For 2012, we wanted this year to be one for the books. We wanted this year to be the catalyst for more positive, impactful years to come. So to do that, we knew we had to think big. We had to think differently than the status quo. So what did we come up with as our goals for 2012? Here’s a few:

1) Impact before Growth - I saw a quote recently talking about the definition of success and immediately thought, “Heck yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!”. It said something like this:

“Success isn’t only about making money, it’s about impacting people’s lives.”

So this year we are making it a company goal to have even deeper relationships with our clients and finding ways to help/connect/grow/empower them in the things that they do, either personally or professionally. We also think we have an opportunity to co-create something with them for their customers as well. We will be talking more about this in future posts…

2) Welcome to the ROC - With the success of our Continuous Compliance services we have had to retool the way we work. So we have decided to build two separate but highly integrated divisions within our company. One is the ROC (Risk Operations Center) and the other is the Field. Each will work hand-in-hand to ensure that our clients are able to receive the ultimate proactive compliance experience possible.

3) Consultants becoming Account Managers - In our effort to have a higher impact with our clients we felt we needed to be even closer to them and so we’re instituting Account Managers for our list of clients. This ensures that those clients have to only go to one place with questions or anything at all. We want our service to feel like a hotel concierge service where they feel catered to, even pampered!

These are our goals and our challenges but with the people we have in place I have no doubt we can do it. I sat down with the team recently and went through these goals. Here are some comments I received from them afterwards:

“I left our ‘Vision for 2012′ meeting with more motivation and excitement since I first started at Garland Group. Changes we are making to our workflow will really improve our interaction and reporting to clients, while internal incentives provide real opportunity for everyone at Garland Group to succeed professionally and personally.” – Heath Stanley

“I believe as the Garland Group moves forward in 2012, our goal has always been to meet the needs of our clients with knowledge and efficiency. Now, internally Garland Group is also directing that same philosophy with the creation of Operation and Field divisions, all in an effort to assist and impact our clients on a positive, efficient basis. I’m very excited to be part of the Garland Group at this time.” – Dan Nerada

I’m thrilled to have a team that gets as excited about helping others as I do. Here’s to a great new year!

Looks like our new panel format webinar was a success!  We received good feedback and many of you interacted with our panelist during the discussion of how to “Manage Compliance in 2012″.  Thank you to our 3 panelist….Heath Stanley, Brad Garland and Henry Garland for sharing your  knowledge of industry trends and helping Financial Institutions get educated .  For those of you who missed the webinar, here is some of the info we covered:

• Biggest Threats to Banks in 2012
• Hot Topics for Examiners
• Enterprise Risk Management for Community Bankers
• Senior Management Compliance Responsibilities

For a PDF copy of this presentation –> Managing Compliance Panel

For those that missed the webinar, please check out the recording below.  If you can’t see the video below…Link to video here!

The holidays are a special time of the year. As a kid, I always enjoyed the presents and food but as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to appreciate just the time off to spend with those I cherish. As I normally do this time of year, I reflected back on the year its been and just how hard our employees have worked for us and for you, our clients. There are not enough succinct words to express how appreciative I am of what they do for Garland Group each week. They care so much about building great relationships and offering high quality of work – that’s the REAL business that we’re in….the ‘Peace of mind’ business.

Money or Time?

So, while in reflection, I decided I wanted to figure out a way to give back to the employees. In the past, we’ve done Christmas bonuses and the standard Christmas party but I wanted to do something a bit more for their efforts. So this year I’ve decided to give them the gift of time. There’s nothing more valuable in my opinion so we are shutting down all Garland Group operations from Friday 12/23 until Tuesday 1/3. That means no emails, no phone calls, no trips to the office…..nothing. Go enjoy the time. This is outside of their standard vacation policy, of course, and I wanted them to use this time to be with their families because family is so important to me.

I’m also requesting that the staff put this vacation message up:

“If you have any major issues during this time, Brad Garland asked that you please send your requests directly to him at brad@thegarlandgroup.net and he’ll respond ASAP otherwise I’ll be back on January 3rd. Thanks and have a blessed holiday season!”

I was excited to share this with them and more excited to hear what they will be doing with their time off (even if it was nothing at all). We all need that from time to time, right? Again, thanks to all that work at the Garland Group and those of you that we work for, we appreciate you all, and wish you a great holiday season!

Thank you to Becky Frederick from Deluxe Corp. for an excellent webinar presenting Best Practices in Complaint Management.  This topic seems to be on everyone’s hot topic list ….here is some of the info she covered:

• Current regulatory landscape review of Compliant Management
• How to build your complaint processes and program
• What role UDAAP plays a part in the complaint space
• The role of social media
• 10 point readiness checklist for your own successful complaint management program

For a PDF copy of this presentation –> Complaint Management Best Practices

For those that missed the webinar, please check out the recording below.  If you can’t see the video below…Link to video here!

“Password” ranks first on password management application provider SplashData’s annual list of worst internet passwords, which are ordered by how common they are. (“Passw0rd,” with a numeral zero, isn’t much smarter, ranking 18th on the list.)

See here for the rest of the article.

Over the last couple of years we’ve spent quite a few reports harping on the need for financial institutions to develop a social media policy. We usually do this because of our concern for the reputation, compliance and strategic risks that social media can present in the form of data loss. Furthermore, staff members are still the easiest access points, and so training employees on the threats is key to the success of an Information Security program.

