NEW RESEARCH by software group TechSmith shows how increasing visual communication could unlock $6.527 billion in productivity and boost Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) substantially.

According to the TechSmith report, Australian businesses could experience significant financial and productivity gains by including more visual content — such as screenshots, screencasts, images, and video — in communication with employees. 

TechSmith commissioned the Centre for Economics and Business Research to examine TechSmith’s own scientific research and productivity data, along with research into how people spend their time at work, to assess the impact of better use of visual communication in the workplace.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research report for TechSmith found that, in Australia, businesses stood to gain up to $6.527 billion in productivity. It is an astonishing figure that is verified by breaking down the impacts of better visual communication on an individual basis.

The research found that using visual content in workplace communications could unlock about seven extra minutes a day for every affected employee.

The average boost in GDP, if businesses were to use more visual communication, was estimated at 0.52 percent — or more than $167 billion annually across the six geographic regions studied, including Australia.

TechSmith CEO Wendy Hamilton said she was not surprised that visual content helped people perform.

“We’ve always known that visuals are essential to the effectiveness of communication, and therefore are essential to instruct and inspire,” Ms Hamilton said.

“The essential findings of this study are, first, that visuals matter even more than most assume and, second, there is an urgency for leaders to adapt as employee demographics change.” 

Ms Hamilton said Australia had a lot to gain if businesses were to increase their use of effective visuals. Australia could see a 0.55 percent boost to its economy – the second highest hike of any geographic region studied –  due to Australia’s combination of long working hours and a high proportion of communicating workers.

The TechSmith research also revealed the value of using more visual content in workplace communications to individual businesses.

For example, Australian businesses could save $1,384.70 per worker per year, based on average annual hours and GDP per hour.

In an eight-hour day, communicating with employees using effective visuals, such as videos and screenshots over plain-text email, the research found this could save each affected employee six minutes and 43 seconds.  Over a 40-hour week, that equates to 33 minutes and 36 seconds.

TechSmith is a company uniquely placed to provide such insights. Founded in 1987, TechSmith Corporation provides practical business and academic software products that change and improve how people communicate and collaborate.

TechSmith’s economic modelling was conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research in March 2018 and combines TechSmith scientific data and publicly-available data across Australia, Canada, France, the UK, the US and the DACH region, combining Germany, Austria and Switzerland, to quantify the impact of visual communication on business productivity.

EXTRA >> Download the full report

www.cebr.com

www.techsmith.com

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AUSTRALIAN business leaders, Claire Hatton and Greta Thomas, are helping women to boost innovation and become pioneers in their fields – through their own innovative podcasts.

Sydney-based board directors and leadership and innovation advisors themselves, through their Don’t Stop Us Now! podcast series of interviews Hatton and Thomas, are on a mission to increase the number of women who become leaders. 

Key innovative female leaders recognised by Google, Fast Company and the World Economic Forum are featured in the new podcast series that shares extraordinary career stories and advice, with the aim of inspiring other women to take action. 

Don’t Stop Us Now! shares authentic stories and practical advice from pioneering and innovative women from around the globe. The interviews reveal the real person behind the success story, their doubts, fears and tough times and how they overcame them.

“The world desperately needs more women playing key roles in shaping our future businesses, tech and society,” Ms Thomsas said.

“Innovations underway today are going to accelerate the pace and scale of change at a rate we believe people are underestimating.  For example, when it comes to AI (artificial intelligence), I want to do everything I can to avoid bias being consciously or unconsciously programmed into the key decision support tools we’ll all be affected by in the future, whether that’s in our court or medical systems, to name just two.”

According to Ms Hatton, there are still too few female role models “and way too many unsung female heroes”.

“How can we expect young women to step up without providing and celebrating the role models we already know exist?” Ms Hatton said.

“For example, only 21 percent of quotes in the news media are from women (according to the Women For Media Report 2016) – despite the fact there are multitudes of perfectly qualified women to whom one could turn. Our podcast aims to help change this reality.”

Don’t Stop Us Now! is available on iTunes and popular podcasting platforms and it includes an ever-growing, impressive array of guests.

Among those featured are Silicon Valley’s Courtney Hohne, the chief storyteller for X-The Moonshot Factory, Google’s elite innovation lab, and Tina Sharkey, San Francisco based serial entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Brandless, one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2018. 

