Dave and Flo’s email put me over the edge.
My friends at MedWorld Advisors (they help maximize your enterprise value, especially for strategic exits) emailed me yesterday with this message.
Each one declared, “Click here or be banished from our mailing list.”
With GDPR going into effect Friday (May 25, 2018), I finally determined if I – and you – really have to deal with it.
To be safe, I think we do.
Before I continue:
Do not construe the following as legal advice.
I read about GDPR for less than an hour.
Do your own homework.
What is GDPR and should you care?
GDPR stands for “General Data Protection Regulation” and pertains exclusively, I believe, with European subscriber data and storage. (I couldn’t reach https://EUgdpr.com this evening; I suspect due to a crush of traffic.)
So, now amply qualified, I believe the formula is:
IF YOU HAVE A EUROPEAN IN YOUR DATABASE,
THEN YOU HAVE TO TAKE ACTION.
Further, I believe you ONLY have address this issue with Europeans. From Drip:
So Dave and Flo, if you’re reading this, I think you went about your compliance the wrong way.
It’s me! Joe Hage, your friend! I’m in Washington State! You don’t need to banish me from your mailing list to comply with GDPR.
If Beth and I become empty-nesters and move to London one of these days, then serve me all the blue buttons you want.
Salesforce.com, Drip, Constant Contact, Mailchimp…
You need to check all the places you have personally identifiable data of your European subscribers. I don’t know how but my “IT Department” Matt Barnett probably does. I can refer you.
Today the Drip team forwarded these worthwhile articles:
• EU Compliance Consent (GDPR)
• Drip and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Are You Ready?
I caught this gem in the “Drip and GDPR” article:
By using Drip (which you still aren’t doing for some reason ????), I can if/then my way into selecting only EU residents and serve them the appropriate GDPR messaging.
Everyone else?
Carry on. Nothing to see here.
How big a risk is non-compliance?
Yeah, not for me to assess. How much audit risk are you willing to bear?
In GDPR Clarity: 19 Frequently Asked Questions Answered, Gartner estimates one on two companies will be unprepared come Friday, so you’ll have plenty of company.
And if it gives you any comfort, I suspect ZERO Journey subscribers are in compliance. If you’re the one subscriber who is, please email me and let me know how you prepared!
Okay, let’s talk about something else.
This will change the mood quickly.
Fast Round
- No more widows. ImaCor has a product called the EVO 1. We always want the number “1” to appear on the same line as the “EVO.”The answer isn’t adding extra spaces or a hard return because as soon as it looks good on your desktop, it will look crappy on mobile.
Matt taught me the workaround. The HTML code means “make the area between [these two words] appear like a space, but treat it as though it were one long word.
Example: Instead of typing “EVO 1” we code it as EVO 1. Cool trick, eh? Thank Matt.
- Add something fun. I take far more liberties writing The Journey than I do the weekly Medical Devices Group announcement to a quarter-million people.But last week when I promoted Beth Brooks’ Clinical Evidence webinar and Jon Speer’s Design Controls webinar, I teased, “Who loves ya, Baby?” with this oh-so-70’s number.
1,853 readers clicked. More than they clicked on the webinar offerings.
Fun works, even in your more serious communications. If you think your brand can take that “risk,” take it. Have fun.
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Does anybody proofread anymore? I downloaded an iPhone app yesterday. I never offered my company name. I deleted the app completely within an hour.
That didn’t stop “Jessica a” from emailing me this ???? today. If your one-size-fits-all auto response doesn’t make sense in all situations, rethink it.
Thank you for joining me on The Journey.
See you next week – or sooner – if you choose to reply to this email,
P.S. If you got this far today, you deserve an ????. I know GDPR wasn’t titillating. They can’t all be. ????
