Hi {{first_name|there}},
Right. Back in June I promised I would show you how I have stitched all my tools together. Then I didn't. For seven weeks.
That is what running a business on your own actually looks like. The newsletter is always the thing that waits.
So here it is, and I have changed it. Every second Tuesday from now on, and it carries a few things instead of one big one.
Starting with something I told you to keep an eye on, which has just moved.
IN THIS ISSUE Tap a heading to jump straight to it.
The thing I asked you to watch in June just happened
It is the big operators in the firing line, not you.
The question I now ask before I trust any tool
Worth two minutes if anybody else makes video for you.
The reason I chose my AI has nothing to do with features
It came down to something a lot less technical than people expect.
The broadcast habit I would give up last
Ten seconds that decide whether the interview was worth doing.
The thing I asked you to watch in June just happened
A Leading Edge Data Centres facility at Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. Photo: Bidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0 AU.
These things are going up in country towns now, not just the capitals. There is one behind that fence, at Wagga Wagga. So this is a lot closer to home than it looks.
In June I wrote about these going up around the country, and about a Department of Industry document setting out what was expected of them on energy, water and local jobs. I said it was a set of expectations rather than a rule, and that whether it held up was on us.
In July it got a lot firmer, and from a much higher place.
On 15 July, at the University of Sydney, the Prime Minister set out a single national framework, the Australian Standards for AI, with a new Office of AI inside his own department to run it.
The part that matters for your bill is where those rules bite, and it is the big operators. Data centres would have to underwrite new power supply, pay the full cost of connecting to the grid, and be net generators of energy, putting at least as much back in as they take out. There are water rules and land rules too, so they are not competing with housing for the same ground.
Now the honest part, because I am not going to oversell this to you. It is a direction, not a law. The states agree it at National Cabinet this month, draft standards and consultation run late this year, and legislation does not reach Parliament until early 2027.
A plan you can see coming is much easier to prepare for than a rule that has already landed. It is not the same thing as done. Still worth watching, just watching something with a date on it now.
And here is the bit I think you actually want to hear. The sharp edges point at the big operators, not at a small business using a chatbot to write a quote.
I pulled the whole thing apart when it landed, in a piece about what AI is really doing to Australian jobs. The announcement is in there: what it says, who it points at, and what it does for anyone who writes, films or photographs for a living.
The question I now ask before I trust any tool
Earlier this year, one of the best known AI video tools on the planet was switched off. By the company that built it.
Not sold. Not replaced. Switched off, with a few months' notice, while thousands of businesses were busy building on it.
You were probably never going to touch it. Here is why it matters to you anyway.
If somebody makes video for your organisation, it is worth asking what they build it on, and what happens if that gets switched off. It costs you nothing to ask, and it is a perfectly reasonable question.
The bigger lesson is the one I keep relearning. Any tool you come to depend on is somebody else's business decision. That company decided video was not where it wanted to spend its attention, and moved on. Perfectly rational for them. Not much comfort if you had built your week around it.
So there is a question I now ask before I lean on anything: who runs this, and what do they actually care about? Which is exactly why I am fussy about the ones I teach.
The reason I chose my AI has nothing to do with features
Which follows on neatly. I run almost everything through one called Claude. When people ask why that one, they expect an answer about what it can do. It is not one.
I would rather bet on people who will still be pointing the same direction in three years than on the cleverest tool this month.
I wrote the long version up properly, including the parts where I am still not certain.
The broadcast habit I would give up last
Next time you sit somebody down and record an interview, keep rolling for ten seconds after you think you are done.
That is it. That is the whole thing, and after 35 years of pointing cameras at people it is the habit I would give up last.
Watch what happens. The second they believe the interview is over, their shoulders drop, they laugh, and then they say the honest version of the thing they just said so carefully. Every single time.
It costs nothing. It works on the phone in your pocket. And no amount of clever editing will give it back to you if you didn't record it.
One thing before you go
The thing I would actually like from you is a reply. Which of those four was worth your time, and which one did you skip? That is more useful to me than any open rate.
I read every email, and what you send back shapes what I write next.
Cheers,
Suzie
eMotion Video Training & Production. Female-founded by Suzie Cray, Cairns, Queensland, since 2019. Video, digital skills and AI training for time-poor teams, on the devices you already have. 2,500+ Australians trained. ecoBiz Star Partner.