Also featured is Audette Exel, a Forbes Hero of Philanthropy proving investment bankers have a heart, and Rachel Botsman, author and thought leader whose TED talks have been viewed more than four million times.

Kate Vale, employee number one at Google Australia and New Zealand NZ, and at Spotify Australia, is also on the program. Coming soon, Ms Thomas said, are Rebekah Campbell, serial Australian entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Zambesi; and Heidi Hackemer, vice president pf the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

The Hatton-Thomas podcasts also feature ‘How to’ episodes which explore common career issues and evidence-based tools to tackle these challenges.

Don’t Stop Us Now! is an initiative of next-generation leadership development company, Full Potential Labs.

Claire Hatton is CEO and co-founder of Full Potential Labs and has more than 25 years global business experience, most recently on Google Australia’s country leadership team. Ms Hatton sits on the board of ASX listed 3P Learning, a global EdTech company delivering innovative maths and literacy online learning solutions to 5.5 million children from kindergarten to year 12. A professionally accredited coach with a passion for neuroscience, she coaches, advises and builds leadership capability for some of the world’s most innovative companies.

Greta Thomas is also a board advisor and non-executive director,  as well as co-founder of Full Potential Labs. She has also helped launch and build numerous different ventures including several in the fintech space.

Ms Thomas is an expert contributor to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In organisation in Silicon Valley. Her executive career spanned a variety of roles from award-winning McKinsey management consultant to launching eBay in Australia as CMO. She was also part of the leadership team at Sydney Opera House and helped establish entertainer Bono’s international high-profile business-for-purpose, (PRODUCT) RED in the US and Europe. Ms Thomas was named one of 50 Women to Watch by Advance and has served on the boards of an ASX-listed financial services business, a major retail business and now advises the board of Credit Union Australia. 

www.DontStopUsNow.co

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COLLABOSAURUS has launched innovative new tools to help its 4,000 business members so far – ranging across Australia, the UK, US, New Zealand and Canada – to connect and collaborate on marketing partnerships.

An Australian-developed start-up and business match-making platform, Collabosaurus this week launched a new website incorporating a new tool set which aims to help businesses grow more rapidly and cost-effectively through collaborative marketing.

Since inception in 2015, the Collabosaurus has attracted almost 4,000 members and has a  client list including major brands such as Topshop, AMP, Mirvac, Red Bull and Cotton On. 

Founder Jessica Ruhfus said Collabosaurus effectively streamlines the partnership process, reducing what currently takes an average of six months to accomplish down to six weeks. The platform quantifies the dollar value of a brand ‘match’ weighed against the average cost of digital advertising. Ms Ruhfus said the platform made it easier to see the value from a marketing or return-on-investment (ROI) perspective.

“Additionally it opens up global opportunities to collaborate, cross-promote, grow audiences and networks,” Ms Ruhfus said.

She pointed to a recent report by American Express which found mid-sized companies that invested in brand collaboration achieved a profit 1.5 times their investment and brand collaborations have been found to be 30 time less expensive than other digital advertising. However, 37 percent of small and mid-sized companies reported said their most recent collaboration took six months or more from initial conversation to the start of the collaboration.

Ms Ruhfus said among the new tools available to brands was ‘Match Value’ which enabled brands to pre-determine potential exposure and the impact of a collaboration against the average cost of advertising before starting a conversation with the other brand.  There are also new analytics and reporting tools, a chat function and a new ‘matching’ algorithm.

Callabosaurus’s Match Value tool is designed to weight the potential exposure and impact of a collaboration against the average cost of digital advertising.

“It’s easy to see what a connection could potentially be worth, in a dollar sense, before a connection is made,” Ms Ruhfus said.

The new ;’view company names’ feature, available to subscribers, allows users to see the company names of their top matches, reducing the time it takes to secure a valuable connection.

The impact from collaborations has traditionally been hard to track, because of the  multiple assets, leverage points and channels potentially involved. Ms Ruhfus said the new Collabosaurus analytics and reporting tools brings marketing analytics data into the one dashboard “for transparency between brands and a well-rounded overview of the campaigns’ results”.

There is also a new chat function and legal agreements capability. Collabosaurus partnered with Law Squared to provide joint marketing agreements and memorandum of understanding (MOU) documents.

