WSA Member Update 3.1.24

March 1, 2024 Dear WSA Members,  Did you remember that TODAY is Employee Appreciation Day?After learning that many of our January invoices for WSA renewal went into spam, we sent an invoice link to everyone who hadn’t yet renewed. If you have not yet renewed and received a personal email with your WSA invoice link, please use it to renew or, even better, send a check. If you haven’t yet renewed but did not get a recent email with your invoice link, please let me know. WSA member, Bruce Christianson, sent us the news that third party vendor, Case FMS, has merged with Canada’s Landscape Effects Property Management. The combined company, which is backed by private equity firm, The Halifax Group, will be offering snow management, commercial landscaping and other exterior facility services, including sweeping, to over 21,000 sites across the U.S. and Canada. WSA members have previously reported non-payment issues with Case FMS.  Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems capable of performing complex tasks that historically only a human could do, such as reasoning, making decisions or solving problems. The emergence of AI has dominated the news as of late and for good reason. The global AI market size was valued at USD 454.12 billion in 2022 and is expected to hit USD 2,575+ billion by 2032, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19%. I’m dedicating the rest of this WSA Update to AI, which is going to affect your business, as well as the power sweeping industry as a whole. Ignoring the emergence of AI and believing that it won’t affect you and your organization is widely thought to be one of the biggest mistakes you could make. If you haven’t yet done your own investigation of what this new technology can do, I strongly encourage you to do so. The most well known AI program, called ChatGPT, is available for you to use for FREE.  I suggest you sign up for a free account and then experiment with the information it can provide. Because ChatGPT can access the breadth of the internet and more (though only through 2021), you can ask most anything. To assist, here’s the link to “A Beginner’s Guide to ChatGPT and AI Interactions.” To provide further ideas, I encourage you to check out the new post on the WSA website called “Using AI for Sweeping Contractors.” It was generated using AI, although I did modify it slightly before posting. What I asked was: How can AI be used to improve the accuracy and efficiency of exterior sweeping services for small businesses?”  As always, if you have questions or comments about this WSA Member Update, or anything else to do with the World Sweeping Association or power sweeping in general, please let me know. Good Sweeping, Ranger Kidwell-Ross, Executive Director World Sweeping Association

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