WEBVTT - On the Horizon: Farm Tech - New farm office tech and cybersecurity with Carmen Quade 0:00:00.350 --> 0:00:04.610 BCG acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and 0:00:04.610 --> 0:00:07.970 their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our 0:00:07.970 --> 0:00:10.610 respects to their elders, past and present. 0:00:10.700 --> 0:00:14.150 This podcast was brought to you by GE silos. 0:00:14.180 --> 0:00:16.849 I think the first thing to do is get comfortable 0:00:16.850 --> 0:00:19.910 with being uncomfortable, as they say. Like when things come 0:00:19.910 --> 0:00:22.130 in and they're new, we're often bad at it. And 0:00:22.130 --> 0:00:24.919 as adults, you don't like that feeling of things being 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.280 difficult or harder than they were, and it's just acknowledging 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.280 that initially things are going to be harder before they 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:36.040 get easier and just persisting through that. Hello and welcome 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.760 back to Shared Solutions by BCG. I'm Janine Batters and 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.910 in this episode we're going to be speaking with Agrifocused's . 0:00:42.909 --> 0:00:45.430 Carmen Quade who we have had on the podcast before. 0:00:45.430 --> 0:00:47.770 And I'm really excited to have again, she's going to 0:00:47.770 --> 0:00:51.910 be speaking with us about new technology in the farm 0:00:51.909 --> 0:00:55.110 office and how we can use it to not only 0:00:55.110 --> 0:00:58.800 make farm office work easier, but also how we can 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:01.380 use it to make better decisions. And so we can 0:01:01.380 --> 0:01:05.069 be focusing more on what's important. So thanks so much, Carmen. 0:01:05.100 --> 0:01:06.750 Thanks, Janine. Good to see you. 0:01:06.750 --> 0:01:08.940 I'm so excited to have you back. And I should say, 0:01:08.940 --> 0:01:12.060 if our listeners haven't heard our last podcast with Carmen, 0:01:12.060 --> 0:01:13.860 I do recommend you go back and listen to that, 0:01:13.860 --> 0:01:16.230 because she is just a wealth of knowledge. And it 0:01:16.230 --> 0:01:19.140 was a really popular with our listeners . Carmen, And just 0:01:19.140 --> 0:01:21.630 for our listeners that don't know you, can you give us 0:01:21.630 --> 0:01:23.130 a little bit of a background on you? 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.640 Agrifocused is my side business. My main business is actually our 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.160 farming business. So I farm in conjunction with my husband, 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:30.900 and my brother and sister in law are also in 0:01:30.900 --> 0:01:34.950 our family partnership. So we're predominantly cropping and we're located 0:01:34.950 --> 0:01:38.100 at Tallimba, which is the northern Riverina of New South Wales. 0:01:38.100 --> 0:01:42.160 And we've got a lot of qualifications, Carmen, you're very experienced. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.410 Can you just quickly tell our listeners? 0:01:44.709 --> 0:01:47.380 So yeah, although they're dating me now, but I started 0:01:47.380 --> 0:01:50.410 off with a Bachelor of Business in Agricultural commerce, and 0:01:50.410 --> 0:01:53.440 then I've gone on to do a master's in accounting 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.340 and had a stint actually lecturing at CSU in agribusiness 0:01:57.340 --> 0:02:00.760 and in accounting. And from that that led into my 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.940 Agrifocused business now, which is more about direct to the 0:02:03.940 --> 0:02:09.959 farmer education rather than to, you know, graduate and undergraduate students. 0:02:10.230 --> 0:02:13.200 We're so lucky to have you here today, Carmen. So 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:14.850 can you tell us just for a start. So we're 0:02:14.850 --> 0:02:16.950 going to focus on a few things today. We're going 0:02:16.950 --> 0:02:20.399 to focus on some new technologies, some things that possibly 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.100 some people are doing, but other people aren't. And then 0:02:23.100 --> 0:02:26.310 some things that we need to be doing now, definitely, 0:02:26.310 --> 0:02:28.830 if we're not doing them. So could you just start 0:02:28.830 --> 0:02:31.920 by giving us an overview of what are some of 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:33.480 the things that are on the horizon? 0:02:34.050 --> 0:02:36.840 Oh, it's getting really exciting. And I think the whole 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.530 focus of it is reducing that mundane day to day 0:02:40.530 --> 0:02:44.580 repetitive tasks and automating all of those and more sort 0:02:44.580 --> 0:02:48.690 of voice recognition, text recognition. So with our bookkeeping systems, 0:02:48.690 --> 0:02:51.240 we see now, like if you're in Xero, someone can 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.640 send you an invoice in Xero and it directly loads 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.960 all the details into your accounting program. We're going to 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.200 see more cross program, so you can send an invoice 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.480 from MYOB straight into Xero. Or you can send them 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.300 Xero straight back into MYOB or everything like that. So 0:03:05.450 --> 0:03:05.660 why would. 0:03:05.660 --> 0:03:06.590 You want to do that? 0:03:06.590 --> 0:03:09.500 So instead of actually going there and typing in six 0:03:09.500 --> 0:03:11.810 bags of dog food, and how many thousand tons of 0:03:11.810 --> 0:03:15.109 fertilizer and whatever else, it's all loaded in there for you. 0:03:15.139 --> 0:03:17.780 Precoding all of that sort of stuff. It's all happening 0:03:17.780 --> 0:03:20.230 in an automated fashion. So it's just about you having 0:03:20.230 --> 0:03:23.230 those internal processes to say, yes, we've bought this stuff 0:03:23.230 --> 0:03:25.660 and yes, we're ready to pay the bill and we'll 0:03:25.660 --> 0:03:29.109 see more of that text and voice recognition stuff. So 0:03:29.110 --> 0:03:31.930 basically being able to send a text to your accounting 0:03:31.930 --> 0:03:36.400 program and it might say Bill Joe Bloggs for 50 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.750 acres or 100 acres worth of spreading at $22 an acre, 0:03:40.750 --> 0:03:42.240 and it will do up the invoice and send it 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.490 to him. And that's all you have to do. So 0:03:44.490 --> 0:03:47.010 that's not very far away in terms of text. It'll 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:48.840 be a little bit longer with voice recognition, but it 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.000 won't be far away at all. So it's the equivalent 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:55.020 of ringing your sidekick in the office, in the farm office, 0:03:55.020 --> 0:03:56.670 from down the paddock and saying, oh, can you just 0:03:56.670 --> 0:03:58.740 sort this out for me? And instead of it being 0:03:58.740 --> 0:04:01.200 a person on the other end of the phone, it's AI, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.860 or it's just a text message to an AI enabled 0:04:04.860 --> 0:04:07.940 computer program that will eliminate a lot of that admin 0:04:07.940 --> 0:04:08.660 for you. 0:04:09.020 --> 0:04:12.020 So are you saying, just to clarify, say I went 0:04:12.020 --> 0:04:15.110 and ordered some chemical get the invoice. They're going to 0:04:15.110 --> 0:04:17.570 send me an invoice from Xero, and I'm going to 0:04:17.570 --> 0:04:19.820 be able to put it straight into MYOB , and 0:04:19.820 --> 0:04:21.470 I'm not going to need to allocate that. 0:04:21.470 --> 0:04:23.870 That'll be where it'll go. You'll set up rules and 0:04:23.870 --> 0:04:25.580 things in the first place to, you know, so that 0:04:25.580 --> 0:04:29.270 identifies MAP as fertilizer and it identifies urea as fertilizer. 