• Freo’s windows are silent, for now—but not for long if Tim Milsom has anything to do with it. Photo by Steve Grant
IT’S been blamed for many of Fremantle’s retailing woes, but could the internet actually save the city?
Local chamber of commerce boss Tim Milsom thinks so.
An epiphany is leading to him trying to position the chamber at the forefront of a city-wide plunge into the digital age: he’d been sitting through a broadband training session with the jargon making his eyes glaze when he realised he had to get tech-savvy himself.
So he took one of the chamber’s own internet courses and it’s given him an evangelic zeal.
“When I’ve presented this some of the retailers have looked at me strangely and said ‘that’s the future’, but I say ‘it is happening now’,” he told the Herald.
The “it” includes technology such as “whispering windows” which can transform a shop’s display windows (or other hard surfaces) into speakers. These can be linked to sensors that recognise customers, and computers that track spending patterns. So a window display can sing the praises of Jimmy Choo to a shoe addict walking by, then immediately invite a bullish broker in to check out the latest Brioni ties.
“I would love to see in Freo one of these booths which are screens and they take a scan of you and you can see what you look like in a particular shirt,” Mr Milsom says.
He recognises not everyone’s going to be thrilled at technology that’s so intrusive.
“But there’s no way you can stop it.”
He’s shocked by how many Fremantle businesses have no web presence, but sympathises with those suspicious of hustlers in the tech industry, having been burnt himself. But he reckons the chamber will be able to win that trust.
Recently it started offering a diploma in social media known as “socialnomics”, which aims to improve management skills while developing an online marketing strategy.
He says studies have shown that in some countries, three-quarters of all transactions involve the internet at some stage. He says Freo retailers will have to wake up to why if they’re to thrive. “I recently bought a Bose surround system and I knew the cost, how easy it was to use and how to install it, before I’d even been in the store.”
The chamber has scored a $370,000 grant from the federal government to run broadband training and runs regular sessions for free.
by STEVE GRANT