Full transcript: Understanding neighbourhood data with Jessica Christiansen-Franks
Full transcript
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Kylie Davis: Uh, look, I know we've had a few goes at setting this time up, so I'm so excited that we finally got together, and you've got stuff going on as well. So, um, but I would love to hear the Neighbourlytics elevator pitch busted out.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Thank you. Well, start by thinking of a place that you love to spend time. So it might be your local main street or a holiday spot or a favorite place to hang out with your kids. So these places that you're thinking of, the places that you love and feel connected to, they have distinctive personalities, and they're memorable, and they're really important to your life. So I became a town planner 20 years ago to make places like that. I'm fascinated by how community's created and how you can actually love the places that you live. But I realized really early in my career that city making's actually letting us down, and town planners don't do a very good job at making places people love. And really at the heart of the reason why is it's really hard to measure what people love. It's really hard to measure the experience of neighborhoods. And so after 20 years of working in town planning and at local governments and with property developers, I realized if we don't have the data needed to measure the experience of place, how can we possibly get it right? And so that's where Neighbourlytics came in. We found a way to harness really unconventional digital data sources like Google Maps, TripAdvisor, Instagram, Strava, all of these things where people are leaving behind evidence of what they do in local neighborhoods, and turn that into metrics about the lifestyle of neighborhoods. So we've been around for about seven years. Um, it turns out-
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... making analytics about lifestyle neighborhoods is incredibly difficult. Uh, we've had a lot of different product evolutions, but right now what we have is a, um... All across Australia, the platform works. You can log in and have a look and pull up instant lifestyle reports for any Australian suburb, which is the initial light metrics you need to understand where do people go, what do they love, what do they do, and the property sector use us to understand what to build, how they manage their assets, and, and how they're changing over time.
Kylie Davis: Cool. So look, there's a lot in that. What... Why is it important that we solve this problem? Like... Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So, I mean, there's... That- that's- that's probably the biggest question you could ask me, right? So-
Kylie Davis: We- we've got some time.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah, yeah. So, so why is it pro... The, the reason it is important to make better cities is that this isn't just an industry that sits on the side and, and affects some people and doesn't affect others. Like, it literally is the basis of everybody's daily life, everybody's ability to have wellbe- you know, live with well-being and have access to the things they need, and also the cities are the basis of our economy. So if we're getting them wrong, not only do we make life difficult for everybody, well-being access difficult for everybody, but we also undermine the economy. But when it comes to, um, what- ... tools the property sector or t- the planning sector actually have to understand how well they're getting it right. We're measuring the wrong things. We're always measuring vacancy rates and auction clearance rates, and how many square meters of, of park there are, and how many car parks there are. That physical environment, not the experience.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And every property project, at the end of the day, is trying to change an experience. And I don't mean that in a nice-to-have fluffy way. I mean, like, even a hardcore road project is trying to make people drive in a different place, right?
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Unless you understand what's actually happening in and around that part of the city, it would be like... I mean, what we do in our cities is like releasing apps and never monitoring how they're used, right?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: That just wouldn't ever happen in the tech world. Yet, why do we do it in our cities all the time?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So first, it's just about making sure the investment's in the right place, and it's doing the things that we think the property project is meant to be doing, and that's pretty fundamental. But also, cities create this long-term legacy that should be positive and should enhance people's lives. But the reality is, cities are making us fatter, sicker, and lonelier than ever before.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, we live closer together globally than ever before for connection, for access to the economy. But people are still, you know, languishing in these environments, and we need to do a better job at getting them right. And the answers are already there, right? A great shopping center already creates awesome social connection, and great microeconomic activity, and all of these other things. But unless we're measuring them to track them, it's very hard to make sure we're amplifying the right things in our, in our decisions. So there's a whole lot of layers to why we should get it right.
Kylie Davis: So you mentioned some of the data sources that you're pulling in, um, before that o- on, I'm assuming on top of all the traditional kind of, you know, CoreLogic or median house price, and all of that kind of stuff. Are you or is... Like, how does the, how does the mix work or what's the-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... secret sauce?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So there's, there's four types of data that we care about. And, um, where when you think about the data ecosystem in property, there's sort of three parts to it. There's the traditional physical data set, so about the physical, spatial environment of cities. Clearly, we have a lot of that. That is actually what we're building. So if we don't have that-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... there's something wrong. So that's one type. At the very other end of the spectrum is, is sentiment analysis. So what do people think? What do they feel? What do they want? So when you're ask- when you solicit feedback on something, um, now that is critical because that is democracy, right?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Like, knowing what people think and want and feel is really important to making the right decisions or at least contextualizing decisions. But the piece that's often missing i- in the middle, so you've got the physical, you've got the what people think. The piece in the middle is how do they behave and what do they value?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So the actual how does the city work, and that's the piece that's often hard to pin down and often really hard to measure. So that's the piece that Neighbourlytics is looking at. And, and I make that distinct, um, differentiation because we are not taking social media to look at sentiment, although that does get done. We're taking social media, for example, to look at what people value.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So the four types of data that we bring in are what we call crowdsourced maps. So something that you probably haven't thought about is that Google doesn't actually make Google Maps. Did you realize that? Google makes the platform. The map is made by people using the neighborhood.
