The turn of the year is always an opportunity to make resolutions in your personal or professional life, but it’s hardly a revelation to observe that such aspirations often evaporate. The easy option presents itself, and the temptation to take it is difficult to resist. For many years, I have claimed to be a “freelancer” but in fact, although I’ve been doing my own thing since 2008, quite a lot of my work has come from Act Now Training. Every year, I tell myself that this is the year that I will cut the apron strings completely and strike out on my own, and every year, I don’t quite get there. I’ve done some fascinating work for a variety of people, but I haven’t found enough of it myself.
2018 was already shaping up to be an interesting year, given that the much-hyped General Data Protection Regulation will finally be enforceable, and we will find out whether the apocalyptic predictions of The Certified will come to pass (SPOILER: they won’t). Reader, that isn’t interesting enough for me. Much as I am grateful to Act Now for offering me my first training course in 2005, and for all the opportunities they’ve given me since, all good things must come to an end. I had to turn down all sorts of opportunities in 2017 because of all the courses I was running, and there are a number of things I’ve always wanted to do, but simply didn’t have the time. So from March 1st, if you want to be trained by me, or use my services, it’s 2040 Training or bust.
A couple of announcements in this context:
PUBLIC COURSES!
I am running some public courses with a practical, procedure based approach in London and Manchester. The first is a ‘GDPR SOS‘ course for those bodies large and small who either haven’t prepared for GDPR’s live incarnation, or don’t know whether they have got what they might need in place. It’s commonplace in the Data Protection world to sneer at those who haven’t thrown themselves into a compliance frenzy, but rather than brag about putting up my daily rate (which some LinkedIn GDPR bods have said they would do in 2018), I thought I would put on a no-nonsense, plain English guide for those who want to get up to speed. The first courses run at the end of March, and you can find out more about them here: https://2040training.co.uk/gdprcourses/
Following on from the SOS course, I hope to be running a detailed practical course on the GDPR rights in April and May, taking into account guidance from the ICO, the Article 29 Working Party, the DP Bill / Act, and of course, the many cases and examples that we’ve already got from 20 years of Data Protection. There will also be a course on PECR and Direct Marketing.
These courses will not be ‘Article or Section X says Y’ but will be based on real-life cases and scenarios. Both, and a range of other options, are of course available in house, and everything else that I can do for you is listed on my website, a link for which is above.
MORE GUIDES!
I wrote two free guides in 2017, one on fundraising and Data Protection, the other on choosing a DPO as a service. The feedback on both has generally been very positive, apart from the DPO as a service people who didn’t like reading that experience is an essential part of being someone’s expert. It is. Live with it.
First, I am updating the fundraising guide to make it solely about GDPR and the DP Bill to the extent that this is possible. I want to complete this soon, so if any fundraisers have any specific questions about GDPR that you’d like to see answered, especially if you read the original and know the kind of questions I featured next time around, let me know but quickly!
Send any questions, as soon as you can, to: fundraising@amy.thedevelopment.zone
Second, I will be writing a guide for GDPR and Councillors – a simple guide to Data Protection as it relates to the role of a local elected politician. It’s not going to cover what councils do, but the way in which a councillor operates their office, deals with constituents and how they store data. Once again, any questions or concerns about this area from Councillors and those who work for or with them would be very welcome. I hope to get this finished by the end of February, so any questions or comments that you can send before then would be more than welcome.
Send any questions (preferably before 20th Feb) to: councillors@amy.thedevelopment.zone
Both the updated Fundraising guide and the Councillor guide will be free and available to download from my website.
After these two are done, I will be working on a number of other guides including the use of violence warning markers under GDPR, and no matter how unpopular this will make me, a free guide for individuals who want to use their Data Protection rights. If you have thoughts or comments about this, please let me know.
EMPLOY ME!
Seriously, I’m available. More here: www.2040training.co.uk.