0:04:29.270 --> 0:04:31.120 And then that'll be the way that it will go. 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.480 So there's certainly some things that are happening now that 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:38.740 people will be doing in terms of directly emailing invoices 0:04:38.740 --> 0:04:42.460 into MYOB or Xero or Phoenix and this OCR. So 0:04:42.460 --> 0:04:45.580 this optical character recognition is already reading some of those 0:04:45.580 --> 0:04:48.940 details in now in most of the programs, it's really 0:04:48.940 --> 0:04:52.450 quite capable of picking up the names of the businesses, 0:04:52.450 --> 0:04:57.250 the due dates and the amount. There's some programs out there. 0:04:57.250 --> 0:04:59.530 Dext is one of them that will read in every 0:04:59.529 --> 0:05:01.990 line item of the bill if you want it to. 0:05:02.020 --> 0:05:05.410 So those are sort of premium end products at the moment. 0:05:05.410 --> 0:05:08.020 But like we know with all technology it starts at 0:05:08.020 --> 0:05:10.870 that premium end and then it tends to work down 0:05:10.870 --> 0:05:14.169 to the mainstream programs that are available at the average 0:05:14.170 --> 0:05:18.040 per month or per annual cost of subscription. So that's 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.450 really not very far away at all. 0:05:20.450 --> 0:05:24.559 So is Dext a different software or is that a plugin? 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.890 Yeah, it's like a plugin that works with Xero and 0:05:27.890 --> 0:05:31.250 with MYOB, similar to Hubdoc. You send your invoice into that. 0:05:31.250 --> 0:05:33.950 It does some of that early level processing and then 0:05:33.950 --> 0:05:37.279 shoots it through into Xero. which is better? It's all 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:42.730 about subscription cost versus time saved. So for a business 0:05:42.730 --> 0:05:48.040 that's processing 70 or 90 invoices a month, I think 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:52.180 something like Dext is just a really good option. For 0:05:52.180 --> 0:05:55.630 a business that's only doing 10 to 15. It's a 0:05:55.630 --> 0:05:58.750 waste of money, and you're better off spending that somewhere else, 0:05:58.750 --> 0:06:01.240 perhaps within your farm office or your farm business, because 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.850 you're not getting the time savings that you need. So 0:06:03.850 --> 0:06:06.870 it's all about, I think, balancing these things off like 0:06:06.870 --> 0:06:10.589 any tech, like any tool and saying which one is 0:06:10.589 --> 0:06:13.020 going to give me the best bang for my buck. 0:06:13.140 --> 0:06:16.170 Eventually they're all going to become very much mainstream, and 0:06:16.170 --> 0:06:17.700 we're all going to be getting that same sort of 0:06:17.700 --> 0:06:20.760 functionality as those programs continue to develop. Yeah. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:22.320 So does that mean that I wouldn't have to do 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:23.339 any allocating? 0:06:23.339 --> 0:06:26.820 It'll happen. It will happen. Sign me up! And look, 0:06:26.820 --> 0:06:28.650 even now there's you can set up rules in your 0:06:28.650 --> 0:06:31.340 existing programs so that it always recognizes. And you've probably 0:06:31.339 --> 0:06:33.770 got these in place already, but it always recognizes that 0:06:33.770 --> 0:06:35.900 electricity bill is to be coded to electricity and your 0:06:35.900 --> 0:06:38.840 rates are the same. It's only those really large ones 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.590 that tend to be problematic with the multi-product rural suppliers. 0:06:42.589 --> 0:06:45.260 So that might be elders or Nutrien or AGnVET or 0:06:45.260 --> 0:06:48.740 Delta or whoever you use where they've got potentially 16 0:06:48.740 --> 0:06:51.110 different codes on one bill. 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:53.330 They take the time, they're difficult. 0:06:53.510 --> 0:06:56.109 So there are some great things that people are doing 0:06:56.110 --> 0:06:58.900 now that perhaps are going to become more mainstream in 0:06:58.900 --> 0:07:02.080 the future. And there's a lot of people that outsource 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.200 their bookwork, but there's an increasing group of people that 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.339 are outsourcing it internationally. And I think that's really interesting. 0:07:09.339 --> 0:07:11.800 So they've got a VA or a PA that's typically 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:16.240 based in the Philippines doing their farm admin for them 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.240 from a different country. So that's sort of a bit 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.700 mind blowing for some people. It wasn't all that long 0:07:21.700 --> 0:07:24.160 ago where we were individually paying all our bills from 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.520 cheque from home and posting them off, and now potentially 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.700 the same businesses have got someone based in the Philippines 0:07:30.700 --> 0:07:33.100 that they've never met who's doing a lot of that 0:07:33.100 --> 0:07:34.600 data processing for them. 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:36.790 Not paying bills, though, just processing it. 0:07:36.790 --> 0:07:40.060 Well, depending on the relationship that's got set up, commonly 0:07:40.060 --> 0:07:43.660 it's processing. But again, you know, with time and with 0:07:43.660 --> 0:07:47.680 secure relationships and more secure connections, some of the banks 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.050 are putting barriers in place about those people paying bills 0:07:50.050 --> 0:07:52.360 for you. But you know, it will happen. It will 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.020 definitely happen because there's people at that corporate end doing it. Now, 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.930 as we talk about that drift of technology that eventually 0:07:58.930 --> 0:08:01.540 then flows down to the smaller businesses as well. 0:08:01.540 --> 0:08:05.680 That's amazing that the trust involved there, I think. Yeah, 0:08:05.710 --> 0:08:07.640 it would be great though, wouldn't it, to just go. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:08.480 You do that. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.550 Yeah. Off you go. Can you do that. Yeah. And 0:08:10.550 --> 0:08:12.740 again like the sort of relationship that you would have 0:08:12.740 --> 0:08:15.260 with somebody back in the farm office, typically we ring 0:08:15.260 --> 0:08:16.550 mum and we get mum to do it for us. 0:08:16.580 --> 0:08:17.720 You ring your wife and you get her to do 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.060 it for you. So it's that sort of relationship that 0:08:20.060 --> 0:08:23.060 you would text or you would have little some communication 0:08:23.060 --> 0:08:25.520 channel or a jobs program, and you would just get 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.700 them to do those little jobs for you booking motels, 0:08:28.700 --> 0:08:32.020 booking in car services, all of that sort of stuff. 0:08:32.170 --> 0:08:33.250 That's common. 