Kylie Davis: Right.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So it was, it was only about five years ago, there were no businesses in Google Maps, right?
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And Google didn't go around and write down all the businesses and put them in the maps. They created the ability for people to add to them over time.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so that's how Google Maps is created, is people adding to them. So it's actually a wiki. It's actually something that people are adding to all the time. Apple Maps is the same. Here Maps is the same. OpenStreetMap is the same. Instagram Maps, Facebook Maps, they're actually wikis of, like, all of the things happening in neighborhoods that get mapped, and that's beautiful 'cause that's like the-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... neighborhood mapping its neighborhood, and so we love that. And, and an ex- interesting quirk in that is you, is you often get, say in our data, um, the park, but the name of the park is not the official government gazetted name. It's- Yeah. Because guess what? People don't know or care what that is. Right? It's the neighborhood, it's the name the neighborhood call it.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And sometimes it's not very nice. Right? And so that's what they end up in Google or whatever. So that's one type. And the next type is mobile phone movement data. So this is o-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... at the neighborhood level, not an identifiable level, where how do mobile phones move, and so you can understand-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... movements, that kind of stuff. The next type is social chatter, which is where we're looking at what people have posted in a neighborhood. And this is really interesting 'cause it's actually not very good for sentiment analysis. People don't really post that they like or dislike something, um, contrary to public opinion. Instead, when people are posting, it shows that what they did was important to their life because people-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... only post on Instagram what they want their friends to know they did.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so the fact that thing was important enough to show their friends about shows that, that in this neighborhood it's about picnics in the park with their kids, the, um, same-sex marriage vote or any other such thing that might be happening, AFL Grand Finals, dogs in the park. You know, that, like, kind of at a neighborhood level what people are talking about.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, and then the last piece is the ratings and reviews. And again, that's not very good for saying what's the star rating. It's better to understand when people are leaving a review, what are the words they're choosing to use? So what part of their experience there do they wanna talk about?
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And that helps you understand the reputation of place. So they're the four types of data we have, but that is very commonly used alongside the more traditional CoreLogic data or ABS data as well. But I think just measuring the lifestyle is much better than looking at the demographics and assuming things about lifestyle, which is often what's done in the property sector otherwise.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Yes. What's, what I'm really enjoying about this conversation, Brené Brown says that data is a story with soul or, um-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Mm
Kylie Davis: ... and, and I have had many conversations about data with data people, right? And it's not ... It's a bit hard to find the soul sometimes when When, when, when you have data conversations with data people, um, as fascinating as they always are. So, so what we're, what we're, what you're basically mining for, I guess, is to find out what that, what that spark is, what that kinda soul is that makes ... That is actually the thing that attracts the people that then increases the property values, right?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: 100%. A- and what we often talk ... It- it's funny, when we, I talk about what Neighbourlytics does, the people that get it faster are actually the non-property or planning people. So when I explain it to my mom or my husband or my friends who have nothing to do with the property sector, they often get it faster because they're, they just live in neighborhoods, right?
Kylie Davis: Yep.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And they just know the city. And so if you say something like, "You know how Footscray has an awesome vibe?"
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: We're trying to measure that vibe.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: We're trying to articulate with numbers what is it about Footscray that makes it different from the other places that might be demographically similar, like Richmond-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... or other places.
Kylie Davis: Or Fitzroy. Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah, that's right.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And in fact, when you look at demographics alone, I mean, this is, these stats are a few years old, but a few years ago, if you looked at demographics alone, um, Collingwood and South Yarra were identical.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: But, like, culturally, they're not ... I mean, culturally- ... they kind of are, but when it comes to you definitely choose to live in one or the other, people aren't really tossing up between them. You're either the type of person that is in Collingwood or the type of person who is in South Yarra. You're, you-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... there's no ambiguity there.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so it's that difference that, that we're trying to measure. Um-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... but so often, as property practitioners, they can go into a neighborhood and go, "Okay, Footscray's got some multicultural food, some old buildings, and some riverfront. As long as we keep those, we'll keep the essence of the place." Uh, it, it's not like that at all, of course. You have to keep the grassroots Pilates center that everybody loves and the markets that are unofficial and unpermitted and the, and the fact that the multi- "multicultural dining," quote-unquote, is, is all independently run and has crazy long opening hours, and you can still get a beer at 2:00 AM. And it's not as, it's not as obvious as a paint the numbers, whereas when property come in, we try to, like, do the formulaic thing and, and tick the boxes, but that's not how places work.
