software and particularly to not know. I would say this one you know if you've got a decent security software or malware scanner and things on your computer that's pretty much the best way to do it and also just you know try and use trusted ones especially we can download a file. Even I do with some sites I still go okay I'm going to download this file and it might just be a PowerPoint or whatever actually but it's some sort of free download or something so I then want it to be my explicitly drag it into my virus scanner before actually opening it myself. That's especially important if you download things like zip files or .exe files those ones that are you know can actually then run other stuff behind it as well but they can be mastered in other files which is why I say even a PowerPoint or something. I tend to scan when I'm downloading so just be especially careful downloading but drive by download is when you don't realise downloading it as well so you're on a website that's been hacked or exploited as in the past point and something bad is happening unfortunately. Right and we've got a couple now on malware itself. So as a malware is in itself a big topic so a couple of slides sort of showing you a few of the key areas of this to be aware of. So it's bottom as it says here describing any file or program intended to harm or disrupt a computer. So often installed through some sort of malicious attack that we were just been talking about either drive by download or fire a backdoor or something. So some of the malware things that you might have botnet software so botnet is essentially a whole range of network connected devices and perfect scenario for actually cryptocurrency mining. As we looked at earlier the crypto jacking sort of side and they create a whole sort of network of bots and they mining money for them basically ransomware attack. As well so a form where they sort of lock your files and everything and you demand to pay ransom. So that this is why I was saying earlier about having those isolated files and having backup systems and stuff as well is always useful. You might hear in the moves of being called air gap. For example, you know when computers physically not connected to the network. So that or to your computer or something as well. And that can be useful so an external hard drive or something that you might just every week or occasionally back things up to and then you leave it off. So if you did get ransomware attack will actually that backup hard drive is hasn't been connected and is safe from it in itself. So yeah, that's a ransomware attack. Unfortunately, when you want to avoid paying money to people just to get back to your own data. Root kits and bot kits sort of similar in a way these things that are put together here. So root kits compromise several malicious payloads such as keyloggers and viruses. So basically do a whole load of bad things for you and it allows attackers remote access together. So again, maybe not the entirely technically correct, but the notion of adidas attack. So you know flooding it with there's all these things it's throwing at your computer so that it goes a bit and allows them to do something not so good as well. So same as unfortunately in our health things where we might take sort of anti-inflammatories or something because what stuff is going on in our body other viruses or things can compromise our immune system more easily. So that's the sort of real life version of what can happen with root kits basically as a boot kit same sort of thing there, but it's right from the sort of startup. So less so nowadays, but the good old days where you'd see all those lines of code and stuff coming on your screen as things were going starting up. That's still basically happening, but it's happening more in the background. They don't tend to show us as visually and mostly it's a lot quicker as well, but actually it can load you before you operating system. So actually remember computer is just a computer. You can change the operating system, which most of these windows or Mac software, but there's also things like Linux and other sort of platform. So actually the computer could run any of those things or some other piece of software and operating systems really more just a graphical way of actually using it and making use of the resources that computer gives you. So there we go. I think that's all of those. And so last sort of set now of of items say some more malware ones. So we've got rats so remote access Trojans. So it's still via back doors as we mentioned earlier as well gives them access to control things. So yeah, we want to keep those doors closed and locked of all these things that can happen as a result spyware people probably fairly familiar with this as a term overall. Some sort of like malware monitors users computer activity may harvest personal information. Again that sort of all watching your screen and seeing if that you type or what you do with it or just sort of recording that there's loads of ways. And there's even now what I'd say sort of a legal spyware and some companies who especially when we move remote and things when we'll monitor our staff by watching their screens having recordings and we know what tasks are doing. And that's essentially spyware. Unfortunately legal. Assuming with consent, which is perhaps the issue that sometimes has come up. But actually that's essentially Peter spyware. You can have the same thing. I'm talking about computers, but actually it's the same thing on mobile phones and any other sort of technology device really as well. So I know there's been some stuff in the news more recently around sort of spyware on people's phones so that people can see what people are doing and texting and calling that sort of thing. Trojan. Trojan type of malware disguised itself as legitimate software. So this is a bit was not the same as a drive by download that notion that you're downloading something you think oh that looks fine. That'll be nice or use that and this is why I say scanning stuff. If you want not 100% certain is always useful because yeah you might think it's something but actually going to do something else behind the scenes. If anyone's watched the most recent series of Alex Ryder, then that is pretty much it's all about that, not to give away too many spoiler alerts. But yes that's sort of what's happening. You're thinking it's one thing and actually it's something else behind the scenes. And then viruses and worms again we generally know these terms. So it's sort of a bit of a catchall for everything else that we've not mentioned here in general. So spreading and infecting people's files or computers and doing things that you don't really particularly like with it. A virus as a whole and worms, which is self replicating. So they do not need to attach themselves to another program to do it. They're there, they're causing problems and then they can replicate themselves as you go as well. So, but again we pretty much all know that hopefully everyone has anti virus software. And of course nowadays anti virus software or sometimes now known as anti malware is named in that way because it aims to stop all of these things we've just been talking about in the last couple of slides from happening. So not wanting to be too sort of downbeat or die with all of these things but I hope that just raising some awareness of what's the vast array of what is out there hopes to give you the importance and why. We're talking a bit about cybersecurity, but of course it would be inconsiderate with me not to actually end on maybe the