Gary Allen
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Dr Gary Allen is an experienced Human Research Ethics and Research Integrity consultant. He is the Managing Director of AHRECS (www.ahrecs.com), a premier HRE/RI consultancy firm in Australasia, which is now working internationally (see https://www.ahrecs.com/senior-consultants/gary-allen).
For about 2 years he has been setting up Enabled.vip (www.enabled.vip) a virtual business incubator for Australians who live with a disability. It is his passion.
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Dr. Gary Allen.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Hi, everybody. We are super thrilled to have Dr. Gary Allen on today's podcast. Gary is a very successful entrepreneur. He is a professor. He is also the founder of a new non-profit and offering Australia called Enabled VIP and Enabled VIP is an accelerator that helps people with the disability either start a small business, start a micro business, or turn a hobby or something that they're passionate about into something that can make them some money. On the side, the goal of Enabled VIP is to meet people where they're at figure out how they can be empowered to go from being unemployed or on disability to making some money and empowering themselves through entrepreneurship.
We are really excited to have Gary here and let's get started. Hi, Gary. It is a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm so glad you can make it. You are coming live from Australia.
Yeah, it's 903 in the morning here, but I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much for the invite.
You're very welcome. I know we met through the DLI Institute with Christina Ryan, and it's a great group and I've been super impressed with your work. The more I learn about you, the more impressed I am. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
Okay. I am too. Thank you very much for the kind words. So I'm engaged in a bit of a project of passion, so it's lovely to hear it's resonating with other people.
Fantastic. Let's start a little bit with your history in terms of, you know, the work, what you've been drawn into. And I'd love to talk a little bit about your for profit business and what drew you to that. And then we can definitely spend a lot of time highlighting and digging into Enabled VIP.
That sounds great. Since 1019 and 97, I've been working in the research, ethics and research integrity space, which confirms my status as a horrible ethics bureaucrat. It's okay. I know I'm a horrible ethics bureaucrat, but what started off as a bit of a hobby grew into a side hustle. And we're now sort of one of the lead consultancy firms in this space in Australia, and we started doing overseas work. So we're doing some stuff in New Zealand and just recently inbekistan which is fantastic. I live with progressive Ms, so I get around in a wheelchair.
I can only be out of bed for about 5 hours a day. I've got a set up, good set up, actually. So I can work from bed. And reflecting on my experience, I realized I've been doing this with the for profit company and there are some experience insights that usefully share. So that was part of the original trigger for Enabled VIP. The other was really myself and a colleague went along to a government disability employment event and they were talking about I know I'm going to sound horribly pompous and arrogant, but it was all very much focused on the sheltered workshop end of the spectrum.
And so we said, hey, what about disability? Entrepreneurship? And the bureaucrats looked at us very blankly and the politicians have made a land fish face. So we went away and said, Well, if no one's going to do it, maybe we should. And when I started looking at the numbers, it just reinforced my commitment. So there's 2.1 million Australians of working age with a disability. Only about half of those are employed, about 20% experience and discrimination, or some sort of ignorance at work. And also when I looked at the US, Canada, UK and Europe, compared to us, the level of entrepreneurship there is higher than here.
And when you drill down on the reasons people talk about lack of role models, peer support and resources. So it suggested to me that it would be useful to try and support a community of practice in the disability entrepreneurship space. So that's the idea for a Noble VRP was born. And we've just been filled by the response that we've been receiving. So that's been about two years. We hope to be launching as a national service next year. We're currently doing a politics with Tim Frank. Interesting.
So I have a few questions.
Sure.
First is just what drew you to ethics. Why did you feel like that was an area you wanted to pursue? Was there like, a specific problem that you wanted to work on, or was it just purely intellectual interest?
Look, that's a really good question. I've got a dubious pedigree as somebody working in ethics, I'm a foremost feature, an advisor for a federal politician here, which is not necessarily the most logical pathway to ethics, but a lot of the focus, I think worldwide when we talk about ethics is on compliance and enforcing compliance, which I don't think is a very constructive way to approach the topic. So what we do as a firm is say, no, really, what this is about is facilitating good research, not policing research.
And it's obviously been striking bit of synergy out there. We've been approached by lots of places to do work. So the Western Australian Department of Health engaged us to do some work for them. Department of Education in New South Wales, as I've been doing some stuff overseas now, which is incredibly exciting. So, I mean, I am genuinely fascinated in the area, but I guess it's not now where I'm getting my personal satisfaction from enable VIP is.