Kylie Davis: It's not full of Mad Maxes and rolled-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: ... franchises.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: I think it's got a place, but it's totally different, you know? Like we-
Kylie Davis: Yeah, yeah, yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... a, a, a great little shopping strip can s- can be great or not just based on whether there is a good barista, right?
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: It's as nuanced as that.
Kylie Davis: Yes. Yeah. So, so are you guys coming up with a ... Is Neighbourlytics coming up with a, a score or ... Like, how, what is the, what's the kind of end reporting that you, that you get? Like, how do you ... What is the difference in a, in, in your scorecards or whatever you're, in what you're producing? How does it demonstrate the difference between Footscray and, and Fitzroy?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. Well, the, the difference, uh, a- and we've certainly grappled with how to productize very complex analytics, essentially. We've pr- we've, we've grappled with that over the years and tried to figure out the best way to actually put forward the information into the most useful package. Um, and what we do, what we've found over the years is what is most helpful is for our, um, analytics to be as descriptive and comparative as possible. So, so we, we have had iterations where we've rolled the granularity up into scores, a- and we certainly still do that to a certain extent. But, and so if, if you go onto our website, you can have a look at our Discover platform, which has everything scored at a suburb level. So you can see scores about activity levels and visitation and these different things. Um, but that very quickly isn't helpful until you can look at, well, what's driving that score?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And because we have the data of what are all the top local assets, what are the top destinations, what's open at each time of day, day of the week, we've focused on building a product that s- lets you start at the kinda suburb level score but quite quickly drill into what's behind that score and create your own filters to say, "Well, I'm actually interested in all of these place-making things but from a night time economy perspective." So you can drop in a night time filter and then have a look at, um ... So we've played around with how do we summarize the data so that it can be easily used, but then also allowing users to drill in and do their own exploration of the data and, um, and kinda unpack it. Because, you know, frankly, the project, projects are so diverse, even one ... It's all very well in tech to say, "We'll pick one ideal customer profile with one job to be done." But even in that scenario, depending on which, um, neighbourhood that specific, you know, apartment building is or greenfield development is, if we were just to pick one, the context of that development might require a different type of analytic just based on what its strengths and weaknesses are. So we've focused on a tool that summarizes but also allows you to explore and unpack, um, the data too.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. So, so h- you've mentioned before some of your clients. Like, you've got developers, builders. Um, i- tell us how are they using, how are they using you? How do you, how do you look at a empty couple of hectares of land and go, "Let's build a mini Footscray"?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. So-
Kylie Davis: Is that how they're doing it, or how does it work? Or Richmond-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So, so-
Kylie Davis: ... or whatever.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah, no, I mean, it's a good que- it's a good question. So, so the typical way that, that, um, uh ... Let's, let's, let me answer it in two ways.
Kylie Davis: Okay.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So let me talk about a, a new project, so when something's not there and it's being planned. Um, so, so there'll, there'll be three ways the data's used on that project. So firstly, a site's been chosen, or they, or they've, uh, chosen a, a region, and they're looking at exactly where to put something. And so it's very e- straightforward for us to do a, for them to use our platform to do a regional analysis of what's there. Um, and so to identify that that site is a good site for their spot. Basically, is a, is there a gap there that they're looking to fill, or is there an existing hub of things they wanna leverage? Again, depending on exactly what the project is, it'll be one or, one or either of those. Um, so that's about site selection in, in context. Um, and then once they're there, looking at how to position the project. So just say it's a build-to-rent development, and they are wanting to really leverage the existing lifestyle around there a- and put that into the marketing and make sure that on day one when it opens, it's really, um, hitting the mark with what, what locals want. The data's obviously really classically useful in that vision, positioning, marketing pi- Um, uh, stage. Um, but then once that's happened and the asset's opened, um, as it, um, changes over time, that c- that's a very important thing to do is be checking once it's, um, the sales are finished, it's opened, it's maturing, establishing. Um, many asset, uh, owners have an ongoing involvement in it, be it for leasing or other things. Being able to check and track over time, you know, is there anything that needs changing? How's the neighborhood changing around it? Um, that is a particular concern post-COVID, where all of a sudden, um, the entire way all of us live and work has changed. And so even when you w- uh, typically travel to work, most people are not going into professional jobs five days a week. They're in their home neighborhood at least one or two days a week, if not more, and so that's significantly changed. So longitudinal tracking is very important, 'cause we don't know how much that trend will continue, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so that's the typical way the data's used. But it's also quite common when an asset is already established, and this is a- also government too. A lot of government work where they've got a shopping center, they've got a main street, they've got a, a, a civic hub, whatever it might be, and they wanna check, uh, you know, there's perhaps some renewal planned of some kind, and they want to check its performance. And so by doing a quick capture of that asset and then looking at sort of 10 or 15 other similar assets, either around the country or around the world, they can look at what does best practice look like for an innovation district, or what does best practice look like for a university campus or for a hospital precinct. Um, and how can they check whether their asset is performing at the level it should, or what the aspirational, um, goal should be if you're gonna benchmark it against other national or international examples.
