Another Way...

Mike Pearson reporting on Another way to look at BBC and Youview

I can understand why Sky and Virgin are worried, why the press is reporting campaigns by the satellite and cable companies to muzzle the BBC. Why we see ever more lavish Sky and Virgin adverts and why Sky have begun to expand their offer to proper broadcasting rather than a simply program content. It is about Youview and the massive domination I predict it will give the BBC.

So here is ‘Another Way to Look at the BBC’.

A series of technological advances are converging to produce fresh opportunities and define new markets. The first is the roll out of fibre optic by BT. BT languished in a weak position for years whilst Virgin and Sky forged ahead with comprehensive broadband TV and phone packages. But the roll out of BT Infinity will deliver a step change in download speeds to a huge swathe of the domestic market, making movie downloads simple and reliable via fibre optic to the exchange and copper to your home. But it also makes it possible to deliver a great deal more content than that. Many people have stuck with BT, mainly through ‘devil you know’ inertia and now that decision (or lack of one) is coming good.

The second technological step is the switch over to digital TV. Begun in the West, now Cornwall and Devon are fully switched over. If the pattern there is replicated await local news stories in your egion about the mountains of cathode ray TVs being dumped as people upgrade to flat screen TVs with Freeview built in. The market for digital content is here, now, and growing fast.

How this plays into the BBC’s hands is down to Youview. Begun as project Canvas it entails a set top box able to deliver rich content via the TV. Now remind me what UK coverage does broadband have? Ah yes maybe 70-80% of the population. How about mobiles? We own two handsets per person apparently, but add up those with smart phones and we are still in the 70-80% coverage at best. But TVs; 99% coverage is calculated. And those still firmly attached to the TV are the elderly, a demographic that web or mobile content providers can only dream about.

But there is another revolution. Gesture based input. From the days when the QWERTY was laid out to deliberately slow typing the keypad has dominated as input device. But gesture driven input is emerging through gaming and I have witnessed thought driven typing (albeit slow and requiring training) via a headset. So for an elderly generation unwilling to learn the nuances of a mouse, or the idiocies of html, css and php on web pages an entirely new way of interacting with a computer can be combined with a recognised and trusted interface, the TV.

So we see how these few convergences will combine to create a huge new opportunity to access untapped markets for the BBC to deliver rich content via their own set top box (in manufacture now) to users on their trusted TV interface with maybe a wristband or finger stall used to point to a large keypad and gestures to navigate. It seems the generation that missed out on the desktop PC will have the last laugh.

But does the BBC need to redirect those users to Google, Facebook and Youtube? Not if they can be replicated in the BBC cloud. What is the BBC if not one of the most iconic and trusted global brands. If you worry about cyber theft or bias who better to trust than the BBC? Why go elsewhere if you can get current broadcast content, news, weather, travel, a huge back catalogue of royalty paid movies and a raft of other service such as a health portal via your BBC set top box at fibre optic speeds?

I think this will be a huge revolution that could place the BBC as a major player on the world stage of content delivery. The challenge therefore seems to be for our government. On one hand we have the huge sway Murdoch holds on any government, versus the huge financial potential from growing the publically owned BBC brand into a vast global money generating machine. If you want my view you should back the BBC Mr Cameron, it is going to be huge.

This was Mike Pearson showing Another Way to look at the BBC.

‘Another Way to Look At’ why WikiLeaks is good.

We all appreciate that ‘knowledge is power’, as an apprentice I asked a skilled craftsman to explain the nuances of his trade. He replied ‘If I tell you that, you’ll know as much as me’. Knowledge implies power, sharing that knowledge imparts power to the learner and diminishes that of the holder. Therefore by definition it levels a society.

So the debate over WikiLeaks divides us into those who support the sanctity of knowledge as a means to wield power and control over others and those that believe society is better served by open sharing.  On a recent BBC Radio 4 phone-in a caller cited the damage WikiLeaks might have caused our invasion of Normandy in 1944. On face value it seems a valid argument but is easily negated; the same freedom of information might have allowed us to understand Hitler’s true intentions in 1939 and avoided war in the first place.

At the same time it is important to recognise that our capacity to keep secrets is diminishing. We are now able to store, capture and move information so easily it has become increasingly difficult to keep electronic information secret. A pair of glasses might conceal a camera, a wallet might hold a listening device and the Bible can be stored on a few millimetres of silicon. Fearing this causes terrorists to avoid electronic means of communication and organise through face to face meetings. So freedom of information could be seen to limit the terrorists aspirations.

But the real strength of WikiLeaks emerges once it also exposes information from terrorist organisations as well as from traditional security services. Once a disenfranchised Taliban operative uses WikiLeaks to expose threats to our security we should see the bi-directional benefit of freedom of information. This is more than a liberalist viewpoint, it demands vision and an awareness of the effect of the internet and technology’s on society in order to see that ultimately we all benefit from openness. 

In its earliest days the internet promised to open up riches of information to us all. Sadly we have begun to see distinct limitations on that. The global success of Google at channelling a majority of searches through their own servers limits the information we access. Google thereby creates their version of knowledge is commercial power. What pops to the top of the search list is not necessarily what we seek but generally that which someone has paid for us to see; hardly surprising when this principle underlies Google commercial model. Who bothers clicking to the fifteenth page of a search? As relevance is principally based on shopping then he who pays the piper calls the tune.

But there is already an alternative to this big server model. It is P2P or peer to peer, the principle behind Napster and all torrent based file sharing of music, films and software, an alternative the establishment vilifies. It needs no central servers, instead linking together hundreds, sometimes thousands and ultimately all computers that may have the information we want. Google launched a version of this called Google Wave some time back but killed it off pretty fast. Then again who would willingly introduce a technology that destroys your own commercial model?

Google was cool and relevant in the days when just accessing information was a challenge, but with far faster internet speeds this approach begins to seem redundant. If I am able to link peer to peer to millions of others in the world then typing in a specific enquiry such as ‘what oil paints did Francis Bacon use?’ may connect me to many similarly minded individuals who have asked exactly the same question. They may be on different continents and from other cultures but linked by a common interest. New social links can be built to those whose interests and inquisition matches ours. We tune our own search engine so that the more specific our question the more accurately we can identify those with interests of similar esotery. It may take a structural change to the way the internet works to unleash the benefits of openness, something those with the greatest military and commercial interests will seek to fight assiduously.

We have already begun to see the effects of increased openness. With modern technology a riot in Tehran can be captured and shared globally such that that regime’s capacity to suppress its population by rigid central control is dented. I maintain we should accept that freedom of information, if combined with ease of dissemination has the capacity to make our society safer. If covert operations became impossible to plan without leaks then it forces a society to act through consent.

This is not to suggest openness is a panacea for global troubles, we must still be willing to sanction unilateral action against any regime that steps out of line. But the openness of information is becoming unavoidable so we can either choose to resist it or seek to make the advantages work for us. That is why I support WikiLeaks.

Another way to look at the iPad (or why it is perfect for the elderly)

We sit at a crucial phase of the crossover and convergence of technology and products. TVs turning into computers, mobiles evolving into mini PCs and cameras, music stored digitally in the cloud and accessed anywhere. And gesture based input devices will only hasten the revolution.

Nowhere is it more apparent than in the iPad. Apple took the interface from an iPhone and coupled it to the software of a Macbook, they extended the aesthetics of an iPhone to the size of a small Macbook and gave us an iPad. The market was given clear pointers to the iPad as soon as the iPhone; its arrival was logical. When it appeared on cue it came with key questions as to who would use it and why? How could it replace both a laptop and an iPhone, one has the ergonomics for easy typing the other you can carry for making calls. