I’ve recently been the victim of a nasty email attack called “From Spoofing” and despite all the proper procedures to check and block the SPAM; I’m faced with having to change my personal email address. It should be noted – this may or may not help solve the problem.

As a digital legacy planner, this has really driven home the point about email organization. What a tremendous pain it will be to change an email that has been glued to me over almost a decade. It’s not just a matter of changing the address with friends and family; but updating all of the sub-accounts connected to it. My social media profiles will need changing, my devices will need to be reset, automatic blasts from billers, industry types and clients will need to be updated and each and every login profile that I use for daily business research will need to change.

Thankfully, I have kept a log of all this. At present there are 202 online properties that will be affected. It might take all day, but having the list will be a good start. I won’t be left guessing what’s been missed and should be able to cut down the stress of rebuilding my empire.

The importance of password and email planning is much talked about with regard to estate planning, but I have always stuck to the argument that it is JUST as important today when we are alive. What if I am incapacitated, travelling for a long period of time or looking to pass information to a successor and my business needs to continue without me? How will they find this information that is locked away in the computer?

Do yourself a favour and start keeping a log of all the accounts your email is associated with. You can password protect the document, print, fold and laminate it shut and tells someone you trust. Or use a password management software program, but keep it up-to-date! While changing my email accounts may not fully resolve my SPAM issue, having already taken this digital planning step will make the process less daunting.

Have you ever dropped your phone and lost your important photos?   Or maybe you’ve been locked out of your social media account where you host your photo library?  Time to think about protecting your image collection.  Read more about this in my latest blog with Visual Connections…

Visual Research is a niche role in the production industry.  Many people outside the television production realm don’t know image researchers exist or that they can save you time, money and legal headaches when procuring photos and video.  I recently had an opportunity to write for Visual Connections about how this important job is changing and expanding into digital media markets. Thank you Ellen Herbert for the opportunity.

Read blog post here

I had tons of fun with Melanie Pockaj recently, talking about Digital Legacy on the Georgian Bay Life program, Rogers Cable Collingwood. If you missed our talk, catch it here. (3rd segment)

It’s not often I get to mix a love of dogs with my professional work. So today, while researching World War 2 film footage, I came across this snippet from the US National Archives and just had to share. Dog lovers and image archivists unite!

My first published article for Big Picture Research! You can read it here…
http://www.mycollingwood.ca/Visual_Research_for_Business.asp