positive is the wrong word but something useful and what I consider to be practical tips at least in here. So first of all keeping everything up to date. I've already mentioned that and when I say everything I mean everything your computers servers or if you know if you've got if you've got web hosting for example you've got website and stuff that is a computer. You need a web host that actually keeps things up to date and like the software on there at their end but also your own website if you're using WordPress or any other sort of CMS type system that needs to stay up to date but actually the underlying server needs to be kept up to date as well. So using a good web host is very important for that sort of thing. And as I mentioned software phones apps on your phones again always good you know just sort of a lot of them especially when you get the little point one or point one point two point three or those things mean you know maybe minor updates often their security and they tend to call them bug fixes. And obviously there could just be a general bug but it could also be security vulnerabilities they're patching or things that aren't working so keeping things as up to date as possible is great. I personally don't tend to go to a major update like on my computer straight away. I will admit I will install the you know past version security bit and bug fixes, but I might wait to a week or two. I normally wait until it does say something like 15.1 or something you know if you go into a big new major system. I normally wait for them to go and fix the bugs or fix the security issues that you know have been found in it when it's been out in the wild. So, whilst I do say keep everything up to date. There's a level of if it's a major major update, you know, taking a bit of precaution and maybe thinking like let them fix anything in this now if you know that your version of a major piece of software is perfectly fine. Then you could wait a week or two. So like I said, I tend to wait for the point one to be released myself using a firewall and virus scanning software and all systems. Again, you can get these things on your computer. You can even to something to get them on your phones, but you can also get them on servers on your routers, all of those things. So, yeah, make sure you've got these things active on each of your devices and that they're there being virus scanned and firewalls blocking bad stuff coming through. Third thing, use and test backups regularly. So network attached storage is great. So that's essentially hard drive that's connected to your router so everything can be mapped up wirelessly as you go. Also cloud backup services, you've got things like live drive, even iCloud to some extent, if you're not got too many files dropbox and the great solution and loads more out there as well. Use a variety of passwords. So a sentence structure you probably heard this and I think he's even been government adverts on TV over the years. But sort of think of some sort of sentence that you like. I love going on holiday to the beach or something and you might use I L G O H T B. That's the letters that make up that sentence that you love or something and that is a bit more of a random thing for passwords. You might also use password managers, last pass, one password, all those sorts of things. In fact, I think dropbox has got a password manager in the now as well so that they can save more random stuff. Mix things up, change them, use different ones and different websites. All of those sort of password practice things and multi factor authentication or sometimes called two factor authentication or something. So Google Authenticator is a great app for that. So some websites will support you having some other way to check and it might be sending an email with a code. Or, you know, now mostly when you're making a bank payment online or something, you might get a text message with a code to enter on online. All those things are sort of versions of multi factor authentication spaces saying user password or something. Yes, but then what's the second way of double checking. You can get like USB dongles and other things that sort of hard key and stuff as well. But some version or some way if the website allows you to do it or the software allows you to do it, then it's a good plan to try and make use of it. And last point on this slide, but I have got another slide with a couple more things, is use a VPN if on a public network. I mentioned earlier, private internet access and Nord VPN, both good ones. And again, many other ones out there, some that are linked to maybe I think there is like an AVG one if you use that sort of antivirus and other antivirus software might have their own VPNs nowadays. So that's great if you use something like the Opera web browser, which not a lot of people do, but that's actually got a VPN built into it as well. So that's a good one to use if you then want to browse into the cafe. Do you have to worry about anything else? You could just use the Opera browser and make sure the VPN is on and they are sort of handling that for you. Mozilla actually for the Firefox browser again have got their own thing now and you can enable the Mozilla VPN as well. So yeah, some of those other browsers that you may not typically think about use are there because they provide that extra layers of security. Right, and I'm going to stop talking a minute. You'll be pleased to know so bear with me for the last few points. So other practical tips, consider how you keep records of your data that you store or process in the cloud. I mentioned this one earlier already offline copies of things like VAT return. So I use online cloud counting software. So I tend to I keep a copy of all invoices that I receive offline. Actually, I keep them in my account software. I also keep them on my computer and I also back them up to cloud software and I back them up to external hard drives. Similar with the VAT return. I submit our VAT return and then I store them with those in three other places, which happens automatically I should add. So it's not like it's a big thing once it's set up. It's fairly easy to do, but that's really handy because if your counting package goes down or other things. And again, Amazon web servers or something go down that can affect half the internet. Cloudflare, other software, it can just, ah, you go a bit quit. Or you forget to pay your bills and they remove your account. A bit more simple or something, then at least you've got copies. So that's my top tip. Same for things like payslips and other sort of financial and accounting records. Is one particularly thinking because of your regulatory or legal compliance for a good old tax authorities. But anything else that is important business information for you. Great to make sure you've got saved in some of the way. The point don't rely on suppliers claims for backup. They're not always there. I used to have some web hosting for a period with one of the big companies. Then they promoted daily backups, all that stuff. And I'd look and like, they're not there. And I go to them and like, yeah, well, you know, it's not a guarantee. It's like, what? This is not what we're paying for, what we anticipate. So, you know, don't just rely that it's happening. Do actively check in and or download as my second point here. Download them yourself periodically. So you've got an offline copy for yourself of any backups or things like websites or servers. Or other backup tools that you might be using. Double check them basically. Again, sort of enterprise systems or