And so in terms of enabled VIP, I think that's a great answer. I love the reframing and problem solving mentality that you're applying in the ethics space. But with enabled VIP, it's something that we're looking into now here. But do you know what the number is in Australia? What percentage of people who identify as having a disability are actually even going to University?
What is interesting when you look at that is the amount of time a graduate from University takes to land work is over twice as long as an able bodied person. So I think that disability and entrepreneurship does a couple of jobs. So it's a way of person generating some income that I've got some control over. I think it also allows them to structure their work day and structure their work set up around. There's been a big there are some conditions where a person won't know day to day or even hour to hour, whether or not they're going to be well enough to work.
And so nine to five set up really doesn't work for them. So being able to come up with their own money generating endeavor is very powerful. What we've decided is we're supporting everything from somebody that wants to monetize a hobby or craft to a gigbase micro business to a small business. What we're seeing with a pilot test is across that spectrum in terms of some are very early journey monetizing a hobby. One of the things I think that's different about Australia that offers some potential is we've got the national discipline, the insurance team here.
So people get some money that they can choose to spend in areas that are helpful to them. So the fees we're thinking about are something they could charge their NDOs plan. So we've got the wheels turning to get registered with the government Department. We're talking to some of the plan managers just so folks can put it on their plan. This is something that offers sort of considerable opportunity. I've been very conscious of the fact that one of the jobs we're going to have to do is reach out to some of those folks to say this is an option for you.
It's not really that hard we can support you, which one necessarily have occurred to them before. I think we've got a self replicating problem that the absence of role models means that people don't think they can do it, which means they don't try, which means they don't become future Romolds. So what we're hoping for is graduates have used that term from our program, become the mentors for the future, which hopefully incrementally improves the situation. So of that 2.1 million, we set ourselves the goal of saying in three years we'd like to be of help to 1000 people that say very small percentage out of the 2.1 million.
But you don't have to help the person to make very much money for it to make a huge difference to their lives. So we're not saying that we're looking for the next Amazon or Apple or whatever. It might just be something that's a few hundred dollars a month.
Right. But there's some important. So are you saying I want to make sure I'm understanding this clearly in terms of the entrepreneurship. Are you saying this is another path where you don't necessarily need to go into University and you can still empower yourself and have meet whatever goal it is that you have whether it's a micro business, whether it's a small business and that way you don't need to spend because of whatever constraints are going on in University, you can empower yourself faster, learn more in certain ways, and empower yourself earlier rather than going through this other process.
Yeah, exactly. One of the things we've done is we've got a solid connection to Griffith University here in Queensland, Australia. So what they're talking about doing is developing five micro business courses around specific topics, things like pitching for a job so that people can do that online. It's done in accessible ways, having an online translator, having screen reader top text, so that people of different disabilities can participate from home rather than going on to a University campus and do it at their own pace. And so the idea is if they do all five that's progress towards a business degree, but Alternatively, they can choose which of the five to do and then just providing essential business skills.
So our expectation is we're thinking about improvement of confidence in business skills, about social engagement and quality of life. So we want to embed into the platform, collecting some data about whether or not we're really seeing those improvements. I think that's what we're going to see. But until we click the data, I don't know.
In terms of the role model dilemma, is it something where there must be more like, I know people at the DLI, but there must be other people from previous generations who have had some either as entrepreneurs or in business or in government or whatever field they chose. Are they not stepping forward as role models or do they not know what's the issue there or they haven't been given the opportunity?
Yeah. I think there's not been a forum for them to stand up in. I think it's not occurred to people that disability entrepreneurship might be an answer. So we've got enabled VRP, we've got an advisory board, that six person advisory board has got three business people that live with disability that are quite successful on the board. So there are folks out there and we've been hearing from some of them. So the idea is we're going to be doing monthly webinars for members. We'll get some of those impressive folklon to speak just to reinforce the fact that there are people out there doing it.
So there are role models available. They've just not really been accessible. So that's part of the task. One of the things we'll be doing next year is there's an incredibly impressive woman named Janine Shepherd, who spends a fair amount of time in the States. So she travels between Australia and the States, and she was training to be an Olympic cross country skier riding up the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, and she was hit by a truck. It snapped her back in two places and snapped her neck.
