Sue Broughton runs Casa Di Natura, a day spa in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. The remote location of her business meant she couldn’t rely on drop-in traffic, so Sue turned to online marketing - and is now booked out weeks in advance.

With a steady stream of customers, Sue Broughton can relax (almost) as much as her guests 

Not every small business owner is as digitally savvy as Sue - and they are missing out. We teamed up with PwC to understand more, and their Small Business, Digital Growth report found that Australian small businesses stand to generate $49.2 billion of economic value over the next ten years, simply by making better use of existing internet and mobile technologies. That’s enough money to build a second Sydney airport twenty times over.

Every dollar matters to small businesses. And virtually every small business in Australia—from day spas to night spots—can find new customers and drive efficiencies by better use of the web. Online marketing lets small businesses reach new customers, while the combination of smartphones and cloud computing allows business owners to create invoices, manage staff schedules and perform other tasks on the go.

The report found that slightly over half (53%) of the $50 billion potential benefit would be created outside inner city areas. Queensland stands to gain the most—if Sunshine State small businesses made the most of the web, for example by having a mobile-friendly website and making use of cloud-based services, they could generate an additional $11.3 billion for the Queensland economy over ten years.

Some sectors have especially big opportunities. For instance, small businesses in the agricultural, forestry and fishing sector could create 17% more economic value, simply by making better use of existing technology. And many other sectors could do even better.

Small business is too big a part of our economy not be cranking. So we’ve gone on the road to help small businesses all over Australia get online and make the most of the web (our next stop is Darwin on 3 September). In the meantime, here are three things every small business owner should be doing:

1. Be found. Make sure you show up when people search for you online. You don’t need a website to start off - there are free and easy tools like Google My Business. 
2. Go mobile. 95% of Aussies say they turn to their phones for information, ideas and advice. Make sure your web presence is mobile-friendly when they do, using these tips. 
3. Get in the cloud. Using cloud-based software and storage like Google for Work can save you heaps of money, and means less downtime. It’s a no-brainer for small business owners.

The full report shows the digital potential of Australia’s small businesses by state and industry. If that feels a bit too much like hard work, you can always explore Sue’s spa, and hear the story in her own words, below.

The Google PhD Fellowship program supports PhD students in computer science and related fields, and is part of our commitment to building strong relationships with the global academic community. In our most recent round three Australians have been recognised for their outstanding efforts.

Bahar Salehi, Google Australia Fellowship in Natural Language Processing (University of Melbourne, Computing and Information Systems) 
Research Proposal Title: Flexible Language-Independent Multiword Expression Analysis. 

• Bahar owes her interest in computer science to early exposure to games programmed in BASIC by her father. While still in primary school, with the encouragement of her dad, she taught herself to code, and wrote her first program to compose music by the age of 14. Now completing her PhD at Melbourne University she is focusing on Natural Language Processing and Multi Word Expressions to solve challenges of language and expression between computers and humans. 

Siqi Liu, Google Australia Fellowship in Computational Neuroscience (University of Sydney, School of Information Technologies) 
Research Proposal Title: Neuropsychiatric Prediction with Longitudinal Multi-Modal Neuroimaging

• A love for philosophy combined with an understanding of the digital revolution let Siqi into computer science as a career. Siqi’s research in computational neuroscience is at the intersection of medicine, biology, applied mathematics and physics. The modelling work Siqi is developing will not only help with medical diagnosis and care, but also help to progress research in Artificial Intelligence. 

Qian Ge, Google Australia Fellowship in Systems (University of New South Wales, School of Computer Science & Engineering) 
Research Proposal Title: Low Overhead Operating System Mechanisms for Eliminating Microarchitectural Timing Side Channels 

•  Qian’s research in Systems is focused on operating system design, hardware resource partitioning, and information security. She hopes her research will lead to the creation of more trustworthy operating systems for security-critical systems, ranging from cloud computing platforms to military-style cross-domain devices. 

By supporting these three Australian Fellows we recognise their significant academic achievements and hope that they will go on to be leaders in their respective fields. We look forward to building even stronger links between industry and academia to help push important research forward in Australia.

Posted by Sally-Ann Williams, Google Engineering Community & Outreach Manager

It’s early Wednesday morning. You’re desperately looking for a way to get motivated as you crawl out from under your doona to catch the early train to Flinders Street Station.

How about some music to ease into the day? Or maybe you’d rather just go back to bed? Starting today, it’s easier to find the right music for every moment of your day with new curated playlists based on what you’re doing.

If you’re a Google Play Music subscriber in Australia, next time you open the app you’ll be prompted to play music for a particular mood or activity. Each station has been handcrafted — song by song — by our team of music experts (a mix of of DJs, musicians, music critics and ethnomusicologists) to give you the exact right song for the moment.

You’ll also find new playlists unique to Aussie culture, with everything from pump-up music on the way to the footy to chilled music around the campfire.

You can also download these music stations to listen to when you’re offline, see what song is up next, and add, remove or re-order them to suit your taste. Or you can start a new station based on any song in the mix. You can also search for a particular station you want or activity you want to find music for.

With more than 30 million songs to choose from on Google Play, it can be hard to figure out what to listen to. Whether you’re a keen surfer weathering the winter waves, “singing” in the shower, or teeing up a beer and a barbie with mates after work, you’re sure to find a playlist to suit your situation with the updated Google Play Music app in Australia.

Posted by Brandon Bilinski and Elias Roman, Google Play Music product managers