0:08:33.250 --> 0:08:35.860 Yeah. And it will become, I think, more common in 0:08:35.860 --> 0:08:39.490 the future. But obviously those people are available domestically based 0:08:39.490 --> 0:08:42.250 as well. The difference, I guess, between the international and 0:08:42.250 --> 0:08:46.929 domestic is generally the cost. Outsourcing is such a fantastic 0:08:46.929 --> 0:08:51.969 way of freeing up time because not only are you 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.270 freeing up your own time, you potentially paying someone to 0:08:55.270 --> 0:08:58.500 do it that's quicker at it than you are, so 0:08:58.500 --> 0:09:01.440 you don't shear your own sheep, because why? You probably could if you 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.479 had to. But the reality is that you're going to 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.280 be slower at it and probably not do as good 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:07.380 a job. So you pay someone else to do that. 0:09:07.380 --> 0:09:10.290 And it's the same when we outsource bookkeeping, we're just 0:09:10.290 --> 0:09:13.260 outsourcing to someone that does it quicker than us and 0:09:13.260 --> 0:09:15.630 better than us, which frees us up in two ways 0:09:15.630 --> 0:09:18.420 the time saved and the fact that it's quicker for 0:09:18.420 --> 0:09:19.850 them to do it and then, in the long run, 0:09:19.850 --> 0:09:21.740 potentially cheaper for us as well. 0:09:21.740 --> 0:09:24.229 And that doesn't actually mean that you might spend less 0:09:24.230 --> 0:09:26.930 time in the farm office, does it? And it might 0:09:26.929 --> 0:09:30.440 just mean that you're spending more time on those, the 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.630 management side of it and looking at your figures and 0:09:32.630 --> 0:09:36.530 thinking about, oh, I'm a bit overspending there. Or rather 0:09:36.530 --> 0:09:38.959 than just doing the, the allocating. 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.410 Oh yes, it's sure. So you move from this whole, oh, 0:09:42.410 --> 0:09:45.610 if you think of a finance department in any larger business, 0:09:45.610 --> 0:09:48.700 you've got financial admin or a finance officer that's sort 0:09:48.700 --> 0:09:52.960 of at that lower end who does data processing, invoicing, 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.510 paying bills, payroll and that sort of thing. And then 0:09:55.510 --> 0:09:58.599 you might have a management accountant who's actually looking at 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.900 which sectors of the business are making money and which 0:10:01.900 --> 0:10:04.270 ones aren't, and what needs to be done there. And 0:10:04.270 --> 0:10:06.490 then at the top, you've got a chief financial officer 0:10:06.490 --> 0:10:09.880 who's dealing more with that strategy sort of piece, modeling 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.810 things out, looking at tax implications, looking at business structure, 0:10:13.809 --> 0:10:16.059 looking at that sort of 10 to 20 year plan. 0:10:16.090 --> 0:10:19.660 So what you find is that as you automate more 0:10:19.660 --> 0:10:23.050 of this stuff that's at that finance officer level, it 0:10:23.050 --> 0:10:25.960 frees you up to do that bigger picture stuff, the budgeting, 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.740 the planning, the scheduling, the comparing enterprises and all of 0:10:29.740 --> 0:10:30.760 that sort of thing. 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.250 I can't help but compare it to making a cake 0:10:34.250 --> 0:10:37.640 for a birthday party. Carmen. Yeah, I find that if 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.849 I buy the cake , it ends up looking really nice 0:10:40.850 --> 0:10:43.790 because I haven't wasted my energy on making the cake, 0:10:43.790 --> 0:10:46.339 if I make the cake, I'm like, ah, can't be bothered. 0:10:46.340 --> 0:10:48.620 And it's done. So it's the same as going. Rather 0:10:48.620 --> 0:10:51.800 than investing all this energy into something that someone else 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.579 can do that doesn't have your brainpower i n the farm space, 0:10:55.580 --> 0:10:58.600 we only have a limited amount of time, so making 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.120 smarter choices with your time so you can best spend 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:02.410 it where your business needs it. 0:11:02.410 --> 0:11:05.350 Yeah. And working to your strengths. I find, though, that 0:11:05.350 --> 0:11:08.470 the people that tend to be most reluctant to outsource 0:11:08.470 --> 0:11:10.900 stuff are the people that tend to be generally proficient 0:11:10.900 --> 0:11:13.270 at a lot of things, and they're the ones that 0:11:13.270 --> 0:11:15.490 find it the hardest. So they go, well, I can 0:11:15.490 --> 0:11:17.739 cook my own cake. What's she talking about? And I 0:11:17.740 --> 0:11:20.020 can do my own books. I can drive my own 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.710 tractor and do the services and do all of this. 0:11:22.710 --> 0:11:25.050 Those are the people that tend to find it the 0:11:25.050 --> 0:11:28.530 hardest to outsource because they're happy with the job they do. 0:11:28.530 --> 0:11:30.930 They know how they want the job done. So if 0:11:30.929 --> 0:11:33.090 that's you, just have a bit of a think about it. 0:11:33.090 --> 0:11:36.030 It's not just about giving away things that you're not 0:11:36.030 --> 0:11:39.000 good at. We've all got a limited amount of time. 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.750 Sometimes it's about handing over things that yes, you can do, 0:11:42.750 --> 0:11:46.219 but in reality you can't do everything. 0:11:46.220 --> 0:11:48.320 Which is a great point. I think a lot of 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.709 those people that you're talking about become farmers. They they 0:11:51.710 --> 0:11:53.719 know how to do a whole heap of stuff and 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.220 they know how to do it really well. So I 0:11:55.220 --> 0:11:58.340 think that message about just because you can do it 0:11:58.340 --> 0:12:00.620 and just because you can do it well, think about 0:12:00.620 --> 0:12:02.599 where you are spending that time and where else would 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:03.950 be better to spend that time. 0:12:03.950 --> 0:12:07.100 Yeah, exactly. And what brings you the most joy? Does 0:12:07.100 --> 0:12:09.559 that bring you joy? Perhaps not, even though you could 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.209 do a proficient job at it, but there might be 0:12:11.210 --> 0:12:14.929 something else that is just more fulfilling for you. And, 0:12:14.929 --> 0:12:17.839 you know, if that's the case, concentrate on that instead. 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.090 I love that point. Yeah. What do you enjoy doing 0:12:20.090 --> 0:12:21.590 on the farm? Because there's so much to do. We 0:12:21.590 --> 0:12:23.750 often think about what we need to do rather than 0:12:23.750 --> 0:12:25.400 what do you enjoy doing the most? 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.420 Yeah, definitely. So there's other sort of really simple bits 0:12:29.420 --> 0:12:31.699 of technology that are available now that we're perhaps not 0:12:31.700 --> 0:12:34.179 using to their full potential, and one of those might 0:12:34.179 --> 0:12:37.150 just be your printer. So if you've got a fairly 0:12:37.150 --> 0:12:41.380 modern printer, it's generally got wireless capability. So you'd be 0:12:41.380 --> 0:12:43.810 able to print from your phone. Yeah. If you set 0:12:43.809 --> 0:12:47.980 that up, you'll be able to scan directly into a 0:12:47.980 --> 0:12:52.240 cloud based document storage system, scan directly to an email, 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.540 scan directly into a folder where things stay permanently and 0:12:55.540 --> 0:12:58.740 are never touched. So there's lots of capabilities there that people, 0:12:58.740 --> 0:13:02.280 I think have got already that might not be exploring. 0:13:02.309 --> 0:13:06.720 We scan our farm documents from our phone straight to 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.780 MYOB , because then you can't lose a receipt, can you? 0:13:09.780 --> 0:13:11.969 Like those things are just great. And then on that 0:13:11.970 --> 0:13:15.150 other end, that OCR stuff's coming in. It's reading some 0:13:15.150 --> 0:13:18.390 of that information for you and eliminating that part of 0:13:18.390 --> 0:13:22.100 the process as well. So it's really, really good. We've got, 0:13:22.100 --> 0:13:25.189 you know, batch payments, rules, apps that link in with 0:13:25.190 --> 0:13:27.080 lots of programs. And we're seeing a lot more of that, 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.300 aren't we? A few years ago it was like, if you're 0:13:29.300 --> 0:13:31.910 with Microsoft, Microsoft was trying to take over the world. 