So she ended up in a spinal Ward in Sydney 18 months older. She had a pilot license and then a pilot training license and then a stunt pilot training license. Not remotely impressive at all. So she's agreed to speak at an online event for us, which will raise the profile of Enable VRP. We'll do a free event that people can log into. The deputy Premier of Queensland has agreed to be our VIP guest at that event. So hopefully doing things like that will help us get the message out there.
That's impressive. Congratulations on that. How do you balance? Where is your position? I know it's a little bit different for everybody, and we're not speaking for a group of people here. We're just in your experience, right? When you're evaluating somebody with a disability who wants to become an entrepreneur, I see that you're really trying to meet people where they're at. Like you said, some people have a they don't know if they can work hour to hour. They have to have a flexible schedule. Where do you balance that?
With the encouragement that you can still do something you can still contribute, you can still exceed your expectations. You can still have it. Maybe unbreakable spirit is too strong. I don't know. But clearly some people like Janine have it right where they just adapt and they go and they figure it out.
I think you need to be mindful in terms of resilience. You need to be respecting people's dignity and agency. So what we generally do is, buddy somebody up with a mentor. And so the mentor might be no pressure. How you're doing where you're up to just as a coach, trying to move them all. But without expecting one of the comments that one of our testers have made to us is she's gone through a few times of mainstream sort of coaching and assistance for her efforts. And those Main Street folk were trying to apply a normal expectation in terms of that sort of business development, and she couldn't cope.
And so I think having the space of saying, look, we understand disability. We want to support you. We're not expecting that you're going to tick these boxes in this time frame. So we've notionally said that we're hoping that people would have made significant progress towards setting up their enterprise within six months. But we're not actually going to say if you've not done that, you failed. So I think understanding an empathy with a little bit of encouragement.
I like that answer a lot. When you look at yourself and your career, how did you balance your own internal motivation? Resiliency, did you have a mentor, or was it something that you just kind of figured out as you went?
I think I figured out as on when I haven't mastered work life balance at all. I should say it's quite funny. I was just posting stuff to our resource library the last few days, which was about work life balance. I'm not doing any of those things it recommends. I am the worst possible person just walk around work £5, but I think I decided that there was two options that I could run up the fact and give it in or I could see what I could do and just keep pushing.
Which is, I guess, where I am on that continuum. So I understand that there are people that can feel overwhelmed, I think with some support as possible to help people find that road towards acceptance and pursuing their potential.
And I think you said it before, but I just want to make it clear for everybody who's listening. So enabled. Vip is a non for profit. Exactly.
Yeah, right.
What were the reasons for setting it up that way?
Look, I think consultancy is a for profit business, which is completely valid for that type of work. I decided that I wanted to set something up, which was not about generating a profit, but maybe generating stuff, so it's covering its own costs. So I thought that that actually was a more compelling story. So we've had two forbid friends that have invited us to submit sort of a detailed proposal. So there are obviously doors open for not for profits. It means that we can't go after much in the way of angel investors or traditional investment routes, but I think not for profit actually fits nicely with the vision.
So myself, I'm an NDRs client. I like the elegance of an NDIS client setting up an NDOs service. So I think doing something that's relatively low cost just is more realistic for this group. And whether or not that even changes if we generate enough philanthropic, wherever we may be charged people anything. There are folks here with participated that don't have an NDIS plan. So I think having a route where you're not actually expecting money might be something we look at seriously. So currently we've got what we call prongs members who can access a lot of the resources they can't access, mentoring, but they can access the discussion board and webinars, and that doesn't cost them any money as long as they live with disability or identifies them with a disability, they're a carer or somebody with an established connection to disability.
They can join the platform as a bronze member.
And how much does it cost for the paid membership?
So what we're thinking is $450 to join and then $90 a month. Just say, a member. And there are a number of things that members can access if they continue their membership. We're hoping that we will keep most of those members as continuing monthly members. So we've done a guess in terms of doing our profit assessment or turnover assessment to be more accurate. And I guess until we're running, we're not sure we might know if our assumptions are going to prove to be right.
Do you foresee? I guess this is an issue of how you're going to grow and how you're going to evolve. But do you see any type of disability or condition where you may have to bring in some outside advisors or some different mentors because you just don't have experience? Or do you feel as though your lived experience and the lived experiences of the mentors gives enough of a framework to help most people?
