By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

WABLE, a social app for neurodivergent people, including those ‘on the spectrum’ – started during the COVID lockdowns in Melbourne – is today beginning to have a global impact.

It’s a culmination of the work started by Holly Fowler in 2000 when she was about 20 years old. 

“I watched the ABC series Love on the Spectrum,” Ms Fowler told Talking Business. “I fell in love with the show and I thought, why isn’t there anything like this to connect the neurodivergent community for friends and dates and other resources as well?”

Of course, it’s become much more than that. It’s now an app designed to create connections.

“Sometimes I go back and look at how much it evolved. Because we have an in-app psychologist, and I am speaking with parents and carers and support care workers, primary carers in the neurodivergent community, it occurred to me that, yes, there are lots of people seeking romantic partners and, yes, Wable can be platform for that.

“But it can also be a platform for making friends, to connect even if you’re not sure of what relationship you’re looking for but you want to connect with like-minded people who might understand the similar challenges that we’re going through” she said.

“Neurodivergent or neurotypical, we all want to feel valued and understood.

“That made rethink and broaden the app for what it was offering. If we could make it a platform for as many people as possible to find the connections they’re looking for, then why not open it up.”

Chasing down the investment

Obviously anyone opening an app when they were about 20 years old needs investment. That’s exactly what Ms Fowler managed.

“It started (out) just as myself,” she said. “I started the idea by myself and started building out what that prototype looked like with savings but like, I am 25, and savings could only get me so far when starting a business and I hadn’t done anything like this before,” she said. 

“I was building what the prototype would look like in the middle of the night and refining the idea and what I wanted Wable to look like – but that was beside my day job.

“I needed to make sure I had funds behind me but also to get the right team in place so that when we got to launch and people were using it, there would be the right resourcing in place to make sure we could service the customers.

“So I quickly needed to get investment and get a team around me that had the same vision,” Ms Fowler said.

“I’m really lucky now. We have got a board of four and more staff outside of that board which has been instrumental in our growth and success.”

Wable gets international attention

The most exciting thing about Wable is it is attracting overseas audiences and it’s planning to expand.

“We got to launch in Australia, which was a pretty big feat, but then there were a lot of people trying to sign up for the app overseas,” Ms Fowler said.

“We always had expansion plans. We’ve already got sign-up groups overseas and I am really excited for when the app is turned on in their country.

“We’re looking to launch next in the UK, US and New Zealand.” 

www.helloable.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-2-interview-with-holly-fowler-from-wable

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By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

AUTODESK research has found Australian ‘design and make’ companies – architects, engineering, construction operations and manufacturing firms – are behind the rest of the world in the kind of digital maturity they need to transform their businesses.

Autodesk – a company that develops software for 3D design, engineering, and entertainment, and which services a variety of professionals, including architects, engineers, designers, manufacturer and 3D artists – did the study analysing 2500 organisations around the world. About 250 were from Australia.

Andy Cunningham, the senior regional director for Australia and New Zealand at Autodesk, said Australia fared fairly well in a few areas but lagged globally in others.

“We found that 36% of organisations regard themselves as digitally mature, which is actually slightly behind the world average in that regard and of all organisations that responded, only 15% achieved their goals,” Mr Cunningham told Talking Business. 

“We were slightly behind the global average as the far as the completed status.”

Australia falls behind in sustainability

Australian companies were also behind the rest of the world in terms of sustainability. 

“Of those customers surveyed, only 13% had clear goals for carbon neutrality within their organisation which is about 10 points behind the global average,” Mr Cunningham said.

He said digital transformation was particularly important in driving productivity. This is critical in Australia where productivity levels are now at low levels where growth in hours worked outpaces growth in output.

Productivity in Australia has now returned to the same stagnant pattern to what was seen before the pandemic.

Mr Cunningham said this problem was most notable in Australia’s construction industry.

“If the construction industry were to be more productive, there would be reduction in waste, cost and better sequencing,” he said.

“For 50-60 years, we have not evolved so far as productivity in construction.

“You see that on sites today. The adoption of digitisation in the field itself is one of the greatest laggards in the industries we see, right across the digital spectrum.”

Digital lag holds companies back

However, Mr Cunningham pointed out that this pursuit of digital transformation was an ongoing process.

“It’s an evolving journey, you could argue it’s never complete,” he said.

Mr Cunningham said one of the three big issues stopping companies transforming themselves digitally was attracting and retaining talent. The other two were managing costs and reacting to global volatility and economic events.

From his own perspective, he said companies needed this to be discussed and understood at boardroom level in terms of metrics and value.

“It has to be understood and invested at a board level,” Mr Cunningham said.

“It drives growth, that’s the thing. What have seen in our research is that clients that have actually transformed or are transforming are more productive, more competitive and more digitally mature as well so they’re getting more work, they’re more cost effective.

“And of the entire world-wide survey that we did, 79% of respondents said the future of their company depends on digital tools.”

He said when there was no investment from the board “these small projects that either stay on the project level or die on the vine”.

www.autodesk.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-43-interview-with-andy-cunningham-from-auto

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is taking over the business world. Or is it?

Joel Delmaire, JobAdder’s chief product officer, believes AI is still in its infancy. It will take some time before the rest of the business world and the community at large catches up with it.

He said many companies did not yet understand it – but it was easy to see why.

“Keep in mind the technology is only two years old. Generative AI is really young in the industry,” Mr Delmaire told Talking Business.

“It takes a lot of time for companies to understand it, adopt it, use it in the right way and I would not say today it’s being widely used or widely deployed.