0:13:31.910 --> 0:13:34.760 Nothing else would work with it. Everything was fighting one another. 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.700 And you'd have these glitches between, say, Adobe and a 0:13:37.700 --> 0:13:39.710 Microsoft program, and they really wouldn't want to talk to 0:13:39.710 --> 0:13:43.040 one another. Whereas now it's all about this connectivity. So 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.160 we're getting all of this integration between apps, which is 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.100 making things so much easier. So we have one data 0:13:49.100 --> 0:13:52.280 set that we're using, and we might have other bits 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.370 of software that extract information or allow us to put 0:13:55.370 --> 0:13:57.590 in information or allow us to add on some extra 0:13:57.590 --> 0:13:59.600 information in there. So can you give me. 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:01.099 An example of that Carmen. 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.309 AgWorld, which people quite often use for their cropping? And 0:14:04.309 --> 0:14:06.620 we've got Mobble that links in with that. So it's 0:14:06.620 --> 0:14:08.880 a livestock system. So they're linked so that you can 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.610 make some changes in one and they're reflected in another. 0:14:11.610 --> 0:14:14.910 So we've got uh Figured which links in with Xero. 0:14:14.910 --> 0:14:19.290 So Figured is a specific ag based software add on. 0:14:19.290 --> 0:14:22.590 And there are a number of other cash flow budgeting 0:14:22.590 --> 0:14:26.700 programs that are specifically built for agriculture that again link 0:14:26.700 --> 0:14:29.790 with Xero and link with other programs as well. So what does Figured do? 0:14:29.790 --> 0:14:33.740 So Figured does your management accounting basically came from the dairy industry. 0:14:33.740 --> 0:14:35.900 So you know the dairy industry is so data intensive. 0:14:35.900 --> 0:14:37.940 And they can work out how many cents of labor 0:14:37.940 --> 0:14:40.730 you've got per kilo of milk solids. So but in 0:14:40.730 --> 0:14:44.180 a more extensive or a mixed farming enterprise, you're looking 0:14:44.180 --> 0:14:48.170 at potentially comparing relative profitability of different crops and different 0:14:48.170 --> 0:14:51.320 crops in different years, and you're drilling down to then 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:56.180 allocating some of those overhead costs across a number of enterprises. Again, 0:14:56.180 --> 0:14:59.320 more of that management, accounting and budgeting side of things, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:02.890 rather than just the data entry and the data processing 0:15:02.890 --> 0:15:05.140 of invoices and bills and payroll. 0:15:07.750 --> 0:15:10.780 GE silos have been leading the way with their custom 0:15:10.780 --> 0:15:16.780 built grain pellet and fertilizer silos since 1978. Built using 0:15:16.780 --> 0:15:19.930 Australian made steel and offering a large range of high 0:15:19.930 --> 0:15:24.570 quality standard and optional features. The team at GE silos 0:15:24.570 --> 0:15:27.270 can work with you to ensure you find the right 0:15:27.270 --> 0:15:31.830 silo to suit your needs. Contact. GE silos today or 0:15:31.830 --> 0:15:38.100 visit GE silos. com.au for more information GE silos the 0:15:38.100 --> 0:15:39.870 right storage solution. 0:15:42.540 --> 0:15:45.560 Okay, so I keep interrupting because you keep saying really 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.690 interesting things and I'm like, oh, what's that what you 0:15:47.690 --> 0:15:49.760 said batching payments too. 0:15:49.790 --> 0:15:53.060 Yeah. So that's all of the accounting programs have got 0:15:53.060 --> 0:15:57.230 this ability and it's great. So typically someone will get 0:15:57.230 --> 0:15:59.060 a pile of bills. They'll go into the internet banking 0:15:59.060 --> 0:16:00.920 and they'll pay them one by one, and then they'll 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.310 go into their bookkeeping program and they'll go to each line, 0:16:04.310 --> 0:16:07.220 which is hopefully being automatically read in by their software, 0:16:07.220 --> 0:16:09.860 and they'll go, okay, that matches up with this bill 0:16:09.860 --> 0:16:12.920 that I've got here from Nutrien and that was fertilizer. 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.010 So I code that. So in batching we reverse it. 0:16:16.010 --> 0:16:18.470 So what we do is enter all of the information 0:16:18.470 --> 0:16:21.410 into our software program first. So it might be Phoenix 0:16:21.410 --> 0:16:24.110 or MYOB or Xero. Any of them do it. We 0:16:24.110 --> 0:16:26.570 enter all the information in first and we code it. 0:16:26.570 --> 0:16:28.820 And then we go into the bookkeeping program and say, 0:16:28.820 --> 0:16:31.910 I want to pay that bill. And the program generates 0:16:31.910 --> 0:16:35.690 an ABA file, an Australian Banking Association file. You then 0:16:35.690 --> 0:16:38.660 go into your internet banking and it will drop in 0:16:38.690 --> 0:16:42.770 30 or 40 bills with the account numbers, the name 0:16:42.770 --> 0:16:46.580 and the amount. And you will do one authorisation to 0:16:46.580 --> 0:16:50.120 send all of those bills off all together. So what that 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.510 saves is that individual authorisation, the pay bill. And then 0:16:53.510 --> 0:16:54.740 it sends you a text message. And then you can 0:16:54.740 --> 0:16:56.150 type in the code. And then you want to put 0:16:56.150 --> 0:16:58.110 the next one in. And you've got to make sure 0:16:58.110 --> 0:17:00.900 that you've updated the account details and all of that 0:17:00.900 --> 0:17:02.730 sort of thing. And then you make mistakes, and that's 0:17:02.730 --> 0:17:05.880 what takes the time, I think we often don't recognize 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.699 as you just transpose two digits, and then you get 0:17:08.700 --> 0:17:09.780 to the end of the month and you're trying to 0:17:09.780 --> 0:17:12.479 reconcile everything and nothing matches up. So then you've got 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:14.700 to work out where there's an underpayment or an overpayment, 0:17:14.700 --> 0:17:17.070 whether the payment was right or the data entry in our 0:17:17.070 --> 0:17:20.580 accounting system, when we make mistakes doing batch payments, they're 0:17:20.580 --> 0:17:23.570 really consistent. So the mistake is everywhere and the mistake 0:17:23.570 --> 0:17:26.149 is exactly the same. And once we work out what 0:17:26.150 --> 0:17:28.489 we've done wrong, we only fix it once rather than 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.890 going through and fixing it one in that bit, but 0:17:30.890 --> 0:17:33.890 not in that. And then again, so things like that, 0:17:33.890 --> 0:17:36.980 they're there now. They've been around for years. Um, but 0:17:36.980 --> 0:17:38.659 there's still people that may not be using them or 0:17:38.660 --> 0:17:40.939 may not be using them to their full capability. 0:17:40.940 --> 0:17:43.310 I think I inquired with our bank and they said 0:17:43.310 --> 0:17:46.629 that we needed to have a special business profile, or 0:17:46.630 --> 0:17:48.580 we had to pay an extra amount. 0:17:48.850 --> 0:17:51.400 You mentioned two really good points there, Janine. One was 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:56.439 that there are different internet banking profiles for lots of banks. 