whatever will have like backup integrity checks, things like that. Are the other files actually good or are they broken in some way? Third thing is set up your own backup systems for key aspects as well. So it might be emailing databases to yourself or other copies or someone mentioned air table in here, for example, earlier. Maybe it's the case of download or exporting that to Excel files or something of that nature. You know, just have think about ways that you might do your own backup, not just rely on someone's automatic stuff. So yes, that is all of it. Before we go into this next part, any questions anyone wants to raise on all of these things? Someone has asked the question actually on here. What questions do you have to my question was what questions you have today? So I'm then reading the wrong one says, is using your own hotspot safe when working in public spaces? And yes, so assuming you mean a hotspot for your mobile provider, for example, in your hotspotting from your phone or something to your laptop. Then yeah, that's generally safe as well. But again, it's still going over that mobile operators network. So it's a network that you don't control. So using a VPN or something is still really good and useful to do at that point. In fact, Apple, if you've got an iPhone, again, you'll have seen this actually probably in the news this week. I think it was around the fact that actually Apple are bringing through extra privacy to stuff and iCloud VPN things. So actually it stops websites being able to track the data and things in the same way because they can't see the network activity going on. So the mobile operators, I want to say it's in the US at this point, it probably is, but are challenging Apple and trying to take them to court for introducing this because they now can't see what that web traffic is, the data traffic. Which they rely on for various parts of their either their services or advertising or such. So yeah, with an iPhone, that's sort of coming through in itself. How technical content you need to be to set up an automated backup system. Great question and I will say, not at all. You know, there are user guides, there's good, simple software that you can use. I use Dropbox, you know, there are many other ones out there, but Dropbox is one. Easy software, you know, you can download it from their website, you install it like you would any other software and it will guide you through. Would you like to back up your file? So it's not just about your Dropbox now. It will also back up your documents file, your pictures folder or whatever it is and it guides you through that. So no real technical knowledge needed. And the way that you can check that they're there where you log in from another device or just go in on your browser and go to Dropbox.com, log into your account and you can view your files or you can check. You can download them or or view them there. So that's a way of checking that they exist. So as a backup system, it's fine. Again, if you're a Mac user, for example, you've got some called Time Machine and you can set that up with external hard drives. And there's plenty of guides sort of from Apple and people online to do that sort of thing as well. So you can download sort of backup software that will guide you through it in addition. So hopefully that helps with that question. Okay, right. I'm going to ask you guys to have some breakouts now. Although I've just had a last one, another one come in. I will answer that quickly now. Should you back up one driver Google Docs, et cetera? In essence, yeah, like if that is the only place you're storing your files, so you're only using the cloud sort of versions, then yeah, downloading the backup in this case is essentially downloading those files is a good thing, especially if it's business critical information or something for sort of general stuff. And it'd be a bit of a pain if you can't find it then, you know, but it's not the end of the world, then not a huge issue. But if it's key important information, you definitely want to have your own versions and backups. You know, the whole internet might in your area might go down. You might not be able to access stuff or yeah, they go down because of some sort of internet issues. Or like I say, you forget to pay your bill to them or something like that and other ways. Mostly, you know, online services like that are using many thousands of servers and data has been replicated and they have their own backup systems, all of that stuff. So mostly they're going to be pretty safe there. I generally don't have issues, but if it's business critical information or things that you really want to know, then yeah, periodically downloading and having a copy for yourself that's not relying on it being in one of those services is definitely a good, good thing to do. There we go. We are all back, I think. Okay. I can't quite see everyone. Have we got everyone back? Sorry, Annie Marie. I can't quite see if there's a. Yes, we have. Yeah, cool. Excellent. Thank you. Lovely. So I hope that was useful. Thanks for a couple of questions in there and indeed opera was indeed the web browser to answer that question that someone's already mentioned as well. So yes, and one that I forgot to mention earlier, but how I've been pawned is a good website. If you want to check for any data leaks, you can go on there. And that basically means it's just a website that can check for any security breaches. And the other one actually clear score is quite handy if you use that credit reference sort of app you've probably seen the adverts, but they've also got something in there and for free they'll check a couple of things or you can buy a subscription. And they will basically do an active monitoring of your email addresses and passwords and look for if you appear in any data breaches. And there's a few other sort of services doing a similar thing, but on the back, you know, if you do get caught, at least you can be notified basically if that you've been part of any data breaches. So yeah, hopefully there's a couple of other useful thoughts that I haven't actually included on the presentation I will admit, but another sort of mitigation should we say that at least you are well or something if and when it does happen. Okay, so I'm going to rattle through some emerging technologies now I'm afraid. Hopefully some interesting things coming on and the reason I'm afraid is that I of course spent a bit too long talking about cyber security so I'm going to go through and if I go too fast at all just please let me know. And there's lots of interesting things a couple more topics for us to go through for the next half an hour. So with emerging technologies. First thing is, you might be surprised that of a few of the things that will appear in here in these slides so did you know, for example, tick tock overtook Google. Sorry, there we go wasn't actually wasn't going through there we go my keyboard was not working for some reason sorry. So tick tock overtook Google in 2021 is the most visited web property so essentially website. So as you can see here 2020 was Google in 2021 it was tick tock tick tock that was all the down here at seventh in the year before. But pandemic especially, you know is a big rise. So this just gives you a bit of an indicator here's the top 10 most visited web properties on the internet. I think it was going to cloud players cloud players my source here. This particular graphic shows the industries affected by digital transformation driven by COVID-19. So let's not dwell on this that you know too much as COVID