Look, I've been very conscious of this isn't so much about conditions, but I'm conscious of sort of compounding barriers of compounding issues to tackle. So, for instance, a woman who is living in rural Australia who is Indigenous or from a culturally or linguistically diverse background going to have their own sets of challenges. So we've certainly on a list to say that maybe we need to have special sections of the website and specialist mentors for that group. That's something I'd like to do. I've just decided, look, before you run.
So it's something that we'll do later but not try to do it straight out of the box. So, yeah, that's what we're shooting for. And I think that's true for some disabilities as well. So having looked in Australia, only about 4% of folks with a disability actually getting around to the wheelchair. And I realized that mentally, I've been thinking in terms of wheelchair first, whereas we need to make sure that we're speaking more clearly to things like folk with visual impairment or hearing impairment or down syndrome or some sort of a mental health issue.
So it's something that I've been very conscious of. And if you go to things like a royalty free image library and do a search for disability, most of the images that you see are going to be folk in a wheelchair. So having to sort of moderate that to say, we need to make sure it's a diverse and inclusive set of images and content. That was a very long answer to your question. Sorry.
That's a good answer, though. The impression I get every time I talk to you is that you've really taken the time and the effort to think it through. And you have a very thoughtful, systematic approach, and you're still flexible enough to know kind of where a lot of the holes are, that when you can fill it, you will, which is really great to see.
Yeah. Thank you. I think what the advisory group has been really good for is it's a great way to hear some of those other perspectives. So one of the advisor board members lives with profound hearing impairment, and it's just sort of forced me sometimes from outside looking to say, okay, we do need to actually nail our approach a bit more to talk to that audience. So I think talking to people and genuinely listening, it makes a difference.
It does. And you are clearly good at that. And I think Christina says it pretty often, but we do have as a general rule, I'm going to generalize here. I'm going to take the risk we do generally have more empathy, more like an interesting set of life skills and problem solving skills that most people don't seem to have, which is great that you're utilizing that and bringing it forward and essentially teaching it to others.
Yeah. So the guy who's our patrons, he's Queenslander of the Year for this year, he's a paraplegic doctor, and basically disappointing makes very well that folks with disability already know how to plan for everything they do. They look through the details, come up with a solution. They've already got some of those insights and skills, and it's something that's marketable that could be used to generate some sort of income. So I think there are plenty of folks that have got the capacity. They're just being sold short by not actually giving them the support they need.
And hopefully that's what Enable VRP is going to address.
Absolutely. In Australia. So you spoke eloquently about how a lot of the challenge within the disability community is having role models, having support structures, giving people the opportunity to see what they can do. Where do you think the constraints still are and the pushback from the nondisabled community? What do you think they're missing that if you were to speak to one today that you'd really like to tell them, what is it that you're missing that you're not seeing that because it's clearly not there. What are you missing?
One of the things we've decided about those populations I mentioned is not trying to do the job that those groups are already doing, just basically partnering with them. So if you got let's use Indigenous Australians for the time being, they're already very powerful and effective groups in that space. So rather than trying to recreate that to say, can we partner with you so that maybe you're putting some of this message out to your group. But I think part of that is to say, look, disability doesn't have to determine what your potential is.
It doesn't have to determine what contribution you make. Ignorance and isolation can determine that. So if we can move the dial to say, look, it's changed the conversation. So these are folks that have got a potential help them to reach there. You're going to make a huge difference. Certainly, the chat I've had with a couple of politicians here is to say there are 2.1 million people that could be making a contribution to society. That's not happening with what you're doing. So rather than replicating the same thing and getting the same outcome, let's just change the conversation bit to say, these are people you can actually help to be making a contribution.
There's much used expression about keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is one of the indicators of insanity. I think that's really been the issue here. Keep doing the same thing. You're going to keep getting the same outcome. So maybe we just need to change our approach a little.
What's the receptivity level been with those politicians.
Because I know a couple of them personally, I'm not sure if they're being polite with me. The truth will be in the pudding. We haven't had a great deal of success with government grants. We've been seeing a lot more enthusiasm from the philanthropic group, so you could make a comment about do people really genuinely get business? So in terms of politicians, I think they're saying the right things. We just have to see if they walk the walk as well as talk. So I guess you ask me again in six months and I might have a better answer.
