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Just before Christmas we found out we had been successful in our proposal to help support Ludgershall Town Council in Wiltshire with their website hosting, email and IT Support.

As is the nature of these things, we found out that all the services needed to be switched over by 1st January 2018 !

FastHosts and JISC did a sterling job in getting a new .GOV domain applied for and registered in 3 days whilst we took full backups of the current website and the existing email folders. read more

It is just over a year ago since we donated a website, hosting and email and a quick spot of training to “The Little Wee Man” in order to help Jackson and his parents (Jim & Debbie) spread the details of Jax’s medical condition which has no diagnosis as yet.

Jackson is taking part in the 100,000 Genome Study, a project whose aim is to create a new genomic medicine service for the NHS – transforming the way people are cared for. Patients may be offered a diagnosis where there wasn’t one before. In time, there is the potential of new and more effective treatments.

The nearest recognised condition with similar characteristics to Jackson’s is a rare condition called Hyperekplexia. but genetic testing has come back negative for this, so the official diagnosis is we have “a none diagnosis”. Jackson’s condition is not recognised by the NHS and are no further tests that can be carried out at present, although his MRI & CT scan will be repeated when he is older.

Debbie and Jim (and not forgetting Jax’s sister Erin) have been selling wristbands to try and raise fund for items that Jax’s needs and to help to cover some of the associated “Life” costs such as travel to hospitals etc.

To this end, we’ve just added SSL certificates to their website and given them a simple store which allows them to sell “The Little Wee Man -#answersforjax” wristbands online to help raise awareness and show support for  Jackson

If you can spare a couple of quid to purchase a wristband or maybe make a donation we know it would make a lot of difference to the Finnie Family !

Visit The Little Wee Man website

Spent a bit of time chatting with Ayrmer Software this week about the drop in Facebook Organic reach which has been documented in multiple SEO articles for the last couple of years. In case you didn’t know, Organic reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution.

Now Hightrees is in no way,shape or form experts in Social Media but it is understandable that Facebook want you to spend money on advertising, but having people interact with your social media postings is equally as important. Where possible we try and share our clients news and events as this helps them get to a larger audience in an organic way – we like to be helpful that way !

It is surprising how many people and companies just “lurk”, i.e never commenting or even giving a “like/haha/wow/insert emoticon of choice”.

I think the analogy we came up with was that you wouldn’t go to a Business Network Event or even a party and just stand in the corner and say nothing to anyone. You would make an introduction, join a conversation or tell a joke which in turn would be passed on, i.e hello have you meet?/let me tell you something I heard the other day/heard this great joke the other day……at later events – oh, look, organic reach in action !

So next time you see a post from a page/person/group that you follow – take the time to give it a like or make a comment or share, it helps them and helping is nearly always a good thing !*.

Your tiny interaction could make a major difference.

* Fake news/click bait/like farms not included!

and if you don’t follow us on Social Media – click on the variety of Social Media platform icons at the top/bottom of the website – thank you !

It seems like our email inbox has been bombarded with Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals for almost a month now !

We umm’d and arrr’d about whether to do some deals, and then thought why ?

Running a small IT company means you are competing with some pretty big companies, with more buying power both in terms of software deals and advertising so at Hightrees Organisation we try to only offer services that are :

• fairly priced,
• are suitable for the purpose they are intended an,
• ultimately, help you the small business customer fulfil their IT requirement.

There was a feature on Black Friday on The One Show on Thursday 23 November 2017 which was saying you are better off buying your <insert sale day here> online, rather than a traditional shop.  The reaon was, as we understood it, was if you got carried away buying the latest sale items that you didn’t actually need then you got a get out of jail free card.  The reasoning is that with online sales you are more likely to get your money back as your local shop might only have an exchange or swap policy rather than a full refund.

Now, we have all got wrapped up in the moment and then regretted it at a later point, but how does that statement help the small business (on the High Street & online) compete with their bigger counterparts as it fundamentally takes business away not to mention personal responsibility ?!

So how about shopping locally and helping a small business at least once this year ?

Small Business Saturday is a grassroots campaign that highlights small business success and encourages customers to support small businesses in their communities. The day itself takes place on the first Saturday in December each year and the campaign aims to have a lasting impact on small businesses. In 2017 Small Business Saturday will take place on Saturday 2nd December. Small Business Saturday was originally founded by American Express in the U.S. in 2010 and it remains the principal supporter of the campaign in the UK, as part of its on-going commitment to encourage consumers to shop small.

The Federation of Small businesses was reported as saying that for every pound spent at an independent company, around 70p stays in the local economy, which has got to help, not only with bricks and mortar shops, but those that work in the online world as well.

We are aware that money can be tight and dealing with the “big boys” can save you money in the short term, but in the long term isn’t it better to build and work with someone local so you can both grow your businesses and in turn, build a better local economy ?

Like to be kept up to date with Hightrees Organisation Small Business Services and News ?

Signup to our newsletter, we won’t bombard you with spam or advertising just information once in a blue moon that we think is useful to your Small Business !

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One of the Facebook Business Groups we lurk in had an interesting conversation thread recently that got us thinking…..

A person was asking about installing SSL certificates on their website, for which the reason was due to the GDPR rules that will be brought into effect in 2018 and they wanted to make sure that their website/data collection was “GDPR compliant”

Now, GDPR is an extremely hot topic at the moment, in the Press and all over Social Media channels, with the world and their other half offering seminars, books and training courses to help your small business get to grips with the General Data Protection Regulation (oh, and empty your wallet as well judging by some of the prices we have seen!)

Don’t get us wrong, it is good news that businesses of all sizes are waking up to their responsibilities but The Data Protection Act applies now and it is surprising how many Small Businesses don’t/won’t register with the ICO as they don’t necessarily consider their customer details/staff records as data ?!

Under the Data Protection Act (which currently applies), the maximum fine the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) is entitled to levy against a data controller that has breached the legislation is £500,000, however under the new GDPR rules, the ICO can impose up fines of up to 20 million Euros or 4% of group worldwide turnover (whichever is the greater) against both data controllers AND data processors.

Now, it is understandable that the threat of a large fine is making all businesses to look at how they deal with data within their organisation, but is this purely because the fine is getting larger or due to the higher profile of GDPR ?

We would highly recommend the ICO website for all things Data Protection Act and GDPR related to help you understand the steps you should already be taking to comply now, as well what needs to be taken into account for the new regulations next year ! 

The ICO have setup a telephone helpline for small businesses – 0303 123 1113 – to help you prepare for the new regulations.

Oh, and the original question we’d would recommend that even if you just have a contact form, it is worth going SSL as it demonstrates to the user and the Search Engines that you take your data seriously !

So it seems that O2 are withdrawing their Tu Go application. If you have never heard of it, it is an application that you can run on your mobile, tablet or PC to enable you to send and receive calls and SMS messages over the Internet rather than the O2 Mobile network – a lifeline if you live in a poor mobile coverage area or travel abroad, but have access to an internet connection. read more