There are now a number of financial support packages available to help digital technology businesses who have been impacted by COVID-19. Need help to understand the options and establish the most appropriate path for your business? Each funding package has different eligibility criteria and long term implications.

This session will help demystify the options and provide some guidance on what you need to do to get the right support.

Speakers include:-

Paul Atkinson from Par Equity

Chris Thompson from Anderson Anderson& Brown

We will also have speakers from UK Government and Scottish Government.

Book now using the learn more link below

This event is invite only.  If you would like to attend please email ciara.mitchell@scotlandis.com

We would like to invite you to our next Women in Cyber event on May 5th at 9.30am which follows on from our initial event in Edinburgh in February.

The May event will be held as a webinar so the structure may be a little different.

Toni Scullion has agreed to talk to us about her work in encouraging girls into STEM roles and the various initiatives she is engaged in such as dressCode.

We will also play back the responses to the survey, discuss the impact COVID19 is having on us all and our businesses and agree future areas of focus

Our online office will be open for an hour every Wednesday between 1.30 – 2.30, with a different member of the ScotlandIS team for you to catch up with if you’re bored, would like a check in or just some human contact. We might be drinking tea, but we’d love to see you – it’s an open invitation, drop by whenever the door will be open.

Do you know what really happens behind the scenes when a user creates a new Team in Office 365? (More than you think!)

Where do files go when you share them with a Teams channel? (Hint: check SharePoint.)

How can an O365 admin see which sensitive files have been shared outside a Team via links?

In this session introduced by Ciara Mitchell, Head of ScotlandIS Cyber , our Office365 expert Steven Nesbitt will walk you through the common challenges we see in the field and show you how Varonis can help you get the visibility and control you need to keep O365 data secure and compliant.

It will be recorded. So if you can’t make it, register and we’ll send you the recording.

BONUS: All attendees are eligible to earn 1 (ISC)² CPE credit.

It seems likely that we’ll start to see businesses opening up in the near future, but how are we going to come out of lockdown and move forward?

There are a multitude of short and long term practical considerations – social distancing and health & safety compliance, putting the team back together again after working remotely for so long and considering those that may feel there has been unfair treatment or ‘them and us situations’ post furlough.

Have you considered what you might do is staff refuse to return for a multitude of reasons – fear, lack of childcare, or because they now feel like they can do their job at home?

Join us and hear from Ian Pilbeam, CEO, HR Dept Edinburgh & Lothians and Karen Meechan, COO, ScotlandIS for a discussion on the world of work beyond lockdown.

SCDI are delighted to confirm an event in partnership with Scottish Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland focussed on the latest business and employee support that can be accessed through Scottish Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland, such as the £100 million business support fund , My World of Work Hub and the PACE programme.

We will be joined by Jim Watson, Scottish Enterprise, Director of Innovation and Enterprise. Jim will also be joined by Gordon McGuinness, Skills Development Scotland, Director of Research, Industries and Enterprise Networks. Both speakers will provide up to date advice and support to attendees.

Our Certified Practitioner for Usability and UX Foundation (CPUX-F) training and certification exam is ideal for learning how to apply user-centred design (UCD) and UX to design successful products.

Developed in association with the International Usability and User Experience Qualification Board (UXQB), this comprehensive training and qualification exam leads to the internationally recognised CPUX-F qualification, which is independently assessed/certified by International Software Quality Institute (iSQI).

Following the user-centred design process of International Standard ISO 9241:200, the training covers best practice from user research through to solution design and evaluation with plenty of opportunities to apply practical UX skills taught during the course.

What will I learn?