But Steven Miles is the deputy primary here in Queensland who is a very old friend who's been around for my disability journey along the way. It's been really supportive. So he said yes about attending that event I mentioned before within a couple of seconds. So hopefully I'm going to be seeing some good support.
I hope so, too. What's been the approach with the foundations that you have found most effective so far? I know it's still early stages, but what's piquing their interest? What's getting them engaged?
There are a couple of different groups I've been doing Webinars recently. Unfortunately, some of those have covered things like funding, which I've been applying in my own approach. So frame the discussion in terms of tell your own story first and then talk about the issue that you're trying to tackle. Then talk about how you're going to tackle it. I think that is actually finding some residents. When I'm talking to the philanthropic foundations. I think also that you're talking about people that are wanting to make a difference and get business and get the power of business.
So I think what we're talking about actually resonates in their own heads. So I think that's why we're seeing the film Property response. I think with typical sort of government and developmental funding schemes, what we're talking about is very disruptive. It's very different from the current approach. So it's probably not a surprise that they're looking at say, can this thing succeed? Is it going to be sustainable? I think hopefully, as we start running when we start showing the results, maybe we'll loop back to some of those government programs, but I basically decided not to keep pursuing those schemes because the process is fairly labor intensive and time consuming.
So we're pushing very hard for the sort of philanthropic support.
I think the philanthropic support is really interesting. I attended an event a couple of weeks ago that was basically philanthropic, but it was event for family offices, so very wealthy, successful families that are starting an office here for investments for philanthropic causes. And what was clear to me is that they're very engaged in teaching their children and their children's children about entrepreneurship. So they value that very highly. And I'm suspecting that your message of empowering people through entrepreneurship is going to resonate significantly.
Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, folks that want to have a social impact want to make a social difference. I also actually understand the value and importance of entrepreneurship. So I think it actually fits very well with our ethics. That's why I think we're getting some strong support out of those types of groups. I think it's just approaching the issue from a different mindset is probably what's making a difference.
You talked a little bit about it, but how do you see enabled VIP once you launch and you get out of this pilot phase, how do you see the continued success and sustainability in support of these entrepreneurs moving forward? Is it something where once they hit some certain markers, you may say, look, we may or may not be valuable to you anymore, or is it something where you'd like to keep them there, to help them continue to evolve and go in whatever path is best for them?
Yeah, great question and great thought. So our hope is that most people will hang around after they set things up. So we'll be having webinars and sharing some material that's about conducting their endeavor rather than just starting up an endeavor. A couple of things that we will do is some of the events will be for continuing members. Also, we're going to set up a marketplace that's going to link to Fiverr. Com, where it will be something where if an Australian consumer or business to business type situation wants to find an artist that lives with disability, where they know this person is definitely going to be based in Australia, definitely going to have a disability.
They can come to the search engine to find folks that fit that criteria. So what we'll say to folk is if you maintain your membership, you'll be listed in that directory. So hopefully that's a way in which we keep people hanging around after set up their own endeavor. So I might be naive, but I believe that if the option was available, consumers and businesses will want to find folks that meet those criteria, will want to engage somebody that lives with a disability. But that's my guess.
So until we actually are running it, we'll see if that proves to be the case.
Again, I think it's a smart guess. I think you're right. Or I hope you're right in terms of, like a big kind of part of all of this right is community. And I know that we talk probably too much about community, but how do you see your community and enable the VIP maintaining that sense of connection, interaction engagement as it grows? Like what are some of the key values? And how are you building that sense where you belong here? You're accepted. And this is going to be something that we're going to maintain.
Even if let's say you have 10,000 or 20,000 people down the road.
We talk fairly often about community practice. So the idea of sharing insights and experience sharing questions and encouragement being part of the value of the platform. I think the idea of we all succeed together and we all lift each other up together, I think, is a really important point. So it's something that hopefully people can be hearing and will make sense to them from the beginning of their engagement with the platform. This is how I approach my profit business as well in terms of let's share what we're doing.
Well, let's share ideas, share problems. That's how we actually move the dial together rather than doing it individually. I think that sort of notion of community and user community is actually getting out there already. So hopefully we'll be echoing folk of thinking the irony. You don't hear this very often, but Covet has actually probably been helpful. So it's demonstrated that folk can work from home, they can do debates rather than trying to educate people that that's a viable option. I think that's actually happened on its own.
So to a certain extent, I think it makes it easier to say something like VRP will work because we've all been doing it for the last twelve months or so.