Kylie Davis: Have y- have you got any examples of, of work that's been done where some- uh, something as part of a development wasn't working or, you know, there was an identification that, look, th- this thing's been built or whatever, and, and we're just, it's not really, um, like it's just not vibing ?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. I mean, all, all the time.
Kylie Davis: And, and, and they need you. Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: All the time.
Kylie Davis: And then, and then, so can you tell us a story about that?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: I mean, it happens all the time, and people are quite horrified when they get the data results. And, and I think often that is a, that is a symptom of the fact that, uh, historically if you had... It's the poor old shopping centers mostly.
Kylie Davis: Yeah, right.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: The poor old shopping centers.
Kylie Davis: The white elephant.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. You know, and the traditional datasets available to understand what's happening with shopping centers, the most beloved dataset is the exit survey, right?
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Or the focus. A- and unfortunately, those types of datasets are very narrow. And because they're solicited, you get a different type of feedback. And I'm not saying that it's wrong, it's just not as broad, uh, as if you didn't ask a question and just looked at what was happening. Um, so it's quite common for our data to be purchased for an ailing shopping center, and they're trying to understand, what don't we know? The focus groups are telling us things are okay, the intercept surveys aren't bad, um, but the numbers are still going down. We've tried putting in a Sephora, we've tried putting in a n- a new food court. You know, kind of the trying to b- make it more of an experience destination, not just a commerce destination. But we just don't know what's going on. And so in that sort of scenario, we always say, "Do not just measure your shopping center." If you are just measuring your shopping center, you're already gonna fail, because-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... you need to understand the context around it. You need to understand... A- and, and that is kind of a trade area, but trade areas are often too big. You need to know what's in the walking catchment around it, right? Like, if people are going to go to the shops, where mentally in their m- in their mind do they think is also part of the same trip, right?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And there, I mean, there's probably five or 10 that come to mind, where instantly they've looked, we've looked at the data and found all sorts of other non-retail things that are very, very hot around the shopping center that that, um, landlord didn't even know existed. So one of them, they could-- It was up in Far North Queensland. They couldn't understand what, since they started doing, um, more regular opening hours on a Sunday, they couldn't understand why they weren't getting better uptake on a Sunday. There was a really, I don't know how the facilities manager didn't know this, there was a really well successful, um, car boot sale that was enormous nearby every Sunday.
Kylie Davis: Right.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And, and that's where people would go and hang out, right?
Kylie Davis: That shows people wanna shop, right?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. And, and I found out later that the car boot sale used to be in the shopping center car park, and they kicked it-
Kylie Davis: Ah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... out for Sunday trading. Right? And then that's where everybody still went.
Kylie Davis: Right.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And, and so the, you know, the placemaker in me knows that that probably was because they wanted to, you know, once you have a- that kind of community, I know the vendors, I'm gonna hang out, I wanna go... It was, it was more than a car boot sale. It had markets and all sorts of things-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... not just flock-off secondhand stuff. Very well-established, very well-known, very well-loved. It wasn't as simple as just get it out of the car park, and it actually was, was cannibalizing the shopping center on a Sunday. It's perhaps more complex than that, but the shopping center didn't even know it was there. And when we did a, a scan more broadly than that, there were, there were a whole lot of other really important local stakeholders that also took up a lot of community time that were not known to the shopping center at all. There was a very, very well ingrained and well-attended church that the shopping center didn't know was such an important influential stakeholder, and a really big basketball club as well that had lots of different programs and lots of different things. The s- so the shopping center's turned to both of those as stakeholders and gave them pop-ups in the center, and used that as a way to get a different type of visitation.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Another one that comes to mind is when we did a greenfield... I mean, our developers always think there's nothing in a greenfield site to start with. I reckon li- It's not true. There's always something
Kylie Davis: Terra nullis.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah, yeah, right. Um, I, I think the, the only time we've ever found nothing in a neighbourhood was when we did the site for the Western Sydney Airport. That was the only bit there was nothing. And I think that site has been fenced off for a long time, so, um, the, uh... Maybe we don't need to comment on the property values just yet.