“When brands connect, the conversation now happens within the platform and suggests next-steps,” Ms Ruhfus said.

Template campaigns are now also part of Collabosaurus.This feature allows the creation of a campaign based on a specific collaboration idea, but it also has functions to support brands open to opportunities.

“For the time poor, we now have a ‘template campaign’ where only four fields are required,” Ms Ruhfus said. “ Collabosaurus will automatically generate matches based on the industry you’re in and the potential for mutually beneficial exchange.”

Ratings have also been introduced.

“Just like in the Uber app, where you rate your driver at the end of your trip, you can now rate your collaborators based on the value of the exchange and their communication,” Ms Ruhfus said.

www.collabosaurus.com

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THE Federal Government has passed the biggest changes to Australian media laws in 30 years – finally, with political concessions, and in part response to the rise of the internet.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the aim of the new laws was in “strengthening Australia’s media industry, enhancing media diversity and securing local journalism jobs, particularly in regional areas”.

“These changes bring Australia’s outdated media laws into the 21st century,” Mr Turnbull said. “They now finally recognise the enormous disruption that has been caused by the internet. Australian media companies will now be better placed to compete with the big online media companies from overseas.” 

In the environment of Network 10 being insolvent and held in administration – then eventually sold to lead creditor US media giant CBS – the government has abolished broadcast licence fees and replaced them with a more modest spectrum charge. This in effect provides almost $90 million a year in ongoing financial relief to metropolitan and regional television and radio broadcasters – acknowledging the importance of free-to-air television to Australian communities.

Another community-based measure is the ordered reduction in gambling advertising during live sport broadcasts. Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said this represented “a strong community dividend with the establishment of a clear ‘safe zone’ for families to enjoy live sport”.

A major financial concession is the abolition of redundant ownership rules that shackle local media companies and inhibit their ability to achieve the scale necessary to compete with foreign technology giants, according to Mr Fifield.

Also in the community interest is the retention of diversity protections that ensure multiple controllers of television and radio licences as well as minimum numbers of media voices in all markets. These are the two-to-a-market rule for commercial radio, the one-to-a-market rule for commercial television, the requirement for a minimum of five independent media voices in metropolitan markets and a minimum of four independent media voices in regional markets. These are supplemented by the competition assessments made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Higher minimum local content requirements for regional television following trigger events, including introducing minimum requirements in markets across South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory for the first time.

There are also reforms to ‘anti-siphoning’ requirements – providing free access to key televised sporting events – designed to strengthen local subscription television providers.

“The package provides significant and permanent financial relief for Australia’s broadcasters, acknowledging the intense competition they face for audiences and advertising revenue, especially from online and on-demand operators,” Mr Turnbull said. “Legislation will also be introduced by the end of this year to give effect to a public register of foreign-owned media assets.”

Other items on the media law agenda are in response to specific requests from independent senators in order to have the bill passed by both houses of Parliament.

The government will implement a $60 million Regional and Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation package including which, among other things, provides a $50 million Regional and Small Publishers Innovation fund. There is also a Regional and Small Publishers Cadetship Program, to support 200 cadetships, and 60 regional journalism scholarships.

Mr Turnbull thanked the Australian media industry for its consultations and for supporting the reforms. He said discussions included WIN, Prime, Southern Cross Austereo, Nine, Seven, Ten, Fairfax, News Corp, Foxtel, Free TV, ASTRA and Commercial Radio Australia.

“The Australian media industry has been united in its support for these reforms and will now be given the fighting chance they need to secure their future,” Mr Turnbull said.

Also in the mix were the proposals of Senator Bridget McKenzie to enhance the ABC’s focus on rural and regional Australia and a range of “enhanced transparency measures” for the public broadcasters. The senator also lobbied to include the words ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ in Section 8 of the ABC Act and for the introduction of a community radio package.

“The Government also thanks the crossbench for their constructive participation and commitment to ensure these reforms were passed in the Parliament, in particular, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the Nick Xenophon Team, Senator Derryn Hinch, Senator David Leyonhjelm, Senator Cory Bernardi and Senator Lucy Gichuhi,” Mr Turnbull said.

He criticised the approach of the Opposition in seeking to “defend media laws that were decades out of date”.

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