Absolutely. And it is ironic that it took something like Kova to get people to actually realize that.
Yeah. So I think that has happened. I think that some businesses realizing now that you can have something other than folk in a workplace as an actual viable alternative, a cost effective alternative. So I think from that point of view that we won't have to edit educate people to accept that approach is valid.
I think people are again, maybe I'm wrong here, but this is my impression is that when you are trying to empower and uplift a community, I think people are underestimating, how motivated and hungry. And again, that doesn't mean I'm going to work 80 hours a week. That just means I really want to contribute. I really want to do something. And I'm going to apply myself and be supported by this community to do it. I think people are underestimating just how good it's going to feel for those people, right.
And just how much more they're going to give of themselves because they're exceeding their expectations.
Yeah. So I'm an ambassador for the Hopkins Center here in Brisbane, and they've got a sort of area of focus around the idea of dignity. And so they're very excited and supportive of enable VIP because it ties into the idea of folks want to make a contribution. They want to feel as if they're connected to society if we're helping them do that as a demonstrable good. So I think whether or not you talk about mental health, social engagement, dignity. I think it's tick to sick for all of those.
So I think coming up with a way in which people can make a contribution and generate some money is incredibly affirming. And so I think and I'm obviously biased. But I think it's a way to reframe the discussion. So these folks can be making a contribution. Let's help them do that.
Where do you see the best case scenario or not even best case scenario? A really good case scenario. You have an entrepreneur that is doing really well and his small business or her small business has the potential to be more. Where do they go? Who are you partnering with or potentially partnering with in that kind of a situation?
Yeah. So we connect to a group that's called the Remarkable, which is absolutely in terms of growing sort of disability enterprises in the technology space. So we've had the conversation to say, look, we may well have people that we will do the initial start up discussion, help them get to a point where they're ready to fly. They're probably better than us in terms of helping them fly. So we've had the conversation to say, look, if we have people in that category, maybe we direct them towards you.
If you have somebody go to you that's very early journey, maybe you send them to us. So that's what we're reflecting on at least two of our current polytesters. Their ideas are quite frankly intimidating because they're so good. So I can see that they are folks that we might direct towards a remarkable because I don't think that we can do that job when particularly if there's somebody that's looking at something that's going to be a genuine sort of profit making powerful small business, I think directing them towards the remarkable season where you go.
I hope that works out. I hope they're open to that. So what you're expecting to this pilot program is going to stop at some point.
And you're going to launch when we're hoping early next year, we're launching national service, and most of our partners will have been with us for six months by then. Just so that we can actually see are the It systems working as we expected, our business process is working. It's really the pilot test is just to help us refine the package on the platform. But yeah, early next year is what we're shooting for. So my conversation with Janine Shepherd and deputy Premier has been in terms of maybe February of next year is when we do an event, and we use that as basically how to book end the lawns of the platform nationally.
So that's basically what we're shooting for at the moment.
And for people who are not in Australia who are interested and intrigued about this idea and say, well, how would I put this together in the UK or United States or another country? What would you say to them.
If I was thinking about what's really exciting me at the moment is, I think enable VIP can be replicated jurisdiction. So as you say, whether that's the States, the UK or whatever. I'm very open to the idea of we've done the coding for the platform. We've got. Currently, we've got the resource library and stuff we put together. I'm very open for. So if somebody is thinking about setting up somewhere else in the world, we definitely support them doing so. My point of view is we talk about millions and millions of people internationally.
We need lots of folks trying to support those communities. There's no way enabled VIP can usefully advise somebody in another country. Let's help create the same sort of set up somewhere else in the world. So if somebody is interested in that way, definitely get in touch with me because I'd be delighted to help.
I think that's a great again. I'm looking forward to seeing that launch and other jurisdictions. I think it has so much potential. And like you said, it's millions and millions of people that can they would really benefit from the help. And you've already done a terrific job at building the foundation.
My absolute sort of dream scenario is that those set ups do happen elsewhere in the world. And I love the idea of potentially sharing insights and success stories between us to help continue to refine the approach. So I would love to see it elsewhere in the world. But there's no way I'm going to do that. I think my wife, when I told her my deaf sitting up in Naval VIP, laughed and pointed out, I wait 7 hours a day sleeping. If I went and said we were going to set up somewhere else in the world, I think there may be consequences.