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.159 So lots of banks will have a generic basically domestic 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:04.869 consumer based internet banking profile. And they will also have 0:18:04.869 --> 0:18:09.850 a higher level business banking internet tool. And some farmers 0:18:09.850 --> 0:18:13.200 might be just using the domestic version, and the domestic 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:17.369 version will have limited security features. Limited features in terms 0:18:17.369 --> 0:18:21.300 of authorizing payments potentially might be a little bit quicker 0:18:21.300 --> 0:18:25.740 to use. But will have some limitations. So the the 0:18:25.740 --> 0:18:30.090 more professional ones will have more security features like two 0:18:30.090 --> 0:18:34.970 factor authentication. They might have some features that enable you 0:18:34.970 --> 0:18:38.659 to have staff or outsourced help for some of these things. 0:18:38.660 --> 0:18:41.750 So the staff might have authority to upload a payment 0:18:41.750 --> 0:18:44.450 file to the bank, but they can't send off the money. 0:18:44.450 --> 0:18:46.610 They can get that to a certain point. And then 0:18:46.609 --> 0:18:49.790 one person, or perhaps in some corporate fields, they might 0:18:49.790 --> 0:18:52.640 say we need two people to authorize a payment. So 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.920 they would have the ability for one person to authorize 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.650 the payment, and then two other signatories would come in 0:18:57.650 --> 0:19:03.100 and authorize that. But they'll often have unlimited amounts of payments. 0:19:03.100 --> 0:19:06.580 And that's a really important time saver for people. So 0:19:06.580 --> 0:19:08.500 we've all had to pay those really big bills. You 0:19:08.500 --> 0:19:11.680 might be limited with internet banking to 20 or $30,000 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.070 or $40,000. And you go there one day, $40,000, next day, 0:19:15.070 --> 0:19:16.899 $40,000 next day, and then you're counting them up on 0:19:16.900 --> 0:19:18.580 your fingers trying to work out whether that tractor is 0:19:18.580 --> 0:19:24.430 paid for, with those higher level business banking type internet facilities, 0:19:24.430 --> 0:19:25.990 it'll be just one payment. 0:19:25.990 --> 0:19:26.830 Do you recommend that? 0:19:27.100 --> 0:19:31.750 Definitely. It's a huge time saver and they are more secure. 0:19:31.750 --> 0:19:35.020 So they do have a higher level. We've got two 0:19:35.020 --> 0:19:37.480 factor authentication to get into them and then two factor 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:42.909 authentication to generate a payment that they yeah they're definitely 0:19:42.910 --> 0:19:44.470 well worth exploring. 0:19:44.470 --> 0:19:47.540 Yeah. What else, Carmen, what other things are on the horizon? 0:19:47.540 --> 0:19:51.440 What else? Look, there's apps for everything. Anything you can imagine. 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.080 So if you've got a data collection or a data 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:59.000 recording problem, someone, somewhere has developed an app to solve it. 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.790 Like in anything in farming. There's great people out there 0:20:01.790 --> 0:20:03.980 just making their own stuff in the shed. And that's 0:20:03.980 --> 0:20:06.139 what I really like just to see happen. So I 0:20:06.140 --> 0:20:08.720 did a workshop up north last week, and there's one 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.350 off the shelf free program called Jotform. And a lot 0:20:11.350 --> 0:20:14.320 of people would be familiar with Google Forms, and we 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.540 can put some links to these in the show notes. 0:20:16.540 --> 0:20:20.740 So one fellow was a contractor. He developed his own 0:20:20.740 --> 0:20:23.470 job logging form for his staff. So if they went 0:20:23.470 --> 0:20:25.870 out and did some harvesting, it allowed them to jot 0:20:25.900 --> 0:20:28.780 down who the person was, who the farmer was, how 0:20:28.780 --> 0:20:31.240 many hectares they'd put in, which paddocks they'd done, which 0:20:31.270 --> 0:20:34.480 implements they'd used, their starting hours on the machine, finishing 0:20:34.500 --> 0:20:37.950 hours on the machine, diesel litres, etc. so he'd personalize 0:20:37.950 --> 0:20:40.859 that just to exactly the information that he needed. And 0:20:40.859 --> 0:20:44.010 then he got real time access to that information as 0:20:44.010 --> 0:20:47.100 soon as the job was done. And then another person 0:20:47.100 --> 0:20:49.590 had done a similar sort of Google form to record 0:20:49.590 --> 0:20:53.430 fuel usage across their farm and where they were using it, 0:20:53.430 --> 0:20:57.030 and that was helping them with their fuel tax rebates. So, look, 0:20:57.030 --> 0:20:59.780 there's apps for both of those sorts of things. But 0:20:59.780 --> 0:21:03.140 they found a really entry level, low cost solution by 0:21:03.140 --> 0:21:06.200 having one standalone form that they used. And a lot 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.110 of those have got QR codes that you can generate. 0:21:09.109 --> 0:21:12.380 So if you've got perhaps staff that come in and out, 0:21:12.380 --> 0:21:14.659 you can just give them the QR code to log in. 0:21:14.660 --> 0:21:17.000 And I've got one on my website I've set up 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.240 as a visitor register. So QR code on the gate 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:22.460 or QR code on a piece of paper in the shed. 0:21:22.460 --> 0:21:24.980 Can you just log into this and log yourself in 0:21:24.980 --> 0:21:27.560 as a visitor so you know there's lots of potential 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.139 there to either explore what's out there and what's already 0:21:30.140 --> 0:21:33.170 been made, or potentially just make your own little thing 0:21:33.170 --> 0:21:35.120 in the office that'll do a good enough job for 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:36.470 what you're trying to achieve. 0:21:36.530 --> 0:21:38.060 You talked about some of the things that are on 0:21:38.060 --> 0:21:40.520 the horizon. I'm pretty excited about some of those things. 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.030 What are some things that we can be doing right now? 0:21:44.030 --> 0:21:46.820 Carmen in the farm office using new technology. 0:21:47.470 --> 0:21:49.720 Oh, look, I think the first thing to do is 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.020 get comfortable with being uncomfortable, as they say. Like when 0:21:53.050 --> 0:21:55.570 things come in and they're new, we're often bad at it. 0:21:55.570 --> 0:21:58.570 And as adults, you don't like that feeling of things 0:21:58.570 --> 0:22:01.570 being difficult or harder than they were. And it's just 0:22:01.570 --> 0:22:04.060 acknowledging that initially things are going to be harder before 0:22:04.060 --> 0:22:08.110 they get easier, and just persisting through that. 0:22:08.109 --> 0:22:11.160 That's such a good point. I think because you're right, 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.140 it can be quite difficult. And you think, oh, this 0:22:13.140 --> 0:22:14.850 is hard and I've made a mistake and I think 0:22:14.850 --> 0:22:17.639 it's okay to to make the mistake too, isn't it? 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:19.530 And go, well, I made a mistake. I'm not perfect 0:22:19.530 --> 0:22:22.139 at this yet, but I'll get better and asking for 0:22:22.140 --> 0:22:23.190 help too. 0:22:23.220 --> 0:22:26.760 Oh, definitely. There's so much help out there. There's so 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.880 many things are easier than they were. Mistakes are so 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.870 easy to fix in anything tech wise. They basically have 0:22:33.869 --> 0:22:36.409 dumbed things down quite a bit. Don't be afraid of 0:22:36.410 --> 0:22:40.280 breaking stuff. There's nothing, nothing out there that can be broken. 