A true story – prevent a cybersecurity nightmare It was 9:30 AM on a Sunday in the summertime. I just sat down with a cup of coffee, when the call came in from my Executive Director – our organization had experienced a Cybersecurity breach. As CEO and a Board Member, you often fear the worst and yet feel unprepared to even ask the right questions, as I’m not a cybersecurity or technology expert. The news hit like a ton of bricks. We had a ransomware attack, where all our company’s confidential information – legal documents, emails, files, etc… were captured and copied by a hacking group that demanded bitcoins to release the files and not publish them. My nightmare had begun, and it wouldn’t end for a year. You only know how bad your company can be hurt by a cyberattack, when it happens. My advice to you: Take the steps now to protect your company and you can avoid living my nightmare. Had it not been for the Fractional Chief Information Security Officer, we’d be in deep trouble.

A true story – when data and analytics matter As I listened to our CFO and Finance team walk through next year’s draft budget in mid-September, I couldn’t help but ask myself the question, “how much of this budget has data-driven decisions behind the spend?” I knew the answer, very little. We attempt, every year, to align and consolidate our siloed data with little success. Costs for data management products and services continue to grow, but something tells me we aren’t getting the value to the organization I expect. My advice to you: Get an outside review of your data with recommendations to get to the data outcomes best for your firm. Fideseo® helped us do this well.

After a long week, I am perusing some of the articles on my phone about competitors. I see some press releases, some rollouts, and some puff pieces. I can’t help but think we are falling behind. We have been in business for many years, are well-known, and are falling behind our competition. We’re slow and not digitally savvy. We’re a non-profit and serve many who cannot get help elsewhere. How do we better engage with them, help more people, get our donors engaged, or deliver on our long-term promise to help you throughout your life? My advice to you: Figure out what you do best and get a fractional team for the rest. Focus, focus, focus. Reach out to Fideseo®. You will be glad you did.

It’s April 1st. Somehow, April Fool’s Day seems appropriate. I wasn’t meant to manage IT. It’s not my skillset and I am not a technologist. I’ve let it run with the IT team I have. And yet, I have a couple of mid-level managers running day-to-day IT with a small team. Complaints are constant. “Support is bad.” “The applications and tools I use every day have too many issues.” ‘Why is the hardest part of my job getting the technology to work.” I hear these things over and over from colleagues in other teams. Well, I finally did something about it and got a fractional CIO in – what a difference that has made. My advice to you: Don’t let your organization suffer and think you need an army of people for technology support. It’s there if you need it. Fideseo® made all the difference.