Hi James,
I thought this may be of use here. It might help establish some opportunities for feedback. My little community of small business owners/users and NSW concierges are doing a post mortem on the Dine and Discover campaign. This what I’ve written to the NSW Small Business Commissioner. He is on the Australian Business Register Advisory Council in order to make the D&D “eligibility for small business” process flow seamlessly.
Dear Commissioner, You’d appreciate the Dine and Discover (D&D) campaign finishes, officially, at the end of this financial year. in 27 days.
The likelihood of achieving its primary aim = Stimulating the NSW economy with $500m = is slim. As a first attempt, the campaign might only achieve less than half what it set out to do. In part, these are teething problems of a poor, on-the-run, design. So could we, at this point, revisit the pain points for small businesses while they are fresh in our minds.
The introduction of five codes for each ABN should ensure that small businesses can provide more useful statistical information to planners. Additionally, it should enable our small businesses to self-register for any State or National campaign that requires an interrogation of the Australian Business Register to verify an applicant’s ID Attributes. (excuse the geekspeak. N.B An Attribute is any information that can be verified to prove up/strengthen a person’s, or business’s, ID)
The D&D campaign has illustrated the need for co-design between the Australian Business Register’s, and the State’s, digital designers. There must also be some input from people like us to ensure that an implementation won’t have small business people pulling their hair out in frustration and their concierges reduced to robots. Could we institute a small business digital design user group , which includes people from NSW campaigns’ digital design teams? This would NOT be an advocacy group. Its aim would be to recognise and prioritise our users’ pain points and investigate if there is an easier way to route around them, end to end. Ideally our common aim is to make an online process flow seamlessly with reusable code.
One other D&D design consideration. Jenny at smallbusinessassistance informs us D&D applicants should provide “Photos, pamphlets, or evidence of the business’ website displaying the business name, logo and evidence the business provides relevant eligible services ” in order to prove up a business’s D&D eligibility. These Attributes could also be added to an ABN’s listing, especially if it’s useful in marketing NSW small business locations and industries; and complements other Statewide campaigns. The ABR could become a marketing concierge, by offering different views of this information.
Lastly. I was sad, after initially hearing about the D&D campaign in Feb. I looked around immediately for the “front end”. I.e. an outline of the marketing. I wondered how and where D&D promotion was planned to integrate with existing tourist marketing campaigns (like The Pie Trail). It never evolved. https://mybusiness.service.nsw.gov.au/dine-and-discover/business-finder There was no end-to-end planning.
That’s a brief post mortem of the D&D campaign. It’s as far as we can go until our little group have a convenient feedback place at NSW’s digital design table for products/campaigns/services that impact small business.
WE could use some advice here on how the D&D campaign, and others, might be improved. Please don’t shoot the messenger 