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:41.840 The other thing that you need to do is sort 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:44.780 out your internet connectivity. That's what I've got that down 0:22:44.780 --> 0:22:47.420 as number two, but it's probably the number one thing 0:22:47.420 --> 0:22:49.730 that you have to do. It is well worth spending 0:22:49.730 --> 0:22:52.909 the money on. So we recently had the On Farm 0:22:52.910 --> 0:22:56.420 Connectivity program. Round one's finished. Hopefully round two will come 0:22:56.420 --> 0:22:58.670 out soon. And there's some grants out there for people 0:22:58.670 --> 0:23:01.960 to increase their on farm connectivity. But it's about researching 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:03.820 what you need. What's going to work best for you, 0:23:03.820 --> 0:23:06.340 is about making sure that everything around the house and 0:23:06.340 --> 0:23:09.040 sheds are good? Or is it about making sure that 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.530 you've got greater levels of connectivity in your tractor? Because 0:23:11.530 --> 0:23:13.720 that's essentially where you're doing the majority of your office 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:16.389 work because you're on Autosteer. Each farm business is going 0:23:16.390 --> 0:23:18.969 to be different in where their priorities are, in terms 0:23:18.970 --> 0:23:22.570 of where they want to spend their dollars on internet connectivity. 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:26.370 Do you have any recommendations? There's a great website called 0:23:26.369 --> 0:23:29.700 Better Internet for Regional and Rural Australia, and there's some 0:23:29.700 --> 0:23:33.629 really good recommendations there about what might suit. We've certainly, 0:23:33.750 --> 0:23:35.730 like a lot of people have moved on to Starlink 0:23:35.730 --> 0:23:39.960 and really noticed the difference there. And we've beamed that 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:43.170 out to a little shed and to a my little office. And, 0:23:43.170 --> 0:23:45.630 you know, there's some just great potential there that we 0:23:45.630 --> 0:23:48.500 didn't have even 3 or 4 years ago. And again, 0:23:48.500 --> 0:23:53.000 prices are getting cheaper even with the existing Skymuster satellites there. 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:56.510 Before that, you're getting more data. It's cheaper. Things are 0:23:56.510 --> 0:23:59.750 just getting better all the time. So it's just about 0:23:59.750 --> 0:24:02.330 staying up to date with what's available. The other thing 0:24:02.330 --> 0:24:03.650 I think that you need to do, if you haven't 0:24:03.650 --> 0:24:07.129 done it already, is sort out email addresses. So with 0:24:07.130 --> 0:24:11.389 things like digital signing, it's really important for everybody to 0:24:11.390 --> 0:24:15.310 have their own individual email address. Now, lots of people, 0:24:15.310 --> 0:24:17.980 when internet first came in, it was Bigpond for all 0:24:17.980 --> 0:24:20.680 of us. And you often have a joint email address 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:23.679 with your spouse. You can't get away with that anymore. 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:25.600 We've got to have all got to have individual email 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:28.900 addresses to make sure some of these things work, and 0:24:28.900 --> 0:24:32.560 it's well worth having separate email addresses for the farm bills. 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:35.530 It makes it easier for someone to access that if 0:24:35.530 --> 0:24:38.410 they need to. So if you're looking to outsource, you 0:24:38.410 --> 0:24:41.890 can just say rightio. We'll redirect this particular mail inbox 0:24:41.890 --> 0:24:46.270 to you. Or just to keep that. We get so 0:24:46.270 --> 0:24:49.330 many emails just to sort of basically draft it and say, 0:24:49.330 --> 0:24:50.920 all of these are bills that I need to check 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:53.770 them once a week or so, but these things that 0:24:53.770 --> 0:24:55.990 are coming in are likely to be more important. And 0:24:55.990 --> 0:24:58.090 I check those on a daily basis. 0:24:58.150 --> 0:25:02.420 So you're saying with the auto sign that say two 0:25:02.420 --> 0:25:06.050 people in the business, you both need your own email 0:25:06.050 --> 0:25:07.850 address to do the auto sign? 0:25:07.850 --> 0:25:08.990 Yes. 0:25:08.990 --> 0:25:13.130 And you're also saying that you need two email addresses 0:25:13.130 --> 0:25:16.640 each for the farm or just personally. 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:19.609 Look, I think it's going to vary person to person 0:25:19.609 --> 0:25:22.310 and business to business. I think you need one junk one, 0:25:22.310 --> 0:25:24.730 and that's often just a matter of just retiring your 0:25:24.730 --> 0:25:27.369 old Hotmail or your an old Gmail address or something 0:25:27.369 --> 0:25:29.650 like that. So basically, any time you sign up for 0:25:29.650 --> 0:25:32.980 a $25 discount or free shipping on something, you can 0:25:32.980 --> 0:25:36.010 just use that email address and then not get bombarded 0:25:36.010 --> 0:25:38.800 with the spam mail. That's a really good idea to 0:25:38.800 --> 0:25:43.570 start with separating business and personal. So you might have 0:25:43.570 --> 0:25:47.140 multiple inboxes and people think, oh, that's so hard to handle. 0:25:47.140 --> 0:25:49.820 That's just too much logging in and logging out. It's not. 0:25:49.820 --> 0:25:54.050 You can use Gmail or Outlook to actually set them up. 0:25:54.050 --> 0:25:57.110 So you just go into outlook and you've got your 0:25:57.109 --> 0:25:59.900 3 or 4 different email addresses there. One of them 0:25:59.900 --> 0:26:02.960 you might be checking once a month because it's mainly spam. 0:26:02.960 --> 0:26:05.210 One of them you might be checking once a day 0:26:05.210 --> 0:26:08.659 because it's mainly important correspondence. Another one you might be 0:26:08.660 --> 0:26:11.420 checking just 2 or 3 times a month because it's 0:26:11.420 --> 0:26:14.400 mainly farm bills. And again, it's just about being able 0:26:14.400 --> 0:26:17.490 to then maintain privacy. If in the future you decide 0:26:17.490 --> 0:26:21.360 to outsource some of this. So if you've got one 0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:25.230 email address, which is everything, it's really hard then to 0:26:25.230 --> 0:26:28.740 give someone the autonomy to say, as each email comes through, 0:26:28.770 --> 0:26:31.470 process that in the way that I want it processed. 0:26:31.470 --> 0:26:34.500 So you're not there forwarding things all the time. 0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:36.859 Otherwise you're really not saving any time, are you? No, you're. 0:26:36.859 --> 0:26:38.720 Not, you're not. You might as well be doing it yourself. 0:26:38.720 --> 0:26:40.490 And I think that's the point that people come to. 0:26:40.490 --> 0:26:42.320 If I've got to forward that email address to them 0:26:42.320 --> 0:26:44.929 and then I've got to approve that payment, I may 0:26:44.930 --> 0:26:46.609 as well have done the whole thing myself. So it's 0:26:46.609 --> 0:26:48.710 about just setting things up so they're easy for other 0:26:48.710 --> 0:26:51.290 people as well. Think about that in terms of business 0:26:51.290 --> 0:26:54.530 continuity as well. So a lot of us are running 0:26:54.530 --> 0:26:58.520 businesses that might be quite large in terms of turnover, 0:26:58.520 --> 0:27:02.890 but small in terms of admin capacity, and we don't 0:27:02.890 --> 0:27:05.740 have replication in our farm offices. So if we're taken 0:27:05.740 --> 0:27:08.110 out or another family member is taken out, that might 0:27:08.109 --> 0:27:11.830 mean system shut down. So think about if we quarantine 0:27:11.830 --> 0:27:15.070 all of our business email to one email address, we 0:27:15.070 --> 0:27:19.390 can quickly redirect something, ring our accountant, engage a bookkeeper 0:27:19.390 --> 0:27:21.129 and say look for the next six weeks. Can you 0:27:21.130 --> 0:27:23.530 just take over this part of the role and make 0:27:23.530 --> 0:27:26.340 sure all my staff get paid and my bills get paid? 0:27:26.369 --> 0:27:30.300 It's harder to do that if we've got every single 0:27:30.300 --> 0:27:34.320 thing about sport and school and footy and the grain 0:27:34.320 --> 0:27:38.760 marketing and the bills and the newsletters and mates emailing 0:27:38.760 --> 0:27:41.760 us if that's all in the same inbox, it becomes 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:42.900 a much harder job. 0:27:42.900 --> 0:27:46.050 That makes sense. What else, Carmen, can we be doing right now? 0:27:46.080 --> 0:27:49.280 Well, the other thing is online safety. And I think 0:27:49.280 --> 0:27:53.120 when I've said some of these things, there've been people listening, going, oh, 0:27:53.150 --> 0:27:55.520 that sounds frightening. What if I get hacked? You know, 0:27:55.520 --> 0:27:58.430 it's all too hard. Your money's all on the cloud anyway. 