Kentico Helps Businesses Get GDPR Ready With London Event
With less than a year to go, the GDPR stands to change data protection as we’ve known it for the past two
decades for everyone, not just those in the EU as some have mistakenly assumed. Preparedness and understanding are paramount at this point, however, statistics have surfaced to show the staggeringly low percentage of businesses actively working on their compliance at the present time.
In an effort to educate, Kentico held a free event on September 26th, at the Bishopsgate Institute in London, for those who will be impacted by the GDPR both inside and outside of the EU. To capture the event, the CMS-Connected team was on location, filming both presentations and interviews with speakers and attendees.
A Business Design Approach to the GDPR
The main event was a presentation by Tim Walters, Principal Strategist and Privacy Lead at The Content Advisory, Founding Partner of Digital Clarity Group and Contributing Analyst for the Content Marketing Institute. During his time with the audience, Tim unpacked the GDPR down to a fundamental level, highlighting the core premise and making its understanding accessible to those at every level of an organization.
Following his presentation, he and I sat down to have a conversation about some of the topics he brought to light, including the notion of data protection by design and what that means to businesses moving forward. He went into detail on this concept and emphasized the importance of the consideration of data protection and privacy from the very conception of a new process, whether it is business or technical, and the necessity for organizations to document that thought process throughout the implementation.
However, the biggest thing I took away from both Tim’s presentation and our conversation, was how contrasting his thoughts were to how the GDPR is typically spoken of, in the best kind of way. There is a sometimes ominous notion surrounding this new regulation, even though it is more than timely considering the rapid ascent of data collection and usage in the face of regulations not quite yet catching up. Tim emphasized it need not to be thought of as inauspicious, the GDPR's core ask is more one of respect and can be leveraged in a very business positive way, even sparking innovation and giving organizations a leg-up in the engagement they can experience with their audience.
Following my chat with Tim, I sat down with a few attendees of the event to hear their feedback and found I was not the only one highly engaged and receptive to the points he made. They echoed my thoughts on how in that 90 minutes, the GDPR became relevant to every person, at every level of an organization, and it would not just be of the IT team’s interest and responsibility.
They were more ignited and inspired with their responsibilities as agencies than they were intimidated, and were excited to educate and assist their clients in compliance and understanding of the GDPR. Those in marketing emphasized how much data was a marketer’s “bread and butter” so something this impactful on the collection and care of personal data could not afford to be ignored.
You, Your CMS and GDPR
The second presentation of the day was that of David Komarek, Product Owner at Kentico Software, as 
he took us through Kentico’s perspective. I sat down with David as well to touch on just how they made their efforts to understand the GDPR from the customer perspective amidst limited information and a lack of the usual market research they were used to using when rolling out new features. To get an understanding for the development of Kentico 11, one thing they did was pull up their socks and through their own sample site, gained the firsthand experience needed to ensure their platform would be beneficial through the motions of compliance. Through his presentation, David offered a sort of GDPR roadmap organizations could follow in their own compliance journey.
When it was all said and done, I for one felt that even though it was only a half-day event, it packed a punch when it came to the density of education and information offered. In conversation with the attendees, I don't think I was the only one who would leave with an entirely new, optimistic school of thought surrounding the GDPR and its implications.
If you couldn’t be in attendance, you can still benefit from the event by checking back with our site to watch my interviews from the event and get engaged with our media channels, where we will share Kentico’s video segments of both Tim Walters’ and David Komarek’s presentations.
Laura Myers
A digital business, marketing and social media enthusiast, Laura thrives on asking unique, insightful questions to ignite conversation. At an event or remotely, she enjoys any opportunity to connect with like-minded people in the industry.