Conversely, there is also the risk posed your organization from a business standpoint if you’re out of touch with your customers. These days we’re all faced with the tension between data security and open communication. And so, of equal importance is identifying what message you’re going to communicate to your customers and which tools you are going to use to do that. Here are some links that might help.

How Financial Institutions should use Facebook

- This first link is designed specifically for financial institutions, and helps provide some guidelines for what to discuss. Hint: Don’t just talk about banking.

How to Time Your Posts for More Impact

- This link helps you time your facebook posts in order to have the greatest visibility and impact. While the article is aimed at facebook pages, some of these principles transcend the platform.

How to Establish a YouTube Presence

- Lastly, for those of you who are considering venturing into the YouTube space, this link will help provide some goals and guideposts for getting started.

What Every Exec Should Know about the Social Enterprise

- Lastly, if you’re still wondering if there’s value in social media this link will help.

Hope this helps.

Heath Stanley, VP of Consulting Services at Garland Group, took time in this webinar to discuss the new release of the E-Banking Guidance for the authentication risk assessment.  Attendees learned about what needs to be included in the risk assessment as well as how to incorporate into policy and practice.  For RiskKey users, Heath demonstrated a template that was created by Garland Group and could be used to jump start this risk assessment project.

Here is the PDF presentation: E-Banking Authentication RA

Our next monthly webinar will be on Friday, December  2nd.  You can register by clicking this link:  Fri, Dec. 2nd, 2011 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM CDT.

Please join us for this free webinar.

Link to video here!

It seems everything you do now centers around how much time you have to devote to the specific event.  Most individuals struggle with allowing adequate time between family and work!  With demands of family life, attending school events, maintaining your home and the list goes on and on,  your time is extremely valuable.

Needless to say, the same happens to a lot of us at work as well.  Their always seems to be a deadline waiting, project due or meeting to attend! And of course, once the meeting is complete or project submitted, another is waiting.  With so many demands on our time, scheduling and time management, become key to dealing with your daily demands.

“Scheduling” is defined as the process of deciding how to commit resources between a variety of possible tasks, while “Time Management” is defined as the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity.  With that said, it is important for us to stay current and lenient when scheduling our continuous audit engagements.   A little advance planning and scheduling, can save a great deal of time and increase efficiency for all parties involved.  Delayed scheduling or changing previously arranged dates, while may appear good at the time, may actually cost more time in the future.

So, the next time you struggle with managing time for an audit or auditor, family event or another specific event; remember scheduling wisely may actually save time for everyone in the long run, thus leaving you valuable time to use somewhere else!

October’s Garland Group webinar moved away from the IT Security topic and took a look at how dealing with people can be the most difficult part of compliance.  One of our Sr. Consultants, Courtney Treadway, presented great information on how people cope with the conflict sometimes triggered by the audit and compliance review process.

Here is the PDF presentation: Compliance, Conflict, and Human Behavior

Our next monthly webinar will be on Friday, November 4th.  You can register by clicking this link:  Fri, Nov. 4th, 2011 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM CDT. Please join us for this free webinar!

I know in previous blogs I mentioned I grew up in a small town here in Texas.  I even went to a small college in a  slightly larger, but still small country town (it had a Wal-Mart). I continue to live like I live in a small country town.  For example; I still like to wave at people when I drive by (even at night), I like to keep my back door unlocked just in case someone needs something, I like to leave my keys in my unlocked truck so I don’t loose them, I like to leave my truck running when I run into the grocery store for a quick trip and I really like to say howdy to all the folks I pass.  Do you notice there is a theme with my truck and/or doors?  Now, I’ve been told many a time that I’m asking for it, and I am just like my grandmother.  When we would ask her why she was speeding so fast and not wearing her seatbelt she would reply; “If the good Lord want to take me…I’ma ready.” Not really sure if “I’ma” is a word but I had a similar response for my friends and family; “If they want it that bad they must need it more than me.”

Well if that didn’t just bite me right in the rump a couple of weeks back while on site with a client, right in the middle of the day.  Someone decided they wanted my new CD deck more than I did.  I had just put it in my truck for my birthday.  But before you think to say that I should have locked my doors, well…..they were.  Apparently all it takes is a screwdriver and a 4th grade education to break into Ford pickups.  Should have stuck with Chevy, but that is neither here nor there.

This brings me back to my locked doors and possibly a point.  What I am beginning to realize is that you can not always trust the greater good.  You can sure as heck hope for it, but to bring a security spotlight into the equation: We can not always trust the minimum security standards.  I made the mistake of “just” locking my doors and relying on Ford’s basic security configurations. Well, we know how that worked out for me.

It is the same thing with the security of your network and overall environment. Most times we rely on the minimum standards within our environments. Don’t get me wrong, those are usually strong in a majority of the cases and they need to be in place.  What my concern is about is the thought of this won’t happen to us and no one is really going to take the time to figure out my environment.  We, as Garland Group, never set those as our auditing standards. We have always and will continue to push our clients to be proactive and go above and beyond best practice. The idea is to not just settle and become stagnant relying on controls that are quickly becoming the ways of our past.  This is just a friendly reminder when you are conducting your internal/external tests and risk assessments to spend a little extra time ensuring you are completely comfortable with your enterprise security.

So for the next person thinking about breaking into my car; I have recently installed a cloaking device with an electric forcefield….the forcefield is much like the electric fence in the first Jurassic Park….