in itself, but these industries that have really gone so I wasn't sure which businesses would necessarily be here today. But if you are one of these industries for example. Then if you are a dark color think it is a dark black dark blue or black icon so education grocery health care. That's that was a reason to switch to digital driven. The 45% of people, particularly those in education grocery health care, for example. But also convenience and availability. People were using digital channels. Sorry, thank you for that so you've just changed the spotlight. This one switching to digital channels because of the convenience and availability people using it so again the effects on banking entertainment. Telecoms carriers and utilities that's the big sort of effects of those industries of users switching to digital services as well. On the flip side of this reasons not to switch to digital actually preferred to go to a store so you know in person effects grocery and retail. But actually less affected by it you know banking travel utilities people quite open to just doing the banking online but they want to go to the store if they want to buy clothes or other things like that. So quite interesting to have here so yeah have a look if your industry is in there and see how that's been affected or not. McKinsey company. So they do lots of different research things around digital tech so in fact I'm going to show you another research piece here. So companies can innovate their digital services in six different areas that's what they have found. So these innovations as they call them so first of all increase privacy and security. It's saying 44% of users don't really trust their digital services and why would they after what we've just been through for the last 40 minutes on cyber security. So yeah it's a big thing for you to be able to assure your customers as well. So finding the UX or UIs that's user experience or user interface and making sure that people basically that people can use things nicely. 56% of people were dissatisfied with what they were using in this research so yeah having a good easy to use web presence digital app software whatever is that you are doing engaging digitally in it looking a feeling nice and easy to use is really important. So yeah those are sort of the big two which we say I won't read these other ones again they'll be in the slides to come through if you want it but. So key points though increase to security and privacy to help build trust. And whilst you're increasing that build better user experiences and interfaces. Remember here that a fifth of respondents would prefer to talk to humans, be it through a chat function or phone or something but this sort of digital interaction. And that though so the 39% you can see people who want to end services and to end services available to so I they don't just start online and then go pick up in store. It might be the other way around as well so being able to fully interact in store or fully complete the order online. It's amazing the ones I still see that it's like oh order this service and it's a confesior contact form and then you know to actually complete your purchase you have to the phone you up and you pay with the phone or whatever it is. So today's world that you know you shouldn't really need to be doing that enable people to fully do what they want to do online, or indeed in person, because that's equally frustrating now the amount of times I do something in person and I'll know you have to go do that on our website. But I'm here right here talking to you in your store, why can't I do this. So, yeah, have a look at that. And these last two final factors after sale service needs improving for some folks, better prices or offers often desired by the individuals here. Things that don't rely on digital at all. It doesn't nothing to a digital transformation and so it's all about the sort of customer service side and the offer that you've got in itself. And so they're all sort of hampered hampering sales or or things for people if you're not doing these things right. And so yes so just another little piece of research and something that all again from McKinsey and company for free to have a Google for more details and data around. So, not going to dwell too long on this because this is a bit of a out there thinking thing, but the World Economic Forum released their top 10 emerging technologies of 2021. And I want to say very beginning of December so very helpful for me when I was planning this over around Christmas time. They've got 10 emerging technologies that catch quite into a few areas really climate change and health beings or two of the big ones. A couple of nice surprises that I'll show you as well so first of all decarbonisation with green energy. And so essentially that's the big emerging technology, a lot of investments going into people are doing. So actually basically how can we generate more green energy that's an emerging tech crops itself for to late as well so actually that's another one of the categories here really. It's not only linked to climate change but also agriculture or agritech, which is a very interesting one in itself. Actually a big topic that's quite nice to sort of have a bit of a read up there's lots of really interesting innovations on farms, and such like going on at the moment. My MBA and had international consultants as they called it, we work with a company who produce honey in the South Americas. And that was a great project to work on and all the technology that actually they're bringing to that you don't really think about the tech that goes in behind it and make all that happen but amongst the trees in a place like that is amazing technology in a factory processing all of these things and using sensors and such to make the best honey they can. Third of all breath sensors to diagnose diseases so that's a that's what they're classifying as the third most emerging technology in 2021. Pretty amazing what they can do now just to instead of like you know your typical thing you go to doctors you they take a blood sample and send it off to a lab you can now literally just breathe on to something. And they're really trying to develop that so again more accessible more hygienic you don't have to have all the needles better for developing countries and such like but again a really interesting one on demand drug manufacturing. So that's called here my micro fluidics apparently is the word, but essentially small pieces of equipment and sort of little vials and things that you can mix up at the sort of quite the end. In manufacturing terms there's various ways you can look at this but essentially it's about customizing it at the final possible point. So the idea of actually doing it in the pharmacy so instead of it being done at a big manufacturing plant or something like this of course some up here in Nottingham for boots and things near me, instead of having it all done there it can actually be mixed together at your local pharmacy so. One of the big benefits of that is that it's a lot more personalized and based on if you don't if your body doesn't agree with a particular ingredient maybe there's another way of me mixing it up. So a bit like making your favorite cup of coffee there's different ways to do it is the same thing at the end of it. But yes, you can do similar things now with drugs and pharmacies and that's starting to roll out and be a big thing so there we go. Number five energy for wireless signals so the internet of things. Again, something I'm sure we've all heard of, but making use of wireless