It's those sub areas try and do myself, of course.
And we're more powerful together. Like you said, lifting each other up and supporting each other and whether it's through. I know you haven't quite figured it out yet, but whether it's through a licensing agreement, whether it's some kind of it's highly doable.
Be very open. Be thrilled to have that conversation outstanding.
What do you think we've missed, Gary in the conversation that you'd like to talk about regarding enabled VIP or anything else?
No, I think we've nailed the issues I have talked about. So I think there's potentially a follow up conversation after a year or something of us doing this just to reflect on has it worked? What have we learned? I think because I've been working in the University sector for so long. I've got in my DNA the value of data collection and analysis. So I think one of the things we've been very firm about is the idea of saying look less embedded to other collection into the operation platform.
I think then it makes it much more powerful to talk about success stories if you're actually able to point to some data. So as I say, I think after we've been running for a while, we can potentially have a good conversation about what the data is actually saying before the guest is about social engagement. The guess is about what it's going to do to people's mental health. It'd be fascinating to see if that's what the daughter actually says is happening.
So this brings an interesting question up that's not directly related to enabled VIP. But I think I would like your opinion now as an ethicist and as somebody who believes in collecting good data because it's useful. How do you do data collection in an ethical responsible way that doesn't violate the trust that people have in using a platform?
I think trust is one of those scenarios where it's very hard to build trust. It's very easy to lose trust. It's almost impossible to get trust back again. So I think thinking about the ethics of data collection and your use of information. So in the Australian session, when we talk about consent, there is extended and unspecified consent. So we will discuss potential uses of the information, whether it's personally identified or aggregate and see what people's views are and then respect their views in terms of. So we'll talk about the fact that we are hoping to use testimonials, whether or not they consent to actually be included, whether they consent to be named, whether or not there's, how they describe and given their consent, I think is extremely important.
And if you don't do it, I think it has consequences. And so I think that needs to be built into your thinking about research, use of information. So hopefully my day job means that we'll do that pretty well. I think having good consent strategy and approach is part of that challenge.
Right. And being upfront with people like you said in building the trust because I don't know. I guess these massive technology companies that have been using our data for profit for years now have just gotten so big and so powerful. I don't know if that was intentional or what, but it's very difficult to rein that in now that we've given away so much.
Yeah. I mean, they built into their business model, basically capitalizing or monetizing our information. And really it's something they've never owned. And so what we will do is basically say this is how we would like to use your information. Is that okay with you and then recording the person's view with their data? So you've actually know the ways in which you can use the information? A lot of it will be aggregate deidentified stuff where we're actually looking at testimonials. We'll make sure we got expressed consent for the use of that.
I want to be including testimonials on our platform, for example, which we don't have active at the moment. But if we do absolutely needs to be with a person's consent, particularly if you're talking about something that say so called investigative disability. Those people might want to be outed. And so having a conversation about what are you comfortable with us sharing? I think it's really important.
Absolutely. And how are you marketing enabled VIP? You've talked indirectly about it. But are you doing anything online? Are you doing anything? Has it been a lot of word of mouth and relationships and connections?
Yeah. It's something that we've actually talked about with discussion sheets on the website is we've been doing what I call slow burn. So we've been doing some stuff on social media, but nothing paid. And I'm not going to say that paid advertising is a waste of money. But I think for start ups, it's actually more important that you get people sharing and people sharing personal stories is actually the most powerful way to be marketing, because you get genuine engagement. You get sort of authentic connection rather than something that you paid for.
So once we got some money, we'll probably revisit whether or not we do some awareness arising with paid advertising. But I'm quite comfortable with the fact that we've been doing slow burn for a while. So we've got over 800 followers on LinkedIn, and those are sort of genuine connections. We haven't spent any money to get to that point. So I think we will continue with that slow burn, even if we do some pigawear in this rising and that slow burn is about consistent messaging.
It's about establishing you're trying to establish yourselves as the experts, though, as well.
Right.
Or is this not about expertise? It's more about community.
That'S sorry. Touching on something I talk about in the ethics space. But I don't think you want to necessarily position yourself of being an expert on a topic because the danger is that people end up saying I can't do that. I can't think about that because I'm not an expert. And so I think you actually sort of end up promoting an unhelpful message. What I do do is I tend to post every day about something we've added to our resource library and then make some comment about that item.
