When the Australian Government proposed changes to the higher education system as part of its 2014-2015 Budget, it included a change the annual interest rate on loans through the Higher Education Loan Programme from the CPI (2.6 per cent at the time) to the ten year Government Bond rate (4.0 per cent). This would have a far-reaching consequence that was very unfair. Because women take more time out from the workforce to raise a family than men, the compounding effect of this higher interest rate would mean that women could be paying far more than men, for the same education. Tens of thousands of dollars more! Luckily for both women and men, the change never happened.

Thinking about this scenario lead me to consider the superannuation system and realise that it is subject to the same effect. Because women take more time out from the workforce to raise a family than men, they accumulate significantly less superannuation. Superannuation contributions stop when work stops, but also the level of contribution stalls while out of the workforce. Women usually return to the workforce at the same level of career progression they were at, while most men will continue to advance in salary and therefore higher superannuation contributions.

If we look at the outcome of the current system, it’s clearly not fair. So we need to do something about this problem. Of course action needs to be taken at the highest levels – this affects every woman in the country. So we’ll lobby and encourage industry and government to take action on this issue at the broadest level. There is a lot of work being done in this area: Make Super Fair.

But for us, this doesn’t address the need for fairness in our own company. We need concrete, real action. We made some some assumptions: let’s say women start in the workforce at 21, at the same salary level as men, take 10 years out of the workforce to raise a family, then return at the same salary level, and superannuation fund returns average 5% per annum. We plugged these assumptions into a spreadsheet and came out with a surprising result. It would only take around 5% extra superannuation to make retirement savings equal by retirement age. So since February 2016, at Serversaurus we pay our female staff an extra 5.5% superannuation. It’s not a lot, and if your company has gender parity (50% male and female staff), it would produce an overall increase in payroll of less than 2.5%.

Why don’t you encourage your company to join us and help to make Superannuation Fair!

Martin Gleeson, Co-Founder.

Hi from HQ! Serversaurus is proud of these initiatives that strengthen our current business:

• Exceptional Customer Happiness
  It’s one of the things that drives us. We always want to improve and make things easy for others to succeed.
• 4 day workweek for employees
  Happy employees make customers and operations. We’ve gone beyond Google’s 20% Time.
• Datacentres in Australia
  Our customers and their customers know the location of their data. Data sovereignty is very quickly becoming a high priority. Our Melbourne datacentre is Tier 4 ISO 27001 certified and we’ve a secondary datacenter Brisbane.
• Fair Super
  Serversaurus contributes an extra 5.5% to female employees so we can do our part in addressing the gender gap in retirement savings.
• B Corporation
  B Corporation is an accreditation for businesses that covers progressive operations across people, environment, technology and more. Like the business version of Fair Trade for coffee. Check out other B Corp’s at bcorporation.net.au.
• Contribution to 1% for the planet
  We donate 1% of our Sales revenue to environmental causes, including Take 3 for the Sea. What’s your business doing to help save the planet?
• Fully carbon offset operations
  Serversaurus has been fully carbon-neutral since 2007. Partnering with Greenfleet to plant trees to offset all our emissions: servers, transport, electricity, and more!
• Often faster than AWS, Azure, GCE and others.
  (Had to be said). Delivering mission critical, high performance sites. Want to avoid a meltdown? Talk to us.We like to refine what we do. What works for you?

Melbourne, Victoria, 2nd August, 2016 – Serversaurus, a Melbourne-based green cloud computing company, has purchased the customers and infrastructure of Brisbane based cloud hosting company Tract.com.

Serversaurus co-founder Martin Gleeson said he was proud to be making the company’s first acquisition since its inception in 2005:

The purchase of the Tract.com customer base and assets is our first foray into acquired expansion outside of our organic growth over the last 11 years. This expansion brings with it both an existing customer base, as well as necessary infrastructure to upgrade and expand our services in Melbourne

Like Serversaurus, Tract.com is built on the OnApp cloud stack, offering a range of SSD powered hosting services, premium DNS and shared hosting. This acquisition will provide the base for Serversaurus’ next generation cloud platform, allowing for a seamless upgrade path from the original platform which went online in 2010.

Serversaurus co-founder Nick Jaffe looks forward to the infrastructure and reliability benefits of the acquisition:

In the last 6 years Serversaurus has maintained unprecedented uptime, outperforming the likes of Amazon Web Services and other major cloud players. This acquisition from an infrastructure perspective, will provide Serversaurus with the base platform necessary to upgrade and continue our high level of reliability, while causing the minimum amount of customer disruption.

Serversaurus will continue to provide the quality of service Tract.com customers have been used to, and looks forward to being able to offer additional products and services, such as proven high-traffic and high-availability solutions.

Serversaurus is proud to be able to grow and continue it’s mission in providing both world-class cloud services from its Melbourne based headquarters, while also continuing its environmental and sustainable business practices.