signals of 5G this, you know, much faster more in depth essentially wireless signals so it can penetrate walls and things better. But it could also use Wi-Fi signals and this is about actually taking power from that so you can now put your phone just on a charging pad or something. But the idea is that now you can actually power low powered devices over the air and it's to do with something. I'm not an expert on the science of these ones, but to do with the vibrations of the radio waves that actually then generates and it can transfer that and turn it into some power. So only good for sort of quite low powered devices at this point in time, but it does make them completely wireless. You know, no longer do you have to run a massive power cable to your camera or something you might have up on it on the edge of a park gate or something. It could all just be powered over the signal that it's using the Wi-Fi signal that it's using to send the video back as well. So power and video to a camera completely wireless now. Yeah. And the bottom five still pretty interesting important things going on, but engineering better aging so another biotech health related thing here. So apparently they're focusing on health spans, not just life spans. So actually giving you a better life and the technologies now that are identifying the markers for conditions. And actually there are certain ones were able to turn that back. So actually how can they refine and reduce what those sort of markers for aging might be, for example. So that's a really interesting one, not too relevant to most of the visitors here. But green ammonia. So another one around angri-tech especially apparently reducing the CO2 footprint of fertiliser production. The fertilizer 50% of our global food production relies on it. When I saw this stat I was a bit astounded to be honest. So again looking at ways to actually make that a lot better for our environment and the technologies that are now available to make that happen is remarkable. Biomarker devices go wireless. So this links back to number six really let's talk about the markers. But the idea that you can just have them built into as it says here mouth guards or other places that it might collect or analyze your sweat saliva and blood. For example, but actually to be able to do that and just have something is fantastic friend of mine has got diabetes and can it's got like a little thing on their arm and they can just tap their phone or something I think to it. And then that gives the data of what's going on with the blood sugar levels and things like that. So a much easier way of doing things than having to prick your finger and put it onto a little device and see all the things. So, you know, those technologies are becoming more and more out there and especially these things like having a mouth guard that can analyze saliva and stuff. It's great technologies makes healthcare a lot easier more accessible. House is printed with local materials as well another great thing. So the idea of actually basically building bricks out of soils and stuff locally. So yeah, I think it does what it says on the tin but fantastic actually how you mix that up. And last of all space connects the globe IOT with nanosatellites. So this notion of sending little satellites up into the up into space there's loads of them now but it's a way of actually relaying data between those devices especially that now if they are wirelessly powered as we're talking about on the last slide. And that enables a lot more cool things to happen because you can send data and information around the world. A lot easier especially remote areas. But also, you know, I'm sure you all know about your local broadband getting congested with things. So actually very handy that it could go up to these nanosatellites and pass data around. So if you're in a, you know, in an area I mean things like GPS or if you've got a delivery business or driving or anything where you want to track packages or those sorts of things then actually that's where using nanosatellites could really come in handy. When it's collecting all that data and passing it around for much more efficient resources. So yes. So, so I have sort of rattled through those a little bit because they're really interesting and I wanted to highlight some, but not all will necessarily be things that you can implement or do something with right now. But it's being aware of what you know what's being worked on in the world. And, you know, if your businesses are relevant or you're in an industry that some of this might be linked to then yeah have a little look so like I say sort of climate change biotech. Are the two sort of areas and agritech are the three categories that I think a lot of these tend to fall into. Plus the nanosatellites and building houses out of soil, which is pretty cool. And so, like I say, maybe not as relevant to another business is to bring it closer to home. New generation GPS digits mentioned that a little bit actually relation to nanosatellites, but that notion that actually nowadays you can it allows much more personal tracking so you will remember those days your GPS on your card trying to figure out where you are where you're going and like oh no I missed the turn it wasn't accurate enough. It's getting a lot more accurate and so it allows things like personal tracking to happen. So that's great for sort of delivery or logistics technology so depending on you know if you rely on that sort of thing or being all knowing where stuff after out in the field. That sort of thing then yeah the new generations of GPS really helps with that and there's tools out there that can help you pinpoint where stuff are or vehicles or indeed packages or products. If you've got big things you're trying to send around something else to note the removal of analogue phone lines so basically everybody will be on void. So voice over internet protocols so telephone system over the internet that's what everyone will be on soon enough because by 2025, they will be completely switched off as well so nothing really need to worry about on do but you can switch to void now and there's a lot more flexible and just have it on you know you still have it on your phone you can have it on your computer have it on whatever else void systems are great. And everyone will be there even your typical landline at home will be a void phone soon enough so that's happening. Touchless and haptic technology. Again, depending on your business exactly but the idea of controlling things without the need to wear or hold any controllers or like or tactile displays so maybe if you've got a physical store or something people will be able to come in and do that with something like a whiteboard, or what have you as well so that sort of touchless technologies is a great thing to explore if that's relevant in what you do as a business. Battery electric vehicles. Many more explanation, you know that's coming lots more electric vehicles are happening and mainly climate related but think about what you've got and think about any tax benefits that might come from going sort of EV powered electric vehicle stuff. I prefer and I'm looking forward to hydrogen stuff coming through even more in the mainstream that seems a good way forward. Have a look at that this tax advantages and grants and stuff like that out there. And also penalties if you're running an old van or old cars and more places that have got cleaner or cleaner mission zones I think they're called in various cities and stuff so again if you are out and about visiting people be aware