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Laois Chamber Alliance CEO, Caroline Hofman, caught up with Paula Byrne, Founder of Apple Blossom Holistic, based in Abbeyleix

I live in Abbeyleix with my cat and my fianc. I love the outdoors and nature and we grow our own veg.

The apple trees in the garden were my inspiration for the name of my business. I trained as a primary school teacher and that was my job for 16 years but I was always doing something on the side like teaching dancing.

I did an M.A. in dance and trained as a Zumba instructor and did some courses in Mindful Movement and Mindfulness too. I always wanted to do something more.

Apple Blossom Holistic is that something more. It is a holistic wellness and education space where I can help others to support themselves to live a life that is more sustainable through the development of holistic habits for life.

I approach all my work through the mindful lenses of awareness, acceptance and compassion.

Apple Blossom Holistic started out as an Instagram page after I began to facilitate online chair yoga, meditation and wellness sessions with Laois, Kildare and Galway Education centres.

I wanted a space where I could stay connected to people and further support them. From there I trained as a professional menstrual cycle coach and facilitator and completed yin yoga teaching. Since then, organically, my Instagram page has grown into my business.

I became really passionate about menstrual cycle education during my training and realised that there is a lack in where and how women and girls can learn about their own bodies in a holistic way and I decided to apply for The Ideas Academy with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland last March and that was the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey.

I have created The Mindful Cycle, a holistic approach to menstrual literacy. I have lived experience of how this approach can literally change your life.

I am hosting a Summer Solstice Self-care Sunday retreat on June 18th at 10.30am in Bloom HQ. This will include candle making, yin yoga, meditation and mindfulness in partnership with S&S Soap Sisters.

I am possibly looking at hosting another in July too, venues and dates to be confirmed so keep an eye on my social media or subscribe to my newsletter via the website to keep up to date.

I have recently opened a new intake of clients for menstrual cycle or stress management, one to one coaching, from May. My calendar is open for school visits for The Mindful Cycle from October 2023, and it is filling up already.

Slow down and ask yourself what is it that you need? Oftentimes we give so much of ourselves to others, to our work, to saying yes to too much even the good stuff. We do what we think we should be doing and end up neglecting ourselves.

You are best placed to give of yourself to others once you are nourished and looked after. That stands for home and for at work, punctuate your day with little things that top you up; screen breaks, movement, air, hot cuppas, your favourite song, say no!

Real self-care isnt fancy, it is about topping up your mind, body and soul with what you need regularly so that you can show up every day and those needs might be different depending on the day, but its about noticing that.

The Cathole Falls, which is located on the Owenass River is one of my favourite places to visit.

Visitwww.appleblossomholistic.ieto find out more.

National Enterprise Awards

The countdown is on for the National Enterprise Awards, taking place on 1stJune.

Ballykilcavan Farm and Brewery will be representing Laois, and will be competing against 30 other county finalists on the day.

Ballykilcavan Farm and Brewery is based on a 13th-generation family farm near Stradbally, and all of their beers are made with water and barley from the farm.

The brewery employs four people and is a leader in sustainable brewing. Ballykilcavan beers are sold locally in France, Italy, and the Czech Republic.

At the recent Sustainable Business Awards, Ballykilcavan were winners on the night in the Agri-food category for their decarbonisation project in the brewery.

Vacant Commercial Property Scheme

Laois County Council launches Vacant Commercial Property Incentive Scheme in Portarlington Laois Today

Rathdowney Town Centre First Masterplan

Have your say on the Rathdowney Town Centre First Masterplan Consultants KPMG Future Analytics were commissioned by Laois County Council in June 2022 to undertake a Town Centre First Masterplan for Rathdowney.

To view the plan and find out how to have your say, click here:Have your say on the Rathdowney Town Centre First Masterplan Laois County Council

2023 National Ploughing Championship

Laois County Council are inviting expressions of interest to exhibit at the 2023 National Ploughing Championships, taking place from the 19thto 21stSeptember. This call is open to all interested Laois businesses, community and service providers who wish to exhibit in their marquee.

The closing date to register for expression is Monday, 31st July at 4pm. Click here to register your interest:National Ploughing Championships 2023 Expressions of Interest to Exhibit | Laois County Council Consultation Portal

The Chambers Ireland Awards

Laois Chamber Alliance has been shortlisted in the Event of the Year category for Shine in Emo 2022. The Chambers Ireland Awards take place in Kildare on Thursday, 1stJune.

