Is Siri always listening?

Hamilton City Council and the Hamilton Central Business Association talked about the value of leveraging pedestrian data to make more informed decisions around promotions, staffing and opening hours.

The breakfast event was hosted in the Hamilton Smart Space in Garden Place where Hamilton City Council had a display providing information on pedestrian movements around the city. The information was available as part of the first round of the Smart Space. The second round of partner displays was installed last week and includes examples from Council and technology solution providers of technology and innovation supporting environmental, wellbeing, and cultural initiatives from around the region.

Hamilton Central Business Association General Manager Vanessa Williams welcomed the CBD retailers in attendance and provided an overview of data gathered to date on foot traffic in the CBD. Highlights included increasing Sunday pedestrian counts, month on month pedestrian growth and the impact of events on numbers of people in the CBD.

“Context is valuable when it comes to interpreting data,” says Vanessa, “there are so many impacting factors like events, weather and the time of day, that can all be looked at when making business decisions.”

Vanessa is working with closely Hamilton City Council on presenting relevant data in a format that retailers and other businesses can readily access and will be following up with several business owners in attendance that indicated they would be keen to learn more.

“It’s great to see a council pulling together and making data available” acknowledged Brendan, adding that this was the basic principle on which Aider was based, the combining and sharing of data. 

After a quick poll of attendees on whether or not they used a voice assistant or had one installed at home, at which only three people raised their hands, Brendan shared his experience of asking the same question to an audience in the US where the large majority answered Yes. 

“An estimated 33% of the total population in the US use a voice assistant on a regular basis” continued Brendan, “mostly on their smartphone, but also smart speakers and increasingly with other technology connected TVs, appliances, smart home devices.”

Brendan acknowledged the fact that businesses today have so many applications they need to work with and that there is an opportunity to leverage voice assistants to support business owners in the same way the technology helps us to navigate, search the Internet, make calls, and play our favourite music.

“Business owners also have so much data available to them, and that can often be overwhelming.” said Brendan, “So we looked at how we could not only bring applications together in one place but how we could also use the connected data sets to understand such things as cause and effect, to generate greater value from the data and gain insights”

Aider, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software company, is an integrated solution that enables small business owners to schedule, automate and action business tasks, monitor and predict your social media performance, track, analyse and automate sales, and predicts and offers important business insights.

“Aider brings together all your important applications and data providing visibility over your business” said Brendan “Just like a digital employee that works 24/7.”

The event is the first in a series to be hosted by Hamilton Central Business Association in collaboration with CultivateIT to provide information and insights on digital technology tools and emerging technology innovation relevant to small businesses, delivered by leading experts in a format that is designed for a non-technical audience. These events provide an opportunity to network and engage, ask questions, and where relevant get hands-on with technology.

“Small businesses of less than 20 employees account for 97% of all NZ enterprises and a key focus for us is to support business owners to leverage digital technologies for greater efficiency, growth and ongoing sustainability” says CultivateIT Operations Manager, Jannat Maqbool.

”Collaborating with Cultivate IT is a great opportunity for our CBD businesses to keep up with ever-changing technological trends that can impact their business and decision making.” says Vanessa.

Businesses requiring further support may be eligible for funding through the Regional Business Partner network coordinated by Te Waka: Waikato’s Economic Development Agency or be connected with a Business Mentor.