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Jessica Christiansen-Franks: We, we also were looking at greenfields because there's never nothing there. The types of things that you find there, uh, and so a developer might say, you know, "We wanna do some great local place-making. It's a greenfield. There's nothing there already. Maybe what should we do?" And so certainly you can look at what's regionally around that place so that that can be tapped into, but there's also, there, there can quite often already be something interesting and local that's happening. So we once found an apple cart on the side of the road that actually was part of a fa- so they all knew about this apple cart, but the apple cart had a Facebook page And actually had all of these community markets associated with it. And so it became, I mean, it sounds like such a tiny thing, but when the new community ended up being built and established, or as it was being built, they were able to, uh, use the apple cart kind of little business as a partner, get it to come to their open days, get it to come to the other things. So, so there was something there. Often there are walking tracks and, um-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... and, like, uh, viewpoints and things that people really like and talk about. Or one time there was a, we found an abandoned house that was on the site, yeah, sounds sketchy, that the kids would hang out in. Also sounds sketchy. However- ... they had started a youth group.
Kylie Davis: Right.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And it was a major developer that was using our data to find this, and they ended up reaching out to the youth group and getting the youth group to become a partner, and they gave the youth group space in the new community center that they built. And the kids weren't vandalizing it. It wasn't-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... it wasn't problematic. Um, but that wouldn't have come about if not for the data to look at, you know, what's happening in this place and, mm.
Kylie Davis: So I, so I, I ran a local newspaper in the sort of 1990s up to about 2003, I think. And, uh, in Balmain, the Village Voice, because I, you know, Balmain in, I was, grew up in Melbourne, and when I moved to Sydney, I thought Sydney was Sin City and, you know, I was a good card-carrying, you know, member of, um, of the Melbourne chip-on-my-shoulder club. And
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Oh, I love it.
Kylie Davis: I hated Sydney. Um, but when I got off the ferry at Balmain, I remember saying to my husband, who was overseas at the time, my then boyfriend, um, who was overseas at the time. He said to me, "Carls, if you cannot live in Sydney, we will go back to Melbourne. But I want you to go to Balmain and see If you see how you feel about it, 'cause that's where he owned a, he owned a house there, but he was overseas. And he said, "So let me know when you get..." And I remember getting off the ferry and going, "I'm home." Like, okay, I can, I can do Sydney if this is what Sydney is to us, right? And I walked all the way up Darling Street from the ferry all the way up to Victoria Road and just loved every second of it, and that was our, that was our home for, like, 20 years. And then we built a newspaper in there because you, you couldn't find in the local media at the time what made Balmain Balmain, and Balmain was rapidly changing and, um, moving from being very working class to being, you know, very kind of, um, the, you know, double income, no kids kind of space and, and all of that sort of stuff. And so at that time, there's a point to this story, at that time there was a lot of conflict at council level about what redevelopment of Balmain looked like because everyone was trying to protect what it was but still allow, um, still allow appropriate development to come into the, into the place. And, and it was a very hard juggle around, around that. And, you know, Leichhardt Council was the subject of a documentary, Rats in the Ranks, because of-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Ooh
Kylie Davis: ... because of, because of all of, because of all of the, the conflict around it, right?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Mm-hmm.
Kylie Davis: Is, so is what Neighbourlytics doing about trying to reduce some of that conflict or kind of, yeah, e- explore what that essence is?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Uh, 100%. That is... I mean, the stories like that are... And I use Footscray as an example because I had the same experience living in Footscray, where it had-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... an amazing... When I got there I'm like, "This is my place," right?
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And then saw the development start to start, and then as an urban designer I was also involved in some of the development and was seeing how superficially the developers were treating the suburb in a, like, a formulaic-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... way, rather than really-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... kinda understand the essence of it.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So, I mean, my, my hope is that if, if it's possible to ju- to create a data set that is genuinely indicative of what locals feel about a place and what the experience of being somewhere is like, it means it, it's really in that tracking over time that we're held to account. Now unfortunately the property sector don't really like to track things over time, 'cause we haven't really done it.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And that's really the hardest, one of the hardest sells we have in our data, is that although we can track anything, right? It's very easy in our data, there's not a lot of appetite for that because usually they're just trying to engage a consultant to do something once to learn something about it, and that something is usually, like, how to position the development so it'll sell-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... and not really about how to make sure the neighbourhood, um, is going in the right direction over time. So my... I mean, the way that means, the w- the way we sell our data is we won't just sell it to developers, we want the governments to be using it too, the consultants to be using it too, so that there's visibility right across the board about how neighbourhoods are changing so that those decisions can be made, um, properly and with accountability. And so with somewhere like Balmain, it's undergoing that kind of change. I, you know, not that we could, um, explain it in such a short discussion, but, um, probably the way for it to increase in density but still maintain its vibe is to make sure that the most important local stakeholders, the most important businesses, the most important clubs, the most a- but also the most important visual aspects-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... the different views and some different trees, and if people are really connecting to vistas and mature trees and those kind of spatial elements of the neighbourhood. If all of those are known and recognized and, I hate, don't like to use the word protected but, but at least designed with consciously in the neighbourhood-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... evolution, surely that is the way to have dense- density coming in whilst maintaining-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... the existing character. The example of Footscray, which, I mean, I don't live there anymore, but I, I dare say it's been killed. I mean, I hope I'm too, I'm too early to say that. Um, but what developers were doing there was very cool suburb- ... lots of reasons to be there, great dining, great accessibility, insane views of the city and the port. Like, got all the ticks. Waterfront, open space, et cetera. Low land values to start with. You know, it's a dream. Um, but the developers were coming in, taking their obscene heights they were allowed to put in, and rather than doing anything sensible or nuanced, they were literally just filling the, um, the, the building envelope they're given from the planning scheme, putting some tokenistic and, and certainly sacrificial retail at ground floor, letting it become some real estate agents and, like, crappy professional services, nothing to do with street life. And in the meantime, destroying all of the fine grain warehousing that, sure, on some level could be heritage, but actually is important because it allows the makers markets and the Pilates studio and all of those almost, like, semi-industrial uses that are so key to the creative ecosystem in Footscray.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And then by the time all those started leaving, it was a bit too late, because those types of-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... tenants won't, won't pay for very expensive ground floor retail on the bottom of an apartment building. Like a real estate-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... agent will. Um, and so that's, I want the property sector to be accountable for that kind of mistake.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Because if you look at Footscray before and after, you are gonna clearly see that all those stakeholders have gone and left entirely, and that those neighborhoods that used to be full of really important local assets are now totally devoid of them, and the things that have replaced them are not important to local life at all.
