Secure Thinking: IT Security Specialists Join Burnley Bondholder Scheme

East Lancashire based Secure Thinking, a company specialising in IT and Information Security solutions today announced that it had joined the Burnley Bondholders Scheme to help promote the town as a place to do business.

The Bondholders scheme is an "innovative and powerful network of organisations who believe what is good for Burnley is good for business."  The scheme was set-up to promote Burnley and change the view of the town as being a run-down, deprived area of stereotypical empty mills, cobbled streets, flat caps and whippets.

Secure Thinking's contribution is more than just financial.  Lee Hezzlewood, the founder of the company is a Burnley lad, born and bred.  His background makes him proud and defensive of Burnley and he is keen to see the town prosper.

"Burnley and East Lancashire region is a fantastic area with amazing countryside and warm, welcoming people.  The problem is that the media typically depicts the place as run-down and deprived.  Whilst some areas are deprived, just like in any other decent sized town, there are also some truly great business leaders, innovation and opportunities in the area.  And I want to do what I can to promote them."

Secure Thinking was created to help other businesses protect themselves and their clients from loss of data, identity theft and online fraud, and Lee believes that it's hi-tec companies like his which will lead the regeneration of the region and turn it into a truly great place for business.

"Companies are becoming much more cost conscious and looking at better ways of operating.  With modern communications and technology, companies don't need to operate from City based, fixed offices with huge overheads.  Instead, they can look at reducing those overheads and allowing staff to work with more freedom and operate from locations offering better value for money.  In my view, Burnley is just such a place."

Secure Thinking's New Anti-Spam & Email Filtering Solutions

IT Security Specialists Secure Thinking have teamed up with CronLab to help SME businesses safeguard themselves and their clients from the dangers posed by spam email.

"Spam is a growing problem and a major threat to businesses both in terms of security but also for productivity," commented Lee Hezzlewood, Secure Thinking's Managing Director.

"If your employees inboxes are full of unwanted and unsolicited emails then their work is going to be affected because they are having to take time sorting the emails and filtering the wheat from the chaff.  On top of this you have the real threat of malicious intent, of emails which harbour viruses or link to infected websites and the dangers of phishing attacks, where emails are designed to fool the recipient into parting with sensitive information by making them believe they are responding to a legitimate request."

Secure Thinking's spam filtering solution is available as either a cloud based "hosted" service or via the use of dedicated appliances, which take minutes to install and set-up. 

Either solution can be used for incoming and outgoing spam filtering, the latter ensuring your business doesn't become the source of spam resulting in your email being blacklisted should your own security be compromised.

There is also the option of stripping off email attachments and replacing them with a link, reducing the size of emails and inboxes for your company and your clients.

If you want to know more about Secure Thinking's Spam Filtering solutions contact us on 0845 071 4690 or email info@securethinking.co.uk and we'll be happy to discuss your requirements.

IT Support Company Helps Lancashire Students Improve Communication Skills

Lee Hezzlewood, East Lancashire Regional Director of national IT Support company Eitex has been spending time back in school.

When Darwin Aldridge Community Academy asked for volunteers for their Words for Work program from local businesses, Lee whose business interest also include being a director of IT Security Specialists Secure Thinking, put himself forward without really knowing what he was letting himself in for.



"My initial understanding was more around helping the students with written communication," said Lee. "But when we attended our training it became apparent that the program had wider goals - to help the children with all aspects of verbal and non-verbal communication."



The Words for Work program is part of a national scheme intended to improve the communication skills of year 9 children (13-14yrs) and involves business volunteers showing the students how key communication skills are used in the real world of work and business.



The program at Darwin Academy consisted of 8 volunteers working with the students for 6 weeks. The first week the students made a presentation to the volunteers and then had their presentation skills and performance assessed with recommendations from the volunteers on how to improve their approach.



The second week involved the students and volunteers interviewing each other with ideas and suggested improvements again passed.



Over the remaining 4 weeks the students and the volunteers split into groups with the objective of creating a product highlighting good communication skills and then presenting it to the other groups.



The final week was supposed to be where the groups each presented their product to the other teams.  But unfortunately one of the groups hit a rather major snag, as Lee explains.

"Our group was making a short slide-show based film with sound effects and music.  Unfortunately, the finished product was placed on a USB memory stick in the care of one of the students who didn't make the session.

"It left the other members of the group devastated and they were worried how they were going to get around it!"

By a twist of fate, the school had decided to do yet another presentation of the products to a wider audience including the Principal Mr Loughran, and so an additional date was added to the program.

"This gave us a great way to  turn our disaster into a massive positive.  So between Imelda O'Keefe of IMS Coaching [the other volunteer in the group], the students and myself, we decided that the "Release Date" for our film would be after Easter and so we left the audience with a little bit of background on our project and a teaser as to what the final product will be like," said Lee.  "All the volunteers thought this was the best lesson the students could have learned - how to turn what should have been a disaster into a really positive outcome."


The final presentations will now be held on the 6th May at Darwin Aldridge Community Academy.