Digital Start Programme

Have you heard about the Local Enterprise Office Laois Digital Start programme. This initiative is designed to give Laois SMEs a digital edge, from optimising processes to delivering a seamless digital customer experience with the help of expert digital consultants. Learn more at:https://bit.ly/LaoisDigiStart

Skills for Better Business

The Skills for Better Business Online Assessment is an online resource to helps business owners and managers improve their leadership and management skills. You can access the assessment tool at the following link:Skills for Better Business | Online Assessment

Trading Online Voucher

are a fantastic resource for SMEs looking to develop a digital presence and sell more online. Ask Local Enterprise Office Laois about their funding vouchers which offer financial assistance of up to 2,500 to develop your online trading potential. Find out more here: http://bit.ly/LaoisTOV

Join Enterprise Irelands webinar to hear experienced business panellists discuss how digital technologies increased their companys productivity and delivered a higher level of customer satisfaction.

Register today:https://rebrand.ly/-Digital

Local Enterprise Office Laois have an SEO online course taking place on Wednesday 31stMay!

Learn how to evaluate and adjust your website, and even collaborate better with your web developer.

Join our their free SEO How to Optimise your Website Effectively workshop from 2pm to 5pm.

Book athttps://bit.ly/LaoisSEOMay

A Lunch and Learn Event in collaboration with Local Enterprise Office Laois and Laois Chamber Alliance will take place on Thursday, 15thJune, from 12.30pm to 2pm in The Killeshin Hotel Portlaoise.

Dr. Diane Cooper PhD. will deliver a workshop on S.E.L.F Care for Entrepreneurs and how to care for a strong mind, body and business. Book your free place here:Lunch & Learn Strong Mind, Body and Business SELF Care for Entrepreneurs Local Enterprise Office Laois

SEE ALSO Check out previous interviews on our Business Briefing here

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Business Briefing: Apple Blossom Holistic, business news and ... - Laois Today

With advancements in AI tools being rolled out at breakneck pace,journalists face the task of reporting developments with the appropriate nuance and contextto audiences who may be encountering this kind of technology for the first time.

But sometimes this coverage has been alarmist. The linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky criticized hyperbolic headlines in a New York Times op-ed. And there have been a lot of them.

Bings A.I. Chat: I Want to Be Alive. Godfather of AI says AI could kill humans and there might be no way to stop it. Could ChatGPT write my bookand feed my kids?Meet ChatGPT, the scarily intelligent robot who can do your job better than you.Microsofts new ChatGPT AI starts sending unhinged messages to people.What is AI chatbot phenomenon ChatGPT and could it replace humans?

In order to better understand how ChatGPT is being covered by newsrooms, we interviewed a variety of academics and journalists on how the media has been framing coverage of generative AI chatbots. We also pulled data on the volume of coverage in online news using the Media Cloud database and on TV news using data from the Internet TV News Archive, which we acquired via The GDELT Projects API, in order to get a sketch of the coverage so far.

News reporting of new technologies often takes the pattern of a hype cycle, said Felix M. Simon, a doctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and Tow Center fellow. First, It starts with a new technology which leads to all kinds of expectations and promises. ChatGPTs initial press release promised a chatbot that interacts in a conversational way. Next, media coverage branches into two extremes: We have people say its the nearing apocalypse for industry XYZ or democracy, or, alternatively, it promises all kinds of utopias which will be brought about by the technology, Simon said. Finally, after a few months, a more nuanced period of coverageaway from catastrophe or utopiato discuss real-world impacts. Thats when the cycle starts to cool off again.

But coverage of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT seems unlikely to be cooling off anytime soon.

Click to expand.Online news sites started covering ChatGPT significantly about two months after its release. Credit: Media Cloud / Tow Center

OpenAI launched ChatGPT to the public on the last day of November 2022, and within just a few days, the site had over a million users. While the media did take notice early, it wasnt until January and February of 2023 that online news coverage really started to pick up. That was around the time that BuzzFeed announced it would be using ChatGPT for content creation, Microsoft integrated a ChatGPT-powered chatbot into its Bing search engine and Google announced its challenger to ChatGPT, Bard.

For Subramaniam Vincent, director of the Journalism and Media Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, one recurring issue with media coverage of this technology is that it tends to be led by what the companies say this technology is going to do. Thats a structural problem not tied just to ChatGPT. Moreover, he added, the CEOs of these companies go to Twitter and social media and start making their own claims to control the narrative about AI.