Kylie Davis: Mm. Mm. What's your, uh, Jess, what's your business model?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So we're a subscription platform.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: We, we have a entry-level tool, which is called Discover-
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... which is available on a free trial through our website, and then users subscribe to that, and you can do search anywhere in the country, and then, um, generate rep- simple reports, um, for right across the country. And then, uh, if you wanna maintain access to that, you pay a basic level subscription to maintain. But, uh, quite quickly, a project usually comes along for one of our users-
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... and then onboard more geographies and, uh, opt in for premium data, which is some of the more exciting kinda tracking over time data sets. Um, and, and then usually within 6 to 12 months, our clients-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... add sort of 10 or 15 assets across their portfolio in the system.
Kylie Davis: Okay. And, and so are you seeing with this over time, can you see a correlation between the pro- b- between the house value or the house prices and the continued connection to, to community?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. We, we don't actually look at house prices.
Kylie Davis: Uh-huh. Okay.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, because we don't wanna make it too easy to gentrify a neighborhood . You know, I th- I think, well, no, I'm s- I say that a bit tongue in cheek as a throwaway comment. Um, house prices are not the right proxy for gentrification or for-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... the increasing demographic in-
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... like a shifting demographic. And by that I mean other... The price of other things will shift in a neighborhood often well before housing prices do. So they're often not the be- housing prices are a great way to understand housing price.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: They're not a great way to understand much else. Um, so we will look at things like menu prices and other things like that to help give a more dynamic understanding of how the lifestyle might be shifting of a neighbourhood.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: But, but certainly, um, when you look at the asset segments that very much care about longitudinal, uh, uh, property value, so that's retail, um, but also build-to-rent.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Uh, those, uh, do perform much better in neighbourhoods that have a holistic lifestyle offer within a local catchment around it. And so those are the two biggest segments for the use of our data. So the, the increasing interest in build-to-rent across Australia, um, I mean, I think our data's being used on most, if not all, of those projects at the moment because they, it's not just about building apartments and flogging them off and-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... as long as they won, they're sold. And eight, those, those assets really have to perform well over time.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned before that you've been around for seven years.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Mm-hmm.
Kylie Davis: How big are you guys now?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Uh, I mean, we're still, we're still a similar headcount. Our headcount just gets more expensive . So, so in terms of-
Kylie Davis: That's the only life in data, right?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... right. So we've, we've been about 12 people for the last-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... three years. Um, but now those 12 people are largely data scientists and, and engineers, so we're probably 70%, um, tech team.
Kylie Davis: Yep.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, and, and that's because we are genuinely a full software play now. In the early days-
Kylie Davis: Yep
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... it was a lot of quite manual data collection and data input and those things.
Kylie Davis: Oh, yeah. Look, that, um, that I think that's all par for the course as a data business.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Um, and so what's been the biggest challenge for you across that seven years?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, I mean, I-
Kylie Davis: Has it-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah.
Kylie Davis: Has it been the transition from town planner to, to, to, to data-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: It has been
Kylie Davis: ... to Datachick?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: I was a terrible town planner. No, I mean, I, I was a r- actually originally a landscape architect, and then urban-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... designer, and then community engagement. Um, no, that, transitioning from that real mainstream career into tech actually was the easiest part because I was just always really frustrated that it wasn't working well, you know-
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... because being a town planner, I could never understand why this podium height with this tower set back equaled vibrant. I just didn't, even though we- ... we wrote it in all the reports, but I just didn't understand. I thought I was an idiot who didn't get it. And then eventually I'm like, "Oh no, I think nobody gets it." And it might all-
Kylie Davis: It's completely made up.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah, it might all be baloney. And Um, so no, that part was easy. I was always meant to be telling everyone they were doing it wrong. Um, and so-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... I definitely found my people in tech.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Fantastic.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, but the ha- the hardest part is, is, is getting the business model right because, you know, it's not like we're running an architectural practice where if ours doesn't work, it's because we specifically screwed it up, right?