of those things coming in switching to back to electric vehicles is a good idea. Lastly artificial intelligence and it seems like a big thing that houses relevant to me but I've popped a couple of notes on here and so Google Maps journey times predictions. You know, and powering self driving cars that that's artificial intelligence you know when it says how long it's going to take you to get from one place to the other. It's analyzing big data and that's what it's telling you. It also powers things like chatbots so if you've got those little things you interact with on big returns websites for example, and then that's a really handy way to go as well. Yeah, it's all AI. So if you think AI is a thing that's not relevant to me because you're small business, actually, there's a number of ways that that's helping you right now. So sort of think about how things can be automated or used for you. As I mentioned here actually for prevention tools shopping recommendations, those are things in there as well. So if you are e-commerce or online and then again these tools are built into things like stripe and payment processes, but that's all relying on artificial intelligence. But if you want to put recommendations based on what someone else is looking at, that can all be done quite straightforwardly with a quite a simple version of artificial intelligence in terms of looking at and going oh okay, they've looked at these black socks and now they're looking at some green Wellies, but I'll show an advert now for the black socks again or something that's essentially it's sort of knowing and learning and using that information to present stuff back to you. And you can do that yourself with your websites relatively low cost nowadays as well. So that's everything on emerging technologies because, you know, like I say, hopefully this slide shows that there's some things that really do directly affect you in various businesses. Before we move off from this one. Actually, I'll ask the question so we're not going to go into a breakout I'm afraid. Due to time. But I will ask the question is there an emerging technology that could help your business thrive doesn't even want to feel free to unmute or put it in the chat or indeed add it to the paddler if you want if you prefer. Or is there anything that you can do soon, which prepares you for adopting future technology. Anything that you were thinking of even before you came in here or that now that I've mentioned it you're like oh. Or any other question about any of the stuff I just mentioned feel free to unmute or pop it in the chat or something I can see actually there's an icon with six bits in the chat here let me check it out. Cool. There's a direct question for me so that's that's fine. Anybody want to unmute or pop something in the chat as a question. Everyone happy everyone good with these. These we can share the slides afterwards I believe they've been shared so you'll see these other notes and thoughts from me so can reflect further. Okay so we're going to go into skills now and even better to stop you listening to my voice too much. I've got a short video here from the University of Derby talking about industry 4.0 so let's let's let them explain what this is all about whilst I have a sip of coffee. What is industry 4.0? What does it mean for you? Technology is driving change across all areas of society. Not only do we increasingly use it and even rely on it in our personal lives. We also find our workplaces digitally evolving with more and more processes now being undertaken using technology. This change is known as the fourth industrial revolution or industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 will see many tasks that were once performed by us now being automated. With the collection and analysis of real time data artificial intelligence and the ability for all components of a production line to talk to each other production can be really efficient and personalized according to customer needs. What does this mean for us with increased automation? Our time will be freed up for concentrating on more complex tasks. We will need a workforce who are capable of building, programming and developing these technologies but also making sure we are applying them to our lives in an ethical way. There are core skills that we can offer that technology cannot replace. The human touch is going to be incredibly important ensuring effective communication, problem solving and supporting change management in this digital environment. There will also be a greater need for joint working across disciplines creating new innovations. The future job market will be looking for graduates with an open mind to explore the unknown future possibilities. We will all need to develop our skills in order to embrace depth to this ever changing environment. What will you do to make sure you are ready and have the right skills to thrive in the fourth industrial revolution? So there we go. Hopefully that was quite a useful way to summarise some key areas around skills that we need going forward. Industry 4.0 is being called, the new revolution and such as they are terming it. Importantly, I think there is the big point in there and I loved the little shop window where you had the robot and then it switched to the flamingo. It demonstrates to me a lot of don't feel scared that technology is going to overtake your roles or what you are doing necessarily. A lot of people still want that human interaction. We saw that research a little bit earlier around people wanting at least Fidgetall. So some physical link or indeed others that are still wanting to physically go into stores and such like those areas where human contact and elements are mightily important. So I've made some sort of summary points around skills and for our final 10 minutes I'll run through these as well. Just to get you thinking about your own business and as you grow and expand who might you need, what do you need in there and we'll make sure we come back to those final questions as well. I think we've answered as we've gone along but anything else that comes up please do feel free to pop that in the chats to us now for in a few minutes time. So firstly on skills. I'll put it here you don't need just need programmers. You may not need coders at all. You know people think about oh okay tech I need those you know really technical people. I can code to an extent. I can certainly reverse engineer more languages essentially speak a few more languages and then English but they will computer things unfortunately so helpful when I'm working with developers and tech folks. But not so helpful if I'm trying to go on holiday. But you don't need that you know you do need more people a bit like me who know what they are talking about and they know enough of the language to get by, should we say. But aren't necessarily those highly technical people who are very much in demand at the moment as well, and who are brilliant people, but that isn't just who you need you don't just need to suddenly go out and employ yourself a programmer or something. What you do need people with skills to seamlessly use products and platforms. So there was a question earlier around, you know, how confident you need to be to install a backup system or something. You don't massively you don't at all we just need to know which buttons to click and use a visual interface. Now for some people, you know that's still terrifying and they are much more at home, you know, doing a massive, you know 100 page risk assessment or really huge things but when it comes to, you