Early 2023 was also roughly when television stations began to air nearly daily stories of the latest developments around chatbots from OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, according to data we pulled from the Internet TV News Archive using The GDELT Projects interface.

Click to expand. On TV, business news is covering ChatGPT more than cable news. Credit: The GDELT Project / Tow Center

Business news channels have maintained a steady clip of stories about these companies activities around generative AI chatbots. CNBC is leading the pack in terms of volume of coverage.

Meanwhile, cable news channels had less coverage of the chatbots relative to business news. Among the big three networks, CNN and Fox News have platformed ChatGPT more than MSNBC. Both CNN and Fox News have looked at the impact of generative AI on education, the workplace and jobs. The latter has also raised concerns about political bias. In one case, a host decried ChatGPT as a woke superweapon. Foxs coverage also frequently mentioned Elon Musk, who has among other comments said that ChatGPT was in danger of becoming woke and later urged a six-month hiatus on developing AI tools.

Click to expand.ChatGPT coverage across business and cable TV news varied by network. Credit: The GDELT Project / Tow Center

According to a Fox News poll of voters conducted in April, about half say they are either not very or not at all familiar with AI programs like ChatGPT, making accurate news coverage all the more important. And some coverage across TV and online news has been nuanced, seeking to inform audiences about how to navigate the new technology, identify hallucinations, and double check statements the AI produces. Reporters have also delved into issues of algorithmic bias, ethical considerations, the spread of misinformation, and possibilities for regulating misuse. Still other coverage continues to feel like science fiction promising everything from the end of work to the destruction of humanityand translating uncertainty into fear rather than understanding.

A hype cycle?

While it seems as if ChatGPT is ushering in a new era, there are also faint echoes of the coverage of Bitcoin and the promise of cryptocurrencies to change banking and commerce as we know it. Data from Media Clouds news database suggests that just six months since launching, ChatGPT is already seeing similar airtime to that given to cryptocurrencies in 2021, when Bitcoin prices peaked, over a decade after it was released to the public in 2009.

Some observers have felt dissatisfied with the media coverage. Are we in a hype cycle? Absolutely. But is that entirely surprising? No, said Paris Martineau, a tech reporter at The Information. The structural headwinds buffeting journalismthe collapse of advertising revenue, shrinking editorial budgets, smaller newsrooms, demand for SEO traffichelp explain the breathless coverageand a broader sense of chasing content for web traffic. The more you look at it, especially from a birds eye view, the more it [high levels of low-quality coverage] is a symptom of the state of the modern publishing and news system that we currently live in, Martineau said, referring to the sense newsrooms need to be covering every angle, including sensationalist ones, to gain audience attention. In a perfect world all reporters would have the time and resources to write ethically-framed, non-science fiction-like stories on AI. But they do not. It is systemic, she added.

Click to expand. Chatbots are getting as much coverage now as Bitcoin in 2021. Credit: Media Cloud / Tow Center

Its possible to get a sketch of how the coverage of ChatGPT compares to other new technologies. As the chart above shows, coverage of ChatGPT is already significantly outstripping a range of other hyped technologies like virtual reality and deep fakes, although coverage of cryptocurrency is much higher (particularly after the collapse of FTX).

Why could it be that the volume of ChatGPT coverage has overtaken that of other new technologies like VR and deep fakes? One thought I have is that because this new tool has direct implications for journalism, that could be one reason why theres been such an overwhelmingly huge amount of attention in the media, said Jenna Burrell, director of research at Data & Society. I would guess thats part of it. Another is that ChatGPT and other generative AI tools have greater potential to upend the creative worlds as we know it.

Perhaps there is an argument that unlike cryptocurrencies, chatbots and large language models wield real potential to change society. Already we can see the ways in which ChatGPT is transforming education and being incorporated into the day-to-day workflows of knowledge workers in a large range of sectors.

But whats concerning for Burrell has been the framing of much of this reporting. Ive taken a lot of [media] requests and have felt that there was a need for some clarity about how these technologies work, and a need to fight some of the really outrageous hype, she said. Theres been an anthropomorphic tendency towards attributing, thinking, knowing, writing, and innovating to this non-human tool, for instance the story by the New York Times claiming Bings chatbot wanted to be alive.

One concern with this framing is that the public gets the science-fiction version of the AI storylike some of the follow-up coverage of AI pioneer Geoffrey Hintons interview on its dangersand the public ends up being cut out of the important discussions around ethics, usage and the future of work.