“But I would imagine in the next two to three years, you will see an explosion of its use in our day to day life.” 

The case for AI in recruitment

Job Adder is a recruitment software company, so Mr Delmaire is particularly familiar with the all the issues that come up with AI use in the recruitment space. However, he can talk about its application more broadly,

He said the government was quite correctly developing AI legislation to protect the community. At the same time, it could not develop legislation that would stop businesses from innovating.

“The challenge is, if you want to do that, you can become over-specific, in the way you prescribe working with AI and it puts a burden that is quite significant, especially for small companies in terms of applying the regulation to the point where you stifle innovation,” Mr Delamaire  said.

“We’ve seen that with all the technologies in the past. It’s a really hard line to balance, specifically because the problem is so broad.”

Mr Delmaire said he was not convinced Australia would be able to train enough AI specialists fast enough. The regulations, he said, make the assumption that all companies will be able to find the talent and people who can comply.

“It’s a very tricky profile to find because you need, on one hand, to be familiar with legislation and regulation and on the other hand deep in the technology – and there are very few people in the market that can do that,” he said.

“The challenge in that space is it might create a very uneven playing field.

“Companies that are bigger can afford the resources, that can find the talent and pay premium talent and you take the risk of having smaller companies being pushed out in the ability to work in that space,” Mr Delmaire said.

“I would be very concerned to be a start-up trying to build my new business on something that’s backed by AI today, with what can happen in the short term.”

Regulators will help level AI playing field

Mr Delmaire said one of the good points was that regulators around the world were moving in the same direction.

“Hopefully we don’t end up in a place where we have pockets of different legislation between the EU, the UK, the US and Australia,” he said.

As an example In the recruitment space, if a candidate writes in and nominates dates for interviews, AI can easily process that. If AI gets it wrong, it’s no big deal. That can be easily fixed with a phone call or email.

But an important issue with AI is ethics. AI, after all, draws its data from the internet and it is very easy to have biases come into its guidance. AI can very easily replicate those biases.

“The challenge with AI is it looks smart. It can say absolutely the wrong thing and be 100 percent wrong,” Mr Delmaire said.

Having AI vetted by human beings would help. However, even that has limitations.

“One of the answers is to always have a human in the loop, but then you lose some of the benefits so you probably want to do that when it’s really critical that you don’t get it wrong,” Mr Delmaire said.

“Keeping in mind that humans are also biased, either consciously or unconsciously … You probably want to make sure that your AI is not more biased than the average human, but you will never protect from the fact that we are human and we are biased.”

www.jobadder.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-35-interview-with-joel-delmaire-from-jobadd

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MAIN STREET Alliance (MSA) – the USA’s nationwide network of small business owners advocating for inclusive economic policies – has welcomed the recent legal declaration that Google operates as “a monopolist in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act”.

This landmark decision is a significant win for small business owners across the nation, ensuring a fairer and more competitive digital marketplace, according to Main Street Alliance.

Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in the case of United States of America vs Google LLC found that Google had unlawfully maintained its monopoly by excluding rivals from the general search engine market.

This exclusionary conduct, according to Main Street Alliance, has stifled competition, raised prices for advertisers, and deprived consumers of potential higher-quality search alternatives.

Main Street calls it a ‘win’ for small business owners

The Main Street Alliance has long championed fair competition and equitable access to resources for small businesses. The ruling against Google aligns with the alliance’s mission to combat corporate consolidation and advocate for policies that level the playing field for small businesses. 

“This decision is a monumental step towards restoring fairness in the marketplace,” Main Street Alliance executive director, Richard Trent said.

“For too long, small businesses have struggled against the overwhelming dominance of corporate giants like Google. This ruling not only recognises the anti-competitive practices that have disadvantaged small businesses but also sets a precedent for stronger enforcement of antitrust laws.”

Decision helps empower entrepreneurs

Australia is similar to the US in the way that small business are the backbone of the American economy, fostering innovation, creating jobs, and strengthening communities.

However, Main Street Alliance members have pointed out for decades how the monopolistic practices of companies like Google have hindered the growth and success of countless entrepreneurs.

Mr Trent said by paying billions to secure default search engine status on popular devices, Google had effectively prevented competitors from gaining a foothold, “thereby limiting consumer choice and stifling innovation”.
Traditionally, Main Street has been synonymous with bricks-and-mortar businesses, but this ruling has highlighted the “growing importance of online entrepreneurs who also deserve protection from monopolistic overreach”.

“Ensuring a level playing field in the digital marketplace is essential for the success of all small business owners, whether they operate physical stores or online enterprises,” a Main Street Alliance statement read.

Next steps and broader implications

As the case moves into the remedy phase, Main Street Alliance is urging the court to implement measures that will effectively dismantle Google’s monopoly and promote competition.

Potential remedies Main Street put forward include ending exclusive dealing contracts, breaking up Google's various business segments, or requiring the company to share data with competitors.

The Main Street Alliance was founded in 2006, when small business owners in Maine, Washington, Oregon, and a few other states united to advocate for healthcare reform. The campaign shed light on the power of small business organisation and the need for Main Street voices in policy discussions.

Now the Main Street Alliance champions the voices of small business owners nationwide to help create a thriving economy. The alliance cultivates a growing network of entrepreneurs, connecting them with resources to build sustainable enterprises.

Today the Main Street Alliance membership drives state and federal policymaking that “gives a fair shot to small businesses and strengthens communities nationwide”. The alliance focuses on meaningful engagement and research-backed advocacy, building a coalition of citizens and elected leaders committed to giving entrepreneurs a fair shot at success.

www.mainstreetalliance.org

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