know, installing some software is like what. And that is it we all have different skills we have different areas so what you might think about is going okay, who can help me with that. Can I get some sort of assistant or if it's not a or a team member or even if not that and more for smaller business you could outsource it to some sort of other support company or a VA is a virtual assistant those sorts of roles. They're all there and available that can help you a setting up systems and products so what I'm pointing out here is just those that with the skills to use those they are digitally literate they know how to set up software and things. And you also get those nowadays it's all called low code no code sort of approaches so software where you can make things do things, but without having to write loads of code you got more and more people starting to specialize in that type of thing. So yeah, not just programmers just people who know tech and know enough to be confident to go and research it Google it use user guide that sort of thing and interact with a piece of software is fine. I'm also made a note you need those who can plan and connect technologies and skills. So as well as those who can use them, actually people who can think that level above in terms of strategic thinking and go okay well there's this tool this tool this tool and we connect them up. We can do all of these great things that's automated. Yeah, or they know who they want in terms of the skill set to help drive a particular piece of software, or something like that so. Yeah. If you if you're not a big fan yourself getting someone to help you do the operations, but also getting someone who can help with actually thinking about how to plan all that together and bring it in, in to help with what you're trying to achieve basically so the strategic planning side of it. Again, agencies or various people can help you with that. Indeed, VA's or those sorts of roles often they're working with lots of different small businesses they know what other people doing and how they're working so they can bring good advice to it as well. And the fourth thing I've highlighted highly experienced people. Absolutely, but also you could utilize well skilled recent graduates is a point I'm making here as well and I know University of Brighton, for example, and many others have various schemes around internships or graduate employment programs whether they even pay the salary for a couple of months, all those sorts of things so there's ways to access technology. Folks who are around about my age and and younger were often termed as digital natives as a bit of an academic term, but the notion that we've grown up with technology, I mean I grew up with windows 95 to begin with I'm not that young. But people like Olivia on the call here who is one of a new team member with me, you know is very much in that digital native is a digital native and has grown up doesn't mean every young person knows how to do lots of technology and every different thing, but there are plenty out there who do know who do know quite a bit more. So actually, if you're struggling, maybe they can come in and guide you to some of the right tools or the things that might be helpful, and just have the confidence themselves to go and research and find out how to use something as well. So yeah, again I wanted to make the point of you don't just need to spend a fortune on strategists or people with lots of experience, but you could. I say unfortunately in a way, you know, but you could find slightly slightly lower cost labour or those that you're willing to support because they're learning through but they've got the confidence to learn and go and look at things. As well, you know that's the sort of other way of looking at this depending on what you need as a business and how you're going to drive yourself forward. Of course it may be a mixture of all of these things that would be helpful to you. So the key thing, matching the skills to the tools. So do you need an enterprise network architect. That's basically somebody who yeah puts together big computer systems and everything else, or is it simply someone who can configure a piece of software using the interface as I mentioned earlier. You know, you probably don't need a big architect, you know a big networks way that requires some sort of architect going okay cables are running here different data things are there and whatever else is actually. You know software I just need to set it up right have the right category codes way invoising or whatever that sort of thing so again thinking about what that is. On the flip side matching the tools to the skills, who have you got in your team or what can you do. So I mentioned earlier low code no code solutions. You know that might be helpful actually can you use basic, you know technologies and can you navigate some software. Maybe there's something there that can help do it. I mean words but you know you could use wicks or similar platforms for building a website you know on there. There's limitations, you know lots of limitations and you know will take you so far. But actually, that is the idea you know have you got the skills to do that on an interface, if not the skills, or money to bring someone in who can code it, you know in a more fancy sort of manner. There is a reason why these technologies exist. And it's about choosing the right things that suit your team as well. And of course that might start to think about who else might be the new team members and they go to the first point. You know what tools you developing who do you need to bring in. So I'm making a note here couldn't be cheaper easier and more effective to outsource any of it. So you may not have the time to learn these new things you may not have a big team to learn those new things, but could someone who might give you an hour week or whatever it might be as little as that. Could that make you a lot more effective, or a lot less stressed, as well. I've got a couple of things here from a 2021 so again managed to find something nice and recent vote for an enterprise nation did some research here. So the UK small businesses community is being held back by lack of digital skills. This is a thousand, about 1000 decision makers from SME so people like yourselves 41% have not invested in digital tools. That seemed to me crazy that quite a large amount haven't invested there. 35% have put basic cyber security measures in place again slightly crazy this only 35% 34% not clear about which digital tools are right for their business. 