The first two days of training cover the fundamentals of usability and user experience including:

• How to apply user-centred design principles and guidelines from the earliest stages of user needs research through to final evaluation
• Understanding and defining the context of use: procedures for analysis, user observation, interviews, developing personas, scenarios, customer journey maps, and identifying user groups
• How to gather and specify user needs and requirements including designing for accessibility
• Information architecture analysis techniques for effective navigation design
• Designing solutions: interface design guidelines, creating prototypes, dialogue principles, accessibility and best practice in error messaging
• Usability testing and other evaluation methods: a step-by-step approach to preparing and running usability tests, applying heuristic evaluations and designing insightful surveys
• Integrating UX with agile development and Lean UX techniques

On the third day we conduct a ‘crash course’ in the morning then review the materials from the first two days to prepare for the exam. There are no exercises but rather a focus on the most important topics, discussing key questions and conducting a mock exam. Then in the afternoon we hold the certification exam for the CPUX-F qualification.

From Small Business Grants to increased supply chain cyber risk, from work force mental health to the paradigm shift in WFH, to reducing the white noise in the many cyber vulnerability and threat feeds to just keeping my business and our rural economy viable and solvent.

To Zoom or not, how do I communicate securely with my staff and customers?

Building on our recent cyber workshops across Scotland’s Highland & Islands, this webinar addresses these key concerns and more for Scottish SME’s with an ethos of support, signposting and resilience.

This is not a black-and-white scenario. If there are components of your infrastructure or processes that we’re not ready when this crisis broke, there is time now to review and improve them. What will the future hold, what do I address first, what are my key priorities in Business Continuity?

You will hear and interact with a panel of expert presenters drawn from a range of business disciplines with a focus on cybercrime, innovation and opportunity.

Our panel includes representatives from

·      Stornoway Chamber of Commerce

·      Scottish Government Cyber Resilience Unit

·      Police Scotland H & I Cyber Protect Officers

·      SBRC Ethical Hackers

This webinar continues in our series of Scottish Business Cares webinars available at  https://www.sbrcentre.co.uk/events/  and is delivered on behalf of HIE, with the support of Scottish Government, Police Scotland, Business Gateway and others.

Our online office will be open for an hour every Wednesday between 1.30 – 2.30, with a different member of the ScotlandIS team for you to catch up with if you’re bored, would like a check in or just some human contact. We might be drinking tea, but we’d love to see you – it’s an open invitation, drop by whenever the door will be open.

Product Ownership goes beyond writing user stories or managing a product backlog. Product Owners need to have a solid understanding of how to drive the delivery of value.

Over 2 days, from early stakeholder engagement through to release planning and delivery, you will learn techniques to measure, maximise and deliver value to the marketplace. You will also work online with other participants on real-life cases with hands-on exercises.

NOTE: Due to COVID-19, this is a live virtual (online) class.

Virtual Price: £890+VAT
Virtual Early-bird: £750+VAT (until 24th April)

Our regular update on recent developments in relation to data protection and ePrivacy including:

• Data protection issues as we move into the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Recent case law, including the Supreme Court’s judgment on vicarious liability in Morrisons Supermarkets
• The latest on the proposed ePrivacy Regulation
• Recent ICO guidance, consultations and enforcement action

Join Ruth McKay, Marketing Director at Uniq Sales & Marketing and Keith Easton, Director at Wel Podcast Studio for this unique insight into how you could use podcasts to promote your business.

As a huge fan of podcasts (primarily real crime and Woman’s Hour) I hadn’t considered podcasts as a form of marketing. Yet companies of all sizes and types are using Podcasts as an innovative form of marketing. Their popularity has only increased with more of us turning to podcasts to entertain us on our daily constitutional or at home (I listen while I do my cleaning).

Did you know there are an estimated 7.1 million listeners in the UK? That means one in eight people listen to podcasts, an increase of 24% over the past year and more than double over the past five years (Ofcom). 63% of listeners are men with 67% listening to an entire episode (backtracks.fm).

I will be speaking with Keith Easton, Director of Wel Podcast Studio about podcasts. We will talk about what makes a good business podcast and how small and large businesses are using it as a marketing tool.

Find out:

• What makes a good and bad podcast
• What types of businesses does it work for
• What makes it a powerful and personal marketing tool
• How to market your podcast

Keith has worked with many companies including Queen Margaret University, EGG (Edinburgh Gossip Girls), Whin Co, Alan Nash (Ace Property), Edinburgh Rugby and many more.