– ENDS –

About Serversaurus

Serversaurus is headquartered at Electron Workshop, their purpose-built coworking space, which is shared with other like-minded businesses and entrepreneurs.

Serversaurus and Electron Workshop were co-founded under the parent company Arktisma, by Melbourne-based entrepreneurs Nick Jaffe and Martin Gleeson in 2005.

Serversaurus is a 100% Melbourne, Australian based green web hosting company, offering email, domains, web hosting, management, content delivery (CDN), Anycast DNS, and cloud hosting services.

Serversaurus is Australia’s first certified web hosting B Corporation, and one of the exclusive group of Founding Australian B Corporations in 2014. In 2007 Serversaurus was the first Australian hosting company to carbon-offset its emissions, and donates 1% of its annual turnover to environmental charities through the 1% For The Planet program.

For more information on Arktisma projects, visit: serversaurus.com.au and electronworkshop.com.au

About B Corporation

B Corps are certified by the nonprofit B Lab. To become a B Corp a company must complete a B Impact Assessment to demonstrate how they voluntarily meet higher standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

B Lab provides tools for companies to measure, compare and improve their social and environmental performance.

For more information on B Corp, visit www.bcorporation.net

Diana Barnett, founder of The Toxic Fox Radio speaks with Martin Gleeson, Co-founder of The Electron Workshop and Serversaurus to discuss a range of topics that include and elaborate on how & why practising Equality, Autonomy and Justice in the workspace is key, the journey of becoming B-Corp accredited, the influential factors behind Martins ethos and increasing business productivity= Quality vs Quantity.

Martin Gleeson | equality | social justice & a 4 day week | TFS011 – The Toxic Fox

To listen to the interview, read the article or to find more about The Toxic Fox Show, follow the link above ‘Read the article on thetoxicfox.com’.

The Serversaurs would like to acknowledge our gratitude to Diana Barnett for being an amazing host and facilitator, to the rest of the Toxic Fox crew for helping make this happen and to Martin Gleeson for welcoming and embracing the opportunity to share with us his thoughts, practises & insights.

Interview Quote from Martin Gleeson:
“Don’t be afraid. Be prepared to be yourself and to put your values and your ethics way upfront. Sometimes people may be fearful about how they may be perceived by other businesses, and I just say forget particularly about the thoughts of businesses that you don’t like. It’s often funny that we worry more about the opinions of people that we don’t respect than those that we do.
So if you are worried that another business will think that you arent serious enough because you are supporting environmental issues and so forth then you really shouldn’t be worried about what they think because they’re not on your same wave length re: values.”

Although the first deployment will span 2 years before returning to the Tsushima coast, It is estimated that after 10 years of operation this device will have cleaned half of the waste which lies in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Not only is this the first ever passive ocean cleaning device but also the largest ever floating device to date.

Complementing this project the organization is also working with Tsushima Island to investigate whether the collected waste could be used as an alternative energy source.

Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup: “Taking care of the world’s ocean garbage problem is one of the largest environmental challenges mankind faces today. Not only will this first cleanup array contribute to cleaner waters and coasts but it simultaneously is an essential step towards our goal of cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This deployment will enable us to study the system’s efficiency and durability over time.

To read more about this project check out their website “The Ocean Cleanup”.

Tim Silverwood of Take3, an organisation which aims to encourage beach goers to take 3 pieces of garbage off of the beach on every visit, spoke of the key environmental issues revolving around plastics in Australia, and his rather encouraging take on the situation.

The key takeaways were:

National ban on plastic bags

Like the state of California and other regions of the world, Australia must take action and ban bags nationally. The duopoly of Coles & Woolworths will not take this initiative on their own. Countless campaigns have tried, however unfortunately these large corporations wish to be part of the problem, instead of the solution – without government intervention, the biggest producers of single-use plastic bags will continue to give them away to consumers. It’s unfortunate the government has to take a big brother approach on corporate activities like this, and it’s disappointing these organisations can’t innovate and lead with their own initiative for the betterment of the community and our environment.

National ban on the use of micro-beads

If you haven’t already heard about micro-beads, they are an incredible mis-use of resources and the epitome of short term thinking. Large cosmetics manufacturers insert tiny balls of plastic as exfoliation elements into their products. These tiny pieces of plastics go down the drain, and straight into our waterways. In the documentary trailer for BAYKEEPERS below, you’ll see how this is impacting local areas such as Port Phillip bay in Melbourne. Manufacturers who are culprits of micro bead manufacture include Colgate-Palmolive, L’Oréal, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and others. Many companies have vowed to discontinue micro bead use, however giants such as Unilever have no intention to stop until well into 2017.

National bottle refund program

In many countries, the return of recyclable bottles is rewarded – in Germany, bottles can be returned at supermarkets, where dockets are printed and immediately available for use within the supermarket – you can effectively trade bottles directly for food.