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: There are thousands of architecture practices. Everyone knows it can work as a model. You know-
Kylie Davis: Yeah
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... our business, we've found a very unique, you know, global first way to measure neighborhoods, and no one's doing it the way that we're doing it. And it's possible it doesn't work, right? So at every step of the way- ... every new data set, every new analytic has to be very carefully and intentionally tested to make sure do- does this actually tell us the thing we're hoping it will tell us? Um, what is it good for? Where are the edge cases? What can't it be used for? Uh, and that's re- that's really hard because you can never rest on your laurels about that. We, and over the years, we've evolved what data we pull from because some data sets over time become no good because of the w- what happens in the real world, you know?
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Whether people are using Facebook Events in a certain way or not, whether they're using Eventbrite or we used to use Meetup a lot, and then-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... people stopped using Meetup, and so we couldn't-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... use it anymore 'cause it wasn't ubiquitous anymore.
Kylie Davis: Yep. Yep.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, so that's the hardest part is really... A- but it's exciting, right? Uh, it's a privilege to get to do it, but we can't take our eye off the ball when it comes to that. We have to always be thinking, what does the market need the data to tell them, and can this data do that, and where are the edge cases?
Kylie Davis: Right. And so what's the, um- Have you got any examples? 'Cause I, I can hear, like, all my property investment listeners going, "So does she know the magic formula for what's gonna make the next investment pro-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: No
Kylie Davis: ... next investment suburb go off?" Do you-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah
Kylie Davis: ... do you have that formula?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: I mean, that was-
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Sub- yeah, yeah. And the answer is subscribe to the platform, people.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Absolutely. The answer is jump on the free trial. You don't even need-
Kylie Davis: Oh, okay. Right
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... to pay-
Kylie Davis: There you go. Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. I mean, certainly if, if, if any investment is, believes its lifestyle context is important to that in- investment's success, then yes.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So in a context where, uh, you are, say it's a, a, a residential, um, and you, and you're wanting to leverage the existing neighborhood, it's really important to know what is already... what is it that people love about this neighborhood already.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, is my asset located near that or not? Like, how can it best leverage those things? Can I, what can I get to within that 10-minute walk? What's around me? Um, a- a- but also, what are the other immediate residential choices around it? Because when people are choosing somewhere to live, they're usually only choosing within a one or two suburb radius of somewhere they already know.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so, um, a- and people are using their gut, they're using their own experience, they're using the fact that they hang out at their friend's house and know certain things. And so if you're trying to sell a residential, um, you know, asset in Footscray, you've gotta know what's happening in Yarraville and Seddon and all the places that adjoin that as well, because that's part of the context people are, people are thinking about. Same with retail. Retail's no longer about consuming. It's about experience.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so that experience in the broader sense around a retail center or around a main street is more important than ever before.
Kylie Davis: Fantastic. And so what do you think is... Like, what do you see into the future is gonna be impacting Neighbourlytics and how you guys are, are, are either doing business or developing data? What, what do you see coming down the pipe?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah. Well, certainly one of the biggest shifts in the last year is the readiness of our customers.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So in the first five years of business, our cu- we were com- competing primarily with consultancies.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so you could just do it a bit faster and a bit cheaper than a cons- and more repeatable than a consultancy.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: That wasn't our pitch. Our pitch was sharper than that. But-
Kylie Davis: That's all right
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... our customers were expecting a report that summarized things for them and told them what to do.
Kylie Davis: Yeah.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Whereas now, um, and I've been doing a lot of research on what's happening, Kerryn. It's happening right across B2B. It's not just proptech that's experiencing this. But B2B customers are, are expecting a more B2C experience.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And it's because as just regular people, we, we are much more tech-enabled in our lives.
Kylie Davis: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And we're used to a really great consumer tech experience.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so that expectation is coming through in our B2B expectations.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So pre-COVID, we would do very human-facing sales, lots of relationships, just like if we were a consultancy selling services. Whereas now, even though we're still ready to do that, our customers want, want a faceless trial by themselves. They don't necessarily wanna talk to us or interact with us straightaway, and that's a classic B2C dynamic where they expect-
Kylie Davis: Mm
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: ... it at their fingertips curated for them, and a very easy, frictionless digital purchasing experience.
