Robin Thompson says he is an IT stress reliever working with small and medium-sized businesses helping ensure that their IT is not causing them stress. Sam and Robin have known each other for a long time having started their business at a similar time and having run a networking event together.

Robin’s journey into IT has been an interesting one. As a child of the 80s he has been using computers since he was a child. Robin spent ten years in financial services and then moved to working in higher education. He did do some first line IT support as part of his role. But also did things like exam timetables for the University of Hull. At one stage Robin was offered the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy from the University, At the same time Helen his wife and co-director was between jobs and so they decided to take the redundancy and setup the business.

Sam asks what photographers need to think about in terms of their IT. Robin says for those in creative industries you will need high spec equipment and lots of processing power. Backing up your data is an important thing to think about. But due to the file sizes that photographers deal with are very large so that cloud storage can start to get very expensive. Robin suggests one way of doing this is having project files on cloud storage, but use external hard drives to backup the raw photo files. Backblaze is service that some photographers use as the storage is a lot cheaper than Google or Microsoft cloud storage.
In terms of security Robin says the built in security has got a lot better over the years on Windows computers. He also reminds us that Macs, contrary to popular opinion, can get viruses. They can also pass viruses onto Windows computer and it is not good for your business if you accidentally pass viruses onto customers, so ensure macs have 3rd party anti-virus software on them.
Robin says domains and emails are also important. Some small businesses use Gmail or Hotmail addresses for their business and this does not look very professional. Then have a professional email system around that, that will scan incoming and outgoing emails. Spoofing is a challenge at the moment (spoofing is someone pretending to be someone else). Good email scanning will deal with this. On top of this email marketing needs a domain based email address.
Because we do have problems like spoofing there are now systems in place to prevent this. But this does also mean it can be harder to deliver genuine email. When properly setup this isn’t a problem, but setting up email accounts correctly is correct.

Robin explains that backups are much more than photos. Emails, invoices, contact information and more, all needs backing up. If these aren’t backed up it could cost you your business.
Robin has used photography in his business and he says you can tell when photography has been done professionally. Robin had the opportunity to be in a magazine with a focus on his wife in the business. They got professional photography for that and thought the results were excellent. Although you can take photos with a phone, it is not the same.

Sam asked Robin to share his experience of using professional photographers. Robin thinks that initial conversation, before the photo shoot is very important. It’s a careful balance of the photographer providing expertise and suggestions with listening. Also many people are very uncomfortable in front of the camera and so making people at their ease in front of the lens is important. He likes the idea of a retainer for photographers but doesn’t work on that basis with his photographer.

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