Join us for (virtual) lunch on Thursday 14th May at 12.30 pm for 30 minutes and discover this new marketing channel.

A Professional Scrum training course created by Ken Schwaber, Scrum.org, the Professional Scrum Trainer Community, and Daniel Vacanti who helped to develop the Kanban Method for knowledge work. The Professional Scrum with Kanban™ (PSK) 2-day course shows you how you can introduce complementary practices from Kanban while continuing the way they are already working with Scrum, all without changing Scrum.

This two-day course is designed to help developers create accessible web products that comply with WCAG 2.1. The course considers accessibility at the code level, therefore attendees will require a basic understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

We will provide you with details of common accessibility issues and how to overcome them, and we will take you through usage of the most common assistive technologies and other tools to aid you in accessibility development.

Scottish Business Cares at SBRC is delighted to bring together a group of Dundee Businesses and organisations to highlight what is going on in the City around Covid-19.

In spite of what is a new reality for all of us, it is so encouraging to see how the business community like Dundee coming together – COVID has become an opportunity to highlight how as business communities we can come together and support each other.

Join us to hear how Business in Dundee is coping with Covid-19, advice on what organisations should do and also how they prepare themselves around Business resumption.

10.00 – Kick off and welcome Jude Mc. Corry CEO SBRC

10.05 – John Alexander, Leader of Dundee City Council – Building the resilience of Dundee City, the council’s role in supporting the business community and planning for a post-covid19 future.

10.15 – Chris Martin, CEO Waracle –Crystal Ball time… headwinds and tailwinds and following that through.

10.25 – Elaine Maddison CEO Bright Solid – leading through uncertainty

10.35 – Natalie Coull, Head of Division – Cyber Security, Abertay University – How can universities ensure their students are work ready?

10.45 – Declan Doyle Ethical Hacker, SBRC, keeping your businesses cyber safe and working from home.

10.55 – Lesley Larg – Thorntons – Business planning through Covid and Beyond.

11.05 – Q&A and wrap up with Paul Atkinson Par Equity.

It is an exciting time for the digital tech sector in the North East. Initiatives from organisations including Opportunity North East, ScotlandIS, Scottish Enterprise, Interface and ‘Live Life Aberdeenshire’ provide support and opportunities for the sector and help to raise the profile of the region.

Hosted by Aberdeenshire Council and LINA, join us for an interactive webinar to find out what this means for you and to hear from rural businesses UltraNetworks and Digital Maker about their experience of being a rural business and the challenges they have faced.  Hear from James Buckley about why businesses should increase their awareness of cyber security, now that we are increasingly using online platforms to communicate with colleagues, collaborators and customers.

There will also be an opportunity for you to tell us about the challenges and opportunities facing rural businesses to help us shape future activity for the tech sector in Aberdeenshire.

To book your place or find out more please email Suzanne.rhind@aberdeenshire.gov.uk by 19^th May.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Our online office will be open for an hour every Wednesday between 1.30 – 2.30, with a different member of the ScotlandIS team for you to catch up with if you’re bored, would like a check in or just some human contact. We might be drinking tea, but we’d love to see you – it’s an open invitation, drop by whenever the door will be open.

We are delighted to have Emma Bell deliver a master class on ‘How to build a resilient mindset.

Emma has spent the past 3 years travelling over 35,000 miles around the world to interview some of the world’s most resilient people to understand the key strategies that we can all apply to thrive in the face of everyday challenges.

She didn’t imagine she would be coaching and speaking on these vital strategies in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, but this is the reality.

Emma is going to share three of the most relevant of the 9 key resilience strategies developed during her research, because they are critical to leaders overcoming the challenges this crisis presents.

During this 1-hour Masterclass we will focus on:

• How to Build a Resilient Mindset.

• Key Self-Care Strategies for Leaders and Support and Connection to Enable Teams to Thrive.

• She will share the stories of those she interviewed and their practical strategies that are so resonant in the face of the terrible consequences of this pandemic.

The goal of the workshop is for you to leave with a plan to develop personal resilience as a Leader and how best to support your team to be resilient.