I think consistently doing that once a day over time builds up your reputation, not as an expert, but just somebody with something useful to say on the topic. So, for example, I just recently posted about the issues with the climate conference in Glasgow. I don't know if you saw I did. Yeah. Israel has got a very impressive environment Minister who gets around in a wheelchair that got to the event only to discover it was a wheelchair accessible, which quite frankly sucks, but making sort of comments on that, I think you build up a reputation over time.
You can't buy that reputation. It's just something you have to work out.
There's no shortcuts. It's not about hacking it and getting from point A to point B faster. It's earning the trust.
Yeah. So we will continue working on that slow burn. The issue I've got at the moment is I'm trying to work where three hats a day, which is not remotely sustainable, is the opposite of what we recommend to our members. And so my hope is I arrive at a point where I can pay out some time from my day job and enable VIP pay for some of that time. So I can just focus on enable those days. And so the slow burn is not trying to be crammed in with everything else I'm doing.
So that's really basically my goal is to arrive at a point of managing my time a little bit better. So if you look at my calendar at the moment, it is very scary. I think my record thus far is sort of seven online meetings a day is not remotely sustainable. So that's where I'm hoping to end up.
That's a good goal. And you're right. That's not sustainable. Probably at any age for any ability. Eventually you're going to get burnt out.
Yeah, we've got what we call a living well section of our resource library. We got things about work, life balance, mindfulness meditation and other things to actually look after your help as well as setting up an enterprise. An item we're going to be posting tomorrow is actually no. This afternoon is a Ted talk about managing in terms of burnout, and so look for that material and say, I'm not doing it is important, but I'm not doing it. So yeah, I'm trying to shoot to a place where I can take better care of my own health.
Fatigue is potentially an issue for Ms, so I'm probably not looking after my health at the moment in terms of how I'm trying to do things. And so through the disability leadership industry, as you say, that's where the two of us first met whenever in the experience leaders, group meetings, I'm talking about what I'm doing. There's lots of top tats and you'll learn to get over it, Gary. It's a work in progress.
I'm cut from the same cloth and that's fine. And we have to learn our own ways and our own adaptations. I'm sure you'll figure it out, Gary, but it's hard when it's, like you said, enabled VIP is a labor of love. It's hopefully moving forward a legacy that can sustain itself for generations in not just Australia, but hopefully in other parts of the world. So when you're working on something and trying to be a part of such an important problem of solving such an important problem, it's hard to not keep doing it right.
It's difficult to stop yourself.
Exactly what we're doing is fairly disruptive. It's not like at the moment you feel as if you can say if I'm not doing it, is somebody else going to do it? Probably not. So it becomes an impetus to push it a little bit harder. I'm working a little bit longer, but I need to eventually take a little bit better care of myself. So hopefully arrive at a point where it's not surviving and thriving just on the basis of the amount of time and energy I put in.
Yeah, which is perhaps a bit of hubris and arrogance. I don't know, but it's definitely the goal to be a point where it's not relying on one person or a few people to move.
I don't think that's hubris. I think that's a good. I mean, that's the point is you're trying to build something that's bigger than yourself. That's going to be sustainable.
Yeah, exactly.
And so how can people connect with you? How can people find you learn more about you?
Okay. I'm on LinkedIn. I've got a personal profile as well as enable VIP having a process on LinkedIn. We're also on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as well. So connecting to me through one of those platforms is a great way to get in touch. I'll be delighted to hear from people delighted to provide any further information or answer any questions. So that's probably the way to reach me. Obviously, if you're an Australian and you live with a disability or your carer, definitely get in touch because you're eligible to come a bronze member right now.
So Besides, hear from them, we've already had our first two people basically expressing interest in becoming a paid member next year. So it's found that that sort of stuff is starting to happen.
I'm excited to see what happened. I'm really looking forward to having you back on the show, whether that's in six months, because you're exceeding expectations or whether that's in a year, it's going to be fun. And we are going to do everything we can here to amplify your work and make sure that people understand what you're doing and the importance of it and help in any way we can.
Yeah. That's very exciting. So thank you so much.
Absolutely. Well, thank you, Gary, for the time, it's been a great conversation, and I'm looking forward to the next one. Maybe by the next one, you will have learned enough Welsh, where we can have you can share some of that.
The worst word for the day is Lucky DA, which is. Hello, perfect.
Thank you so much, Gary.