Its the Hollywood-ification of the publics understanding of AI, said Nick Diakopoulos, associate professor in Communication Studies and Computer Science at Northwestern University. We have an image of active robots from movies. You would hope that the news coverage wouldnt simply just bolster that kind of entertaining view of the technology that it would take a little bit more of a critical look.

Towards better coverage

How could we imagine better media representations of generative AI going forward? For Burrell of Data & Society, who thinks were still in the hype phase of the cycle on generative AI chatbots, more sober coverage is needed to cover the issues that matter. One story that seems to have gotten lost is the incredible consolidation of power and money in the very small set of people who invested in this tool, are building this too, are set to make a ton of money off of it. We need to move away from focusing on red herrings like AIs potential sentience to covering how AI is further concentrating wealth and power.

More sober reporting about what these tools do and how they work is needed to cut through the fog of science fiction. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, trained on immense amounts of data, are skilled at guessing the next word in a sentence sequence but dont think in the ways humans do. So its literally just walking down the line statistically, looking at the statistical distribution of words that have already been written in the text, and then adding one next word, Diakopoulos said. More reporting should outline how these technologies actually workand dont.

That means who gets to train these modelsand what flaws and biases will be potentially baked inare questions newsrooms need to be covering. Moreover, editors need to reevaluate whose comments on generative AI are considered newsworthy.

Sensationalized coverage of generative AI leads us away from more pressing questions, Simon of the Oxford Internet Institute said. For instance, the potential future dependence of newsrooms on big tech companies for news production, the governance decisions of these companies, the ethics and bias questions relating to models and training, the climate impact of these tools, and so on. Ideally, we would want a broader public to be thinking about these things as well, Simon said, not just the engineers building these tools or the policy wonks interested in this space.

Newsrooms should lay down ground rules, perhaps in their style guides, to work out coverage strategies moving forward, said Martineau, of The Information, for example: no anthropomorphising chatbots. This parameter-setting could help cool the fires of this hype cycle, she said.

The rest is here:
How the media is covering ChatGPT - Columbia Journalism Review

Scheduled for May 31, 2023, the webinar explores strategies for preparing for Google's new generative search experience.

Generative search is a new type of search that allows users to ask questions in natural language and get answers in a conversational format. Generative search is a significant shift from the traditional search method.

If you want to be successful in the age of generative search, you need to start thinking about content creation differently. Instead of creating large volumes or low-quality content, the new search experience is about creating high-quality content that meets Google's Helpful Content algorithm update.

Whether you are a seasoned marketer or business owner, embracing AI is crucial for attracting the right kind of traffic to a website.

Presented by Chris Raulf, international AI and SEO expert, and Daniel Burns, COO at BSM, webinar participants can expect to explore various topics, including:

About Boulder SEO Marketing (BSM)

BSM is a boutique SEO agency that deploys hyper-focused strategies for local, national, and international businesses across various industries. With the right approach, BSM can help your company outrank even the most prominent players in your field. Reach out today to learn more about our affordable and highly effective SEO services packages for businesses of all sizes.

Follow the full story here: https://przen.com/pr/33507214

Go here to read the rest:
BSM to Host a Complimentary Webinar Entitled "AI and SEO. The ... - Digital Journal

For professionals in all fields to stay competitive and advance their careers, supporting continuous learning and the development of soft and technical skills is a key part of organizational culture.

Check out some of the most in-demand soft and technical skills:

Todays leaders have new responsibilitiesmany hire and support remote teams. They also find new ways to demonstrate leadership, team-building, communication, and decision-making skills during times of uncertainty and discord.

The world of work continues to evolve, and companies must make sure that their employees evolve, too, with the soft and technical skills theyll need to be future-ready. Businesses must build a culture of learning, where the expectation is for continual development, regardless of where employees do their work.

As companies look at innovative ways to make this happen, digital libraries are an effective way to augment learning and development efforts while supporting an agile workforce. Digital libraries are:

Learn more at company.overdrive.com/corporate-libraries, or contact [emailprotected].

Excerpt from:
Developing Skills to Stay Competitive - ATD

To gain insight into the most pressing challenges facing small businesses today and how to overcome them, we gathered first-hand experiences from 15 professionals, including digital marketers, CEOs, and business consultants. From identifying existing strengths for strategic clarity to using apprenticeships to solve hiring issues, these experts share their valuable perspectives on overcoming the hurdles small businesses face.