27% have not taken any steps to learn new technology so that's a quarter of small businesses not doing anything, and also a quarter not activating tech solutions after they purchase them. So, you know, this is just sort of in interesting research that try not to be one of these in essence is would be my suggestion. You know, you've come here you've seen some new tools now you've learned a bit more about cyber security you know that actually let's go put some basic things in place. If you do buy in or you buy some anti virus software, activate it actually install it you know actually use it you know have it scanning your computer don't just oh I bought it, but that's fine but you need it actually running and scanning to do things. And in many other ways as well make use of what you've got there. And if you're part of that third steel where you're not clear what digital tools are right for your business individually, reach out to people the digital champions, you know that I linked to this. Are your perfect resource for that as well or get in touch with, you know, myself or many other people that could help you with that but eight hours free with the digital champions, that's absolutely brilliant and you know I'd encourage you to make use of it. And so I'm sure you'll be pleased to learn that we're on to our last two slides here and skills as well. So, and it's not all tech that's in demand. I am just again going to make that sort of quite general point coding programming infrastructure management sure they are, you know, they are in in in demand in itself, but so are and this is the recent research again creative thinking people about management engineering fintech data analytics scientific exploration so we saw those top 10 emerging technologies and how much of those around the health and life sciences, as well. So, yeah, business need businesses need those who can think creatively, you know, and all those that can manage people, because they're both actually vital to collaborating and developing services. The engineering skills side, you know that's a very general term so I just touch on that. There is often a technical element or requirement you know to be an engineer. And it's also about, they come out in all works of life it's about software sort of planning is complex products or systems, you know, those engineers do a lot more than actually what we perhaps see brother laws and engineer and say okay this is the extent that he does well. There's all sorts of engineers that do lots of things but it's essentially about complex systems and products. So how can they help you to engineer a solution, you know and it could just be a business process or something. Or new software or or various things like that but so engineers are really in demand right now because they are essentially those strategic thinkers or those that can pull stuff together that I mentioned in the previous slide. Fintech just to really highlight that's taking off a lot people want that as we saw earlier people happy with online banking, you know from the research. There's a wealth of skills being absorbed by the industry, particularly those are in data analytics, which is why I've note that because data analytics again is great in all areas and big data, you know we haven't really talked too much about it but that notion of analyzing and knowing what's going on. But they are being sucked in by the fintech world so if you need that sort of resource and a bit harder to come by good data analytics folks nowadays. And last of all that, like I said scientific exploration. Because of all the biotech agratech and all those sort of things that we're really interested in that was identified by the World Economic Forum. So my last slide is for you to ask yourself some questions. And this is where we'll be sharing the slides for you so that you can really think about these but what technology and digital skills do you need in your business. If you have a skilled audit of your staff, you know, ask them what is it they know what are you not utilizing that they know, or what is it they need help with that they might feel more comfortable if you can help get them on some training or something. Have you considered utilizing university consultancy or graduate placement opportunities I mentioned these about graduate placements but there's also like consultancy ones other MBA students or master students especially but also undergrounds who have you know work environment modules and research projects, you know, make you can make use of them to help you. And my last sort of question really what are the wider skills need skills people need for your business. So critical creative thinking people management skills solutions focus mindset so it's some of the hate the term soft skills but some of those other skills. Not just the technical skills itself but actually how do you ensure you bring a new technology and you might need someone with change management skills or with the right people skills to go look this is not replacing you but we are having to. Change slightly what roles are needed in order to make the most amount of this software or something. So these are all good questions to really consider. So yes, that is it that is all my slides we will share these afterwards that you've got all the points that I've been making and these questions. I'll just show you if my if I'm on the right thing. There's a page of links here so to some of the tools that I've mentioned so network attached storage the cloud backups, authentications and a couple of VPNs. So that will all be on the size as we send them out to you. And that is about it that's me feel free to get me on LinkedIn or drop me an email. More than happy to help answer anything as well and I can say make use of the digital champions through the program. That would be brilliant. My very last thing was just to check on any other last questions and I will check the chat here in case there's something going on but I don't see yet nothing else in there. If there are questions I'm happy to hang on after this session to help out a little bit as well. I would love if any Marie you could put up the last poll for me would be marvelous. And if you've got any other questions to say pop in the chat or I'll hang around for a minute here. There we go. So how prepared do you feel for embracing the future of your business digitally. Just re-asking that question, you know, from earlier really. It would be amazing if there's a little bit of shift towards towards towards another level. But I don't expect you to have changed your world entirely in an hour and a half but I do hope that it's been a helpful, helpful step in the right direction. So thank you. Thank you. A lot to take in. A lot to consider. Like Emerson said, we're going to share the slides after this. We'll send you an email with a link for those. So you can recap and I know Vik is already asked for those. And yet the recording is going to be shared later this week. Where Sussex County Council has got a YouTube channel where we're posting it there and you can get all the previous videos as well from all the recovery and rise sessions that we've done. All previous series. So yeah. Can everybody see my slides now? You see that? I think I might still be pinned by the way. Okay. That's okay. Yes. So lots more coming up for the rest of the month. This is only the second session of seven that we're running in January. So lots more coming up just to give you a bit of a recap on the next couple next Tuesday is going to be a bit of a recap on the next month. So I'm going to say is going to be a productivity session with Linda Siegel. So she's a bit of expert in that field just around. Yeah, different apps use. There's a lot on the market. So it's trying to guide you through those, which the best ones for your business, what you're going to learn from. And yeah, you know, supporting that. And then next Thursday MML Sheffield. So she's a coach consultant for business. But she's going to be talking more around kind of team management, how we're navigating working remotely and how you support your teams, making sure they're all right around mental health, but also their productivity as well. Lots of top tips on that. So we'll include the link on the chat now just in how to book those sessions, but thank you again for joining us today and thank you to MRS for that very insightful session. I've definitely learned a lot. It's definitely an area I've been pushing off and because I don't understand it, but there was a lot of information taken and a lot of helpful tips there. So that's your time.