0:27:58.430 --> 0:28:02.030 So realistically, if you're concerned about putting a document in 0:28:02.030 --> 0:28:04.310 a Google Drive or a Dropbox, just get over it 0:28:04.310 --> 0:28:07.220 because all your money is on the cloud. Just get. 0:28:07.220 --> 0:28:07.790 Over it. 0:28:07.790 --> 0:28:10.730 It's not in a bank anywhere. No one's guarding it. 0:28:10.730 --> 0:28:12.850 There's no one standing outside with a, you You know, 0:28:12.850 --> 0:28:15.939 rifle or something. It's all on the cloud. So what 0:28:15.940 --> 0:28:19.659 can you do on your end to increase your internet safety? 0:28:19.660 --> 0:28:23.260 Multifactor ID on anything where you can switch it on 0:28:23.260 --> 0:28:26.080 is so important. So that's when they shoot you a 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:28.869 little text message, and you've got to write that code 0:28:28.869 --> 0:28:31.419 back into the program. It's annoying. 0:28:31.869 --> 0:28:33.580 My phone auto fills it. Yeah. 0:28:33.580 --> 0:28:35.770 It doesn't work so well on the laptop or on 0:28:35.770 --> 0:28:38.250 the computer, but I love it when it auto fills. 0:28:38.250 --> 0:28:40.710 What I didn't love was a few years back when 0:28:40.710 --> 0:28:42.540 we didn't have a booster on the phone, and I'd 0:28:42.540 --> 0:28:44.280 have to run outside and climb up to the top 0:28:44.280 --> 0:28:47.220 of the cubby house, and then I'd hold my hand 0:28:47.220 --> 0:28:49.140 up to get the text message. And then it was 0:28:49.140 --> 0:28:51.090 like a race against time to get back into the 0:28:51.090 --> 0:28:53.610 office again to type the code in. So look, if 0:28:53.610 --> 0:28:57.990 that's still you, just spend the money, upgrade your mobile coverage. 0:28:57.990 --> 0:29:01.550 If that's the thing that's stopping you turning on multifactor ID, 0:29:01.550 --> 0:29:03.950 or you don't have your Wi-Fi set up properly, make 0:29:03.950 --> 0:29:05.600 sure you spend the money to do that. 0:29:06.050 --> 0:29:08.150 That's a good point. Time saver not getting into the 0:29:08.150 --> 0:29:08.750 cubby house. 0:29:08.750 --> 0:29:13.670 Yeah yeah yeah yeah, definitely. So the installing software updates 0:29:13.670 --> 0:29:15.710 is really important as well. So when your phone says 0:29:15.710 --> 0:29:17.630 it needs to do an update, when your laptop or 0:29:17.630 --> 0:29:19.880 your computer says it needs to do an update, click 0:29:19.880 --> 0:29:22.130 to do the update. Because what they're not telling you 0:29:22.130 --> 0:29:24.440 is that they've found the hackers have found a way 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:27.340 to get in, and they've got a patch that will 0:29:27.340 --> 0:29:31.750 protect you. So make sure you keep those up to date. So, Janine, 0:29:31.750 --> 0:29:34.870 tell me, are your passwords, your dog's name and a 0:29:34.870 --> 0:29:36.910 combination of someone's date of birth? 0:29:37.360 --> 0:29:40.630 They're not, I've recently done, a bit of a cyber security 0:29:40.630 --> 0:29:42.730 kind of thing. And that's why I've done all the 0:29:42.730 --> 0:29:46.600 password authentication - well when all the hacking happened, you know, Medibank. 0:29:46.600 --> 0:29:49.680 Yes. And yeah. So I don't anymore. But I can 0:29:49.680 --> 0:29:52.800 imagine that a lot of people would probably because there's 0:29:52.800 --> 0:29:54.270 so many to remember, there are. 0:29:54.270 --> 0:29:57.000 So many to remember. And what we try and do 0:29:57.000 --> 0:29:59.670 is by just changing a digit on the end or 0:29:59.670 --> 0:30:01.500 just putting capitals on that one, you know, if we 0:30:01.500 --> 0:30:03.450 have 5 or 6 goes at it, it will eventually 0:30:03.450 --> 0:30:05.190 crack it. And you feel like a bit of a 0:30:05.190 --> 0:30:08.580 hacker just by getting in yourself. The reality is that 0:30:08.580 --> 0:30:12.959 if we're duplicating passwords, what happens is someone in the 0:30:12.960 --> 0:30:17.030 tree gets hacked first and they're generally low stakes. So 0:30:17.030 --> 0:30:19.460 it might be just your local shoe shop is set 0:30:19.460 --> 0:30:21.800 up online purchasing, and they want you to get an account. 0:30:21.800 --> 0:30:23.570 And you sign up for that because you get $10 0:30:23.570 --> 0:30:26.330 off or something. They get hacked. And because you've used 0:30:26.330 --> 0:30:29.060 your dog's name and your date of birth. They go, ooh, 0:30:29.090 --> 0:30:31.700 what's the chance that Janine has also used this password 0:30:31.700 --> 0:30:34.790 and this email address for something more important, and they 0:30:34.790 --> 0:30:38.450 will eventually get in that way. So duplication is a 0:30:38.450 --> 0:30:41.720 really bad idea. We need to use secure and complex passwords. 0:30:41.720 --> 0:30:45.260 It's really hard to do that unless you're using a 0:30:45.260 --> 0:30:49.250 password keeper program. So there's some great ones out. Yeah 0:30:49.250 --> 0:30:54.500 they're amazing. So like 16 digit really complex passwords with 0:30:54.500 --> 0:30:56.450 all of the things. And the beauty of it is 0:30:56.450 --> 0:30:58.820 when we use that, they're not saying you've used this 0:30:58.820 --> 0:31:01.520 password before. They're not saying we need a digit, we 0:31:01.520 --> 0:31:04.370 We need a character. You haven't used a capital. The 0:31:04.370 --> 0:31:08.330 passwords go through straight away all the time. And again, 0:31:08.330 --> 0:31:10.730 a lot of those have got the capability to pre-fill them. 0:31:10.730 --> 0:31:16.190 So those password vault programs, KeyPass, keychain, dashlane's one of the 0:31:16.190 --> 0:31:18.680 ones I use, there's 4 or 5 of them out there. 0:31:18.680 --> 0:31:21.050 That is all they do. You want a program that's standalone. 0:31:21.050 --> 0:31:24.290 So yes, Apple have got some capabilities to store passwords. 0:31:24.290 --> 0:31:26.520 Google have. But if they go down, the whole ship 0:31:26.520 --> 0:31:28.620 goes down. So what you want to do is just 0:31:28.620 --> 0:31:32.880 make sure it's a standalone password keeping and password generating 0:31:32.880 --> 0:31:35.520 program and be prepared to pay money for it, because 0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:38.670 if you're not paying money for it, how are they 0:31:38.670 --> 0:31:41.550 getting the money? They need to keep your information safe? 0:31:41.550 --> 0:31:45.300 So definitely explore that. They are one of those things 0:31:45.300 --> 0:31:49.650 that does make life easier and makes you more secure. 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:53.030 So, Carmen, security, what else can we be doing to 0:31:53.030 --> 0:31:54.200 protect ourselves? 0:31:54.230 --> 0:31:56.900 Look, I think that in our family, businesses that tend 0:31:56.900 --> 0:32:00.500 to be most vulnerable are the older generation and the 0:32:00.500 --> 0:32:06.320 youngest generation. So for the older ones, it's about really 0:32:06.320 --> 0:32:10.250 keeping in contact. So having those phone calls, just making 0:32:10.250 --> 0:32:12.980 sure that if they're worried about a text message that's 0:32:12.980 --> 0:32:15.520 come through about a toll, that they don't click on it, 0:32:15.520 --> 0:32:17.320 that they give you a call, that you show them 0:32:17.320 --> 0:32:19.750 how to block things, that you delete what needs to 0:32:19.750 --> 0:32:23.950 be deleted, that they're just really cyber aware, and also 0:32:23.950 --> 0:32:26.050 that they're not lonely because one of these things, and 0:32:26.050 --> 0:32:29.740 it's not necessarily a farm business thing, it's about the 0:32:29.740 --> 0:32:33.820 online romance, friendship, investment, sort of scams. The people that 0:32:33.820 --> 0:32:35.800 tend to be the most vulnerable are those that are 0:32:35.800 --> 0:32:39.510 the most lonely. So keeping in contact and being a 0:32:39.510 --> 0:32:43.170 good family member to our oldies is just important for 0:32:43.170 --> 0:32:46.590 so many reasons. But that's one of them. That's such 0:32:46.590 --> 0:32:47.190 a good point. 