Earlier this week I wrote about how organisations should start gearing up for the challenges and opportunities of the forthcoming Data Protection Regulation by looking at how well they are complying with current principles, and in particular what they can learn from the mistakes of others as set out in the Annual Reports of the Data Protection Commissioner (if in Ireland) or the relevant Data Protection Authorities (e.g. the ICO in the UK).

This should be approached as a "quality systems" problem - with an emphasis on continuous improvement and making incremental changes over time rather than trying to push for a "big bang" fix. The latter approach won't work.

In parallel with that line of thinking, I've been in deep strategy mode in relation to Castlebridge Associates and how our approach to marketing and communicating might need to evolve to meet the challenges of today and the opportunities of tomorrow. This was in part trigged by my involvement in a number of audits, green field projects, and reviews of the Data Protection Regulation over the past few months. In particular questions that have arisen about the scope and extent of some of the provisions ofthe Regulation had me assessing emarketing in the context of SI336 (which enacts the ePrivacy Directive in Ireland).