In Australia, we have no such program except in South Australia, where bottles can be returned and rewarded at up to 10cents per return. As a kid I remember asking my dad whether we could fill a trailer up with cans and drive to Adelaide…

This lack of a refund scheme which rewards people for returning cans and bottles is both disappointing and nonsensical. Again, this issue falls into the political sphere, and requires government intervention to help resolve – as the slow wheels of political change move, bottles continue to float swiftly out into our last remaining wild areas.

Tim Silverwood

Tim Silverwood speaks passionately about change, and gives off an aura of positivity which can sometimes be lost in environmental campaigners – campaigning is almost always an uphill battle. Tim thinks these key issues and more can be solved within 5 years, and I actually believe him – which isn’t something I often feel!

Following Tim’s intro, we watched the really excellent local documentary BAYKEEPERS from filmmaker Michael J. Lutman – not only is the story and message engaging, but the editing and production value of the film is exceptional – if you can, be sure to find a full version of the documentary.

We see again and again, that in a world dominated by corporatism, a fundamental change in the very DNA of business is required – we cannot only rely on our governments to guide us – they have had, and will continue to have a significant role, however business is often operating one step ahead and with greater agility – let’s make that step the right one.

In a recent talk I will blog about another day, a representative from Bankmecu spoke about our biggest communicator: The money in our pockets. Use this communicator to communicate your values, and fight to support the individuals and businesses which have foresight, insight and a purpose which reaches beyond the simplistic notion of profits for stakeholders.

The folder contained notes on self-discipline while working from home (maintain a strict timetable!), details on work-from-home tax deduction eligibility, and a random smattering of ideas.

Amongst my ideas lay a precursor to Flickr, which I’d coined Shutterweb.com, a site for camera reviews, a curious idea on a site for trading goodwill, and a platform for travellers to map and document their travels with maps and diaries (remember, this was before the word blog really even existed!).

Some of this is simplistic, but, the essence still rings true, and is reflected in how we run Serversaurus today, and how we’ll run it in the future.

The following is what I wrote under the heading ‘Growth’:

• Stay small and focused
• Be boutique
• Be employee-owned

Under the title of ‘Customer Service’:

• Commit 100% to customer service and satisfaction
• Don’t appear outwardly to provide good customer service, do it
• It costs five times as much to get a new customer as it does to retain an existing one.
• Customer service and service flexibility are the two biggest weapons in the battle to compete with the big companies
• Promote a sense of community by encouraging feedback from customers.
• Invest the majority of your capital into creating the best possible customer experience

Under the title ‘The Plan’:

“Run a small, tightly knit company in a youthful, creative, fun environment. Do not plan to get big fast or to retire on 10 million dollars. Inject profit back into the company for facilities and a good work place, to keep employees secure, interested, and most of all, happy!”

I also had a bunch of quotes from reading and elsewhere – a few interesting ones below – unfortunately I didn’t credit all of them in my notes:

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not: Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not: Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not: The world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistance and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

On customer service:

“Customers don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”

The Three P’s (Roger Avary)

Persistance – “If you work at it long enough, and learn form your mistakes, eventually something is going to happen”
Passion – “Exude passion for your idea”
Positive visualisation – “Trust me, you’re going to go through some dark times. You must absolutely remain focused on the positive future. Visualise where you see yourself at every next step along the way. Soon you will look back and realise you’ve actually gone somewhere. Visualisation is the key.

B Corporation – On the 28th of August, we joined 40 other companies to become the Founding B Corporations for Australia and New Zealand. We are listed under Arktisma, the name of our umbrella company.

B Corps are certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. B Corp certification is to sustainable business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee.

We are Australia’s only B Corp certified Web Hosting company!

Our B Corp certification recognises many activities that we have been doing for years, such as our self-imposed 1% sales tax to support environmental organisations, paying for carbon offset of our servers and operations via GreenFleet, and our tree planting for tweets program.

Backups & more Backups – In addition to our regular daily, weekly, monthly and yearly server-level backups, we have just introduced incremental backups for business customers. You will now see within cPanel a new logo called R1Soft Backup Restore – full details on how this works via our help desk. Backups are now taken four times daily, with a one week retention, and can be restored as desired from within cPanel.

Bandwidth, Bandwidth, Bandwidth! – Last and by no means least, all our personal hosting packages have had a bandwidth bump, and our business packages now include unlimited bandwidth on the top tier at no extra cost! See https://serversaurus.com.au/business for details.

For our Personal customers wanting to take advantage of the new backups and/or larger bandwidth allocations available under our Business plans, we are offering free migrations to our business servers when you upgrade from a Personal Plan to a Business plan, and our Business Plans start at just $19.95/month.

All the Best from the Serversaurs.

P.S One last B: This one is a BIG Event!

Serversaurus were proud sponsors of The Privacy Workshop, held at Deakin Edge next month – https://privacy.electronworkshop.com.au/