The Northern Affinity is all about community and support and never has this been more important. Many of us have had to make adjustments to the way we work at the moment. We know there are many of you juggling work with bouncing children and we salute you! We’re all in this together.

Despite the hurdles, we were so thrilled to be joined by so many of our partners at this month’s meeting. Thank goodness for Zoom, right? 

Protecting your intellectual property.
The meeting’s theme took the theme of protecting our businesses, particularly during these strange times. We first heard from Matt Sammon at Sonder IP. Often, when we think of intellectual property, we think of trademarking a logo or name. Matt took us through the many other components of your business that might be worth protecting. For example, colours or moving images as well as your company designs and website content. But why should we bother? Well, there’s many advantages to it as Matt explained. Not only will it give your business continuity, it protects your investments and helps future proof your assets. In addition, the improved continuity will help your commercial appeal.

Protecting your website.
Next up, we heard from Phil Storey who walked us through his new app, Glow. Much like a car needs a regular MOT and service, so does your website and that’s where Phil and his team step in. It’s worth noting that Glow is only available for WordPress sites however, you can easily check whether your site is compatible or not on Glow. Investing in your website maintenance could save you a great deal of hassle down the line, as we found out from Phil’s case study. The client didn’t take up the monthly plan and then found themselves in the middle of an enormous hack and ultimately had to commit to rebuilding their website from scratch – ouch! 

Phil kindly left us with a few tips for protecting our websites that we can easily do at home. 

1. Always change the default login. 
2. Always update plugins
3. Always change the default username
4. Use a strong password. 

Thank you to both Matt and Phil for sharing some really valuable knowledge with us. If you’d like to present at a future partner meeting, please contact Michael. 

Update from Michael.
We wrapped up the meeting with a few words from Michael on how we can continue to support one another through the next few weeks. To all our partners, please continue to make use of the Whatsapp group and don’t be afraid to pick up the phone or arrange a Zoom call, even if it’s just for a quick chat and a virtual brew. Michael has also curated a Twitter list where we can continue to share, like and support each other’s social media posts. 

We have recently set up Workplace by Facebook which is another social hub for us all to chat and share ideas. You can use Workplace even if you don’t have a Facebook account. 

Finally, we quickly discussed the available grants and schemes the government has announced for those who are self employed. We are lucky enough to have several partners based in finance who are happy to answer questions on this for those wanting some more guidance. Please see our partners to see who you can connect with. 

Remember, we will be hosting a series of webinars throughout next month as part of our April Business Booster. You can find more details on our Eventbrite page.

Thank you again to everyone who joined in this morning! We’re learning everyday and will be back with you next month for the next meeting. Wishing you all the best of luck and please stay in touch!