0:32:47.190 --> 0:32:50.250 I think there was an article The Barefoot wrote about 0:32:50.250 --> 0:32:52.350 that too, and about maybe just go over to your 0:32:52.350 --> 0:32:53.880 neighbor and have a cup of coffee. 0:32:53.880 --> 0:32:56.400 Yeah, yeah. And if that stops them wanting to meet 0:32:56.400 --> 0:32:59.880 up with Sam from Nigeria, that's a great thing because 0:32:59.880 --> 0:33:01.680 they know that they've got someone to have a cup 0:33:01.680 --> 0:33:04.400 of tea too that's prepared to listen to their problems. Look, 0:33:04.430 --> 0:33:08.360 younger generations, it's more about that sort of sextortion type 0:33:08.360 --> 0:33:11.900 sharing nudes piece. And again, it's about education again. It's 0:33:11.900 --> 0:33:16.070 about conversations again. It's about making people feel happy in themselves, 0:33:16.070 --> 0:33:19.760 secure and all of those things so that not, you know, 0:33:19.760 --> 0:33:22.310 if something feels a little bit off, they've got the 0:33:22.310 --> 0:33:26.710 confidence to just say, no, hold on, wait. That doesn't 0:33:26.710 --> 0:33:31.330 feel quite right. So most definitely have those conversations with 0:33:31.330 --> 0:33:32.770 your family members. 0:33:33.370 --> 0:33:36.490 Is there anything else that you would recommend our listeners 0:33:36.490 --> 0:33:40.180 do right now if they're not already doing, whether it's 0:33:40.180 --> 0:33:43.450 technology or cyber? Any other advice? 0:33:43.450 --> 0:33:47.290 I think it's being open minded and excited about the future. 0:33:47.290 --> 0:33:50.140 It's easy to just slip into that zone of thinking, oh, 0:33:50.140 --> 0:33:52.710 it's all too hard and everything's changing too quickly. All 0:33:52.710 --> 0:33:54.870 of us can fall into that trap, but it's about 0:33:54.870 --> 0:33:58.440 just taking on the changes one by one, working out 0:33:58.440 --> 0:34:02.070 what needs to be done, and being prepared to make 0:34:02.070 --> 0:34:06.090 that investment in learning something for the pay off later on. 0:34:06.090 --> 0:34:10.080 We don't learn anything without deliberately making those choices to 0:34:10.080 --> 0:34:13.590 learn it. So just step up to the plate and 0:34:13.590 --> 0:34:16.129 take it on because you might surprise yourself. It might 0:34:16.130 --> 0:34:17.810 be something that you really get into when you're really 0:34:17.810 --> 0:34:18.319 good at it. 0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:21.440 That is such excellent advice, Carmen. Talking about keeping an 0:34:21.440 --> 0:34:26.359 open mind with these new technologies I'm just thinking about 0:34:26.360 --> 0:34:31.489 for people that are perhaps doing succession or someone starting 0:34:31.520 --> 0:34:34.370 to take the books on from another person in the business, 0:34:34.730 --> 0:34:37.400 would you have any advice on how to get that 0:34:37.400 --> 0:34:39.430 transition to to go smoothly? 0:34:39.460 --> 0:34:43.690 Oh look, the technology transition and the intergenerational issues is 0:34:43.690 --> 0:34:47.110 often clashes there. You know, there's often a person within 0:34:47.110 --> 0:34:49.120 the business and they're probably the person listening to this 0:34:49.120 --> 0:34:52.240 podcast that just wants to move things along really quickly. 0:34:52.239 --> 0:34:54.070 So to all the tech people out there that are 0:34:54.070 --> 0:34:57.070 keen to make the changes, there's just a few things 0:34:57.070 --> 0:35:00.940 to be aware of. One is that if you are 0:35:00.940 --> 0:35:03.660 trying to implement change, just make sure that it's got 0:35:03.660 --> 0:35:05.910 a fair chance of success. So if you're trying to 0:35:05.910 --> 0:35:09.780 get semi-literate truck driver to suddenly be using six different 0:35:09.780 --> 0:35:12.779 apps for six different things, it's probably not going to work. 0:35:12.780 --> 0:35:15.660 And you've got to look at implementing perhaps some easier 0:35:15.660 --> 0:35:18.660 ways to make that work, which might be just screenshots 0:35:18.660 --> 0:35:21.570 or still handing in a paper form, even though everybody 0:35:21.570 --> 0:35:25.410 else is doing things the digital way. That's perfectly okay 0:35:25.410 --> 0:35:29.459 if you're taking something on and you are making some changes, 0:35:29.610 --> 0:35:32.190 the person that's taking it on, you've got to trust 0:35:32.190 --> 0:35:35.130 them that they're doing the right thing. I think that 0:35:35.130 --> 0:35:37.319 becomes a communication thing as well. So if you've got 0:35:37.320 --> 0:35:39.540 an older generation saying, oh, look, before we used to 0:35:39.540 --> 0:35:42.060 pay every bill, this person used to look over it. 0:35:42.060 --> 0:35:43.650 And then I used to ring this and I'd send 0:35:43.650 --> 0:35:45.570 a cheque off because that was the safe way of 0:35:45.570 --> 0:35:49.680 doing it. Look, things have changed. And it's about really 0:35:49.680 --> 0:35:53.270 communicating that we still are doing fundamentally the same thing. 0:35:53.270 --> 0:35:56.150 We still have all of the checks and balances in place. 0:35:56.150 --> 0:35:59.870 They just don't necessarily look the same as they used to. 0:35:59.870 --> 0:36:03.500 But the fundamental things of what we've got going on, 0:36:03.500 --> 0:36:05.839 people are getting paid. We're doing it in a secure 0:36:05.840 --> 0:36:08.810 fashion we know we're up to financially. All of that 0:36:08.810 --> 0:36:09.860 still happening. 0:36:09.860 --> 0:36:11.930 That's such a good point. Thank you. Carmen, was there 0:36:11.930 --> 0:36:15.489 anything else that you would like our listeners to know? 0:36:15.489 --> 0:36:18.340 All just to get out there and explore something, just 0:36:18.340 --> 0:36:20.320 to talk to their friends about it and ask them 0:36:20.320 --> 0:36:23.860 what they're doing that 's different. It's great. Amongst any community. 0:36:23.860 --> 0:36:26.529 We've got some great early adopters out there that are 0:36:26.530 --> 0:36:28.839 looking at new things, and between the early adopters, some 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:30.910 of them have caught on to something else before someone 0:36:30.910 --> 0:36:33.700 else has done so. My big thing is that if 0:36:33.700 --> 0:36:36.100 you've got a problem, someone else has already worked out 0:36:36.100 --> 0:36:38.740 the answer to it. It's just about finding what the 0:36:38.760 --> 0:36:39.960 answer is. 0:36:39.989 --> 0:36:42.120 That's such a good outlook, Carmen. So I do have 0:36:42.120 --> 0:36:45.870 one more question. What is the best advice that you've 0:36:45.870 --> 0:36:48.450 been given, whether it's on the farm or in life? 0:36:48.480 --> 0:36:50.940 Oh, look, I think the big thing is that nothing 0:36:50.940 --> 0:36:54.060 lasts forever, you know, and it's just whatever season you're 0:36:54.060 --> 0:36:57.090 going through in your life, whatever seasonal conditions you're going 0:36:57.090 --> 0:37:01.590 through on farm, whatever it is, it never, ever lasts forever. 0:37:01.590 --> 0:37:05.540 So it's just very much about being in the moment 0:37:05.540 --> 0:37:07.550 and working out what needs to be done now and 0:37:07.550 --> 0:37:10.580 concentrating on that, because before you know it, something else 0:37:10.580 --> 0:37:12.049 becomes the highest priority. 0:37:14.180 --> 0:37:18.440 BCG drives the prosperity of Australian farmers, communities and landscapes 0:37:18.440 --> 0:37:22.310 through applied research, innovation and events. To find out more 0:37:22.310 --> 0:37:25.280 about what we're up to, our team and events near you, 0:37:25.280 --> 0:37:27.799 visit bcg.org.au