There are countless marketing channels available to businesses today, both online (such as Google, social media, and email marketing) and offline (such as direct mail and referral programs). Choosing the right strategy can be a challenge and can often come at a high cost. Small businesses may try out several paid strategies to see what works, but this can hurt their ROI and limit their investment opportunities.

Personally, when I first started out, I struggled to determine the best marketing strategy for my business. I found that identifying my existing strengths (such as networking as a free marketing opportunity) and utilizing them to generate income before investing in paid marketing strategies was a helpful approach.

Inbar Madar, Founder and Business Consultant, M.I. Business Consulting

One of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today is getting digital visibility. There are so many brands, companies, and products in the online space and so many competitors that a small company should overcome and be visible to a wider audience.

We are still a small company and we're constantly exploring ways to get our brand out there so that people can recognize us through the services that we're offering on the market.

What we're trying to do is create high-quality marketing strategies and use the latest trends and tools to show our services to online consumers. We're using social media channels, forums, bloggers, and media outlets through a Digital PR strategy to promote our brand and our services. With the right tools and the latest trends, such as AI, we can increase our visibility and beat the competitors.

Aleksandra Krstevska, Digital Marketer and SEO Manager, Investors Club

As a small business owner, one of the biggest challenges we face is competition from larger, more established companies. These larger companies often have more resources, such as larger budgets and established brand recognition, making it difficult for small businesses to compete and stand out in their industry.

To overcome this challenge, we've needed to understand our unique value proposition, and the market based on that, then subsequently target niche under-served markets. By identifying our strengths and focusing on our unique offerings, we've been able to differentiate ourselves from larger competitors and build a loyal customer base.

Josh Amishav, Founder and CEO, Breachsense

Building a healthy backlink profile has been one of the major challenges that weve had to work through in optimizing our website for SEO.

As a small business, we have a limited reach and audience, which makes it difficult to attract the attention of other websites and earn backlinks. Also, our social media following or content distribution channels arent as refined as bigger enterprises, making these channels less effective in promoting our content.

We also face a significant level of competition from bigger brands that have already built a strong online presence. This makes it even more challenging to earn high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources in our niche.

James Wilkinson, CEO, Balance One

Organically and authentically increasing the diversity of our staff has been one of our primary challenges as a small business. For many years, our diversity score was below 20%, which we felt was drastically low. To rectify this situation, we adopted Exude, a diversity assessment tool, that has been effective at helping us identify and fix diversity and inclusion gaps across our entire company structure.

This tool also gives us access to diversity resource materials that help us navigate the growing regulations and expectations on diversity and inclusion for small businesses, making it easier for us to comply with the necessary rules. Diversifying our workforce has directly contributed to our increasing revenues over the past few financial quarters, as well as our improved employee retention metrics. Diversity compliance is also at 59% now, and were hoping we can achieve 70% compliance by the end of this year.

Lisa Richards, CEO, The Candida Diet

One of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today is adapting to transforming technology. Small businesses often struggle to keep up with the constant advancements in technology, which can hinder their ability to compete effectively and reach customers. This challenge was faced by our small business as well.

To overcome this, we invested in our digital presence. We started by revamping our website to make it more user-friendly and mobile-responsive and then implementing an e-commerce platform to allow customers to shop online. We also educated ourselves on the latest digital marketing strategies and tools to help us stay relevant and effectively reach our target audience.

Will Gill, Event Entertainer, DJ Will Gill

Many small business leaders are leaning on remote business models because theyre inexpensive and flexible, but they can create challenges with monitoring employee performance. Employers that lean on idle time trackers or screen monitoring can make employees feel micromanaged and policed, while a lack of monitoring can cause performance to drop.

By shifting performance metrics, we can maximize team autonomy without losing productivity. Consider focusing on goal-based performance measures rather than process-based ones, giving your team the freedom to find their own best remote workflows. Rather than micromanaging how they do things, youre offering the freedom to choose and support them along the way to keep those goals on track.

Shawn Plummer, CEO, The Annuity Expert

The biggest challenge for small businesses is overcoming inflation. It has forced us to raise prices to keep up with rising costs. And whenever prices go up, there is pushback. No matter how much explaining we will do, some customers were inconsolable.

Raising prices to keep up with an inflated dollar is just one of the many costs of doing business. I'm sure that those customers were disappointed to find that they could not find another contractor that hadn't already adjusted their pricing for the same reasons.

Rick Berres, Owner, Honey-Doers

As someone in the SMB financing industry, many clients have voiced that hiring is a major concern. It's not that people don't want to work, it's that many small businesses cannot afford living wages for entry-level jobs.

Inflation has increased the need for higher-paying jobs, and even in states with higher minimum wages, it's difficult to attract talent within their budget. This will either require more financial support and opportunities for the small businesses themselves through programming or grants, or more support to the people they are hoping to employ through assistance with high living costs.

Leveraging AI and expanding non-financial perks could help bridge the gap in the meantime.

Gates Little, President and CEO, altLINE Sobanco

Nowadays, the competition is not just with neighborhood businesses but also massive corporations in other cities or countries. This is the case in every industry, from restaurants to hotels and, in my case, a plastic surgery office. So when a major hospital in our city offered cosmetic surgery, and our numbers dropped, I felt it was game over.

Interestingly, my wife and I were heading out for dinner one Friday evening, and she wanted to go to a local restaurant. When I asked her why not go for a fancy meal downtown, she replied that the local spot had just as good food but was more welcoming. Wow, she was correct. We went to that restaurant often because they were small and friendly. I applied her insight back to my practice.

Nowadays, I make sure that I get to know my patients on a personal level. My staff and I ensure our patients know how much we appreciate them and that they are not just the "next person in line." And it paid off.

Ahmad Ahmadi, Owner, Surgeon, and Medical Director, Avante Plastic Surgery

As a business consultant working one-on-one with private-label brand owners, I've found that a significant challenge facing small businesses today is a lack of financial acumen. Many entrepreneurs don't fully grasp their numbers, including pricing strategies, overhead costs, and advertising spend, leaving them unable to make informed decisions.

In my experience, some brand owners unwittingly lose money with each sale, yet continue to invest in their business. My approach focuses on helping them master unit economics and better understand their financials. By doing so, they can identify growth drivers and potential pitfalls, ultimately leading to smarter business decisions and a more successful venture.

Amy Wees, Founder, Amazing at Home

The upcoming death of the 3rd party tracking cookie is one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today.

Why is it such an enormous challenge?

Without the tracking cookies, our pay-per-click targeting is much less accurate, resulting in a lower ROI. Our analytics data becomes less accurate (including GA4), and understanding how our prospective customers are responding to our email campaigns gets harder when we can no longer track open rates or clicks.

All of this has evolved, with people using ad blockers and privacy browsers like Brave. The final nail in the coffin will be when Google blocks the third-party cookies in Chrome, which has a 62% share of the browser market.

Diversifying your marketing mix is key. Focus on getting your 1st party and 2nd party data and owning the relationship with your customers.

At Intribe, we've focused on SEO, referral marketing, co-marketing, and testing out new services like Terkel that have allowed us to build our email lists.

Sven Radavics, Founder and CEO, intribe

One of the most significant challenges that small businesses, like ours in the cleaning service industry, face today is balancing quality and growth.

When we started, we had a limited team and each of us was deeply involved in every project. This allowed us to maintain the highest standards of quality. However, as our business expanded, we found maintaining that same level of quality increasingly difficult.

The solution, we found, was investing heavily in regular training, making sure everyone on our team understood the importance of maintaining our standards. We also put in place stringent quality control measures. This journey wasn't without its bumps, but we've maintained our quality standards while experiencing growth.

Thomas Giarraputo, Vice President, Executive Cleaning Services

AI is infiltrating a myriad of technical and creative careers (including mine, freelance writing). While I think there's ample opportunity to thrive alongside AI, many business owners struggle to learn how to go about it.

Meshing technology with the human element has always created learning curves for businesses: the internet, email, automation, and social media, to name a few. Now, with a technology that has a high potential to completely eradicate many employees, many businesses are keen to fight against AI instead of embracing and integrating its advantages healthily.

We're on the cusp of a new learning curve, and the stakes are high. It's important for businesses to explore this technology with caution. Finding ways to integrate AI with human staff while striving to understand AI's short- and long-term implications will be key to its advancement.

Alli Hill, Founder and Director, Fleurish Freelance

I believe that one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today is recruiting the best talent. As a growing non-destructive testing company, we needed to employ more qualified technicians, but really struggled to find people who could adopt our company's values.

In the end, we decided one part of the solution was to create our own apprenticeship scheme to enlarge our team with "home-grown" talent. As we handle the training, we set expectations at the very beginning of the course, ensuring that our company values become embedded throughout the business. To date, five apprentices have qualified with us, while another three are in training.

Matthew Conway, Managing Director, NDT Group

Continued here:
The biggest challenges facing small businesses and how to ... - Arizona Big Media