Kylie Davis: Right.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, so that is a huge shift. Like, a company that's spent seven years building a system that's, that's in that more traditional sales method to fairly quickly try to shift that. Um, a- and I think we'll see that playing out quite substantially across proptech in the coming years. Certainly one of our proptech peers have talked about, you know, again, not, not that it's as linear as pre- or post-COVID, but, um, a number of years ago, if you were an interesting proptech, they often would buy you because they wanted to do something interesting and new.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And we're... So you're being purchased by the evangelists.
Kylie Davis: Yep.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Whereas now the buyers are the pragmatists.
Kylie Davis: Yep.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And so the buyers wanna weigh up lots of platforms. They don't really care about innovation. They, that's, that's done. They're not using that word anymore. They just wanna do something really easy, cost-cutting, pragmatic.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Um, and again, it's a very different type of, um, purchasing dynamic than pre-COVID.
Kylie Davis: Mm. And so everyone's talking about AI, obviously, now.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Ha.
Kylie Davis: How do you... How does AI impact Neighbourlytics?
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: It's interesting. So, so when... Before we were, before we'd taken on this, um, more B2C model that, that we have now, we did a lot of consulting work on top of the product.
Kylie Davis: Mm.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: And it's actually fortuitous that we've virtually stopped doing that because now the small pieces of consulting that you can add onto our product, people just think it's AI, right? It was literally trained town planners with master's degrees reading the data and summarizing reports. But now the customers say, "Oh, well, that's just ChatGPT, isn't it?" If only it was that easy, right?
Kylie Davis: That's right.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: It's not.
Kylie Davis: ChatGPT can't pass your town planning reports yet.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: No. Yeah, that's right.
Kylie Davis: He's not that clever. He's not that clever. Um-
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: So the int- the interesting thing about that I- AI being so much part of the public discourse though is, is that it has just matured the market, that there isn't the cynicism about those types of tools that there was years ago. And we certainly have our own machine learning models that we've used. It's not generative AI like ChatGPT, but we have, like, machine learning models that, that do our data sorting and image recognition and those things. Uh, and in the early days, customers were a bit like, "Oh, I don't know. That sounds experimental." Whereas now it's, there's a quick-
Kylie Davis: It's like, "Ha, we've gotta have one. All the cool kids have got one."
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Yeah, yeah. That's it. We used to take AI off the website 'cause it sounded too experimental, whereas now we're working at putting it back on the website.
Kylie Davis: Totally. Well, look, Jess, thank you so much. It's been absolutely awesome to have a chat to you today. Um, I know you're moving house, so I think you better go back and get stuck back into that again. Good luck with it all.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Thank you.
Kylie Davis: Um, and, and we're looking really forward to seeing you at the, uh, PropTech Forum. It's gonna be a great conversation.
Jessica Christiansen-Franks: Me too. Thanks so much for the invite to both.
Kylie Davis: Yeah. Thank you. So what do you think of Neighbourlytics? As regular listeners know, I am a major data geek, and I just love that there is a PropTech out there using data to genuinely understand the connection between people and property, and taking those insights to build better communities. Property, as we know, is so much more than bricks and mortar, open plan designs, or retail centers. These things are all built to support lifestyle, and let's think about that. It's the style of life that we want to lead as humans connected to our family and friends, and the meaning in our lives. It feels like Neighbourlytics is filling an important gap in our data sets, and we are all the richer for it. Now, Jess gave an absolutely cracking presentation at the 2023 PropTech Forum about some of the issues and biases in typical real estate data sets. It was really eye-opening. You can view it or read the transcript on the PropTech Association website, uh, proptechassociation.com.au, and I highly recommend it.
Now, if you have enjoyed this episode of the PropTech Podcast, I would love you to tell all your friends or drop me a line either via email or LinkedIn or on our Facebook page, and you can follow this podcast on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor, and Apple iTunes, and anywhere good podcasts are heard. I would like to thank my podcast producer, the fabulous Charlie Hollands, podcast website editors, Jill Escudero and Shira Sexison, and our sponsors, HID, digital identification solutions for your building, Direct Connect, making moving easy, Dynamic Methods, the name behind Forms Live, REI Forms Live, and Realworks, Easy Pay, making collecting payments easy for PropTechs, and the PropTech Association Australia, Australia's industry body which is supporting the flourishing PropTech community.
Now, if you're an Australian or New Zealand PropTech who would like to be on the show, please drop me a line via LinkedIn or email kylie@proptechassociation.com.au.
Thanks so much, everyone. Until next time, keep on PropTeching.
Do you run a PropTech business or are you the founder of a PropTech? Make sure you join the PropTech Association of Australia. It's Australia's new not-for-profit association made up of tech people who are passionate about the property industry and committed to improving experiences in how we buy, sell, rent, manage, build, and finance property. Joining will give you access to events and networks across Australia and globally to help you promote and grow your business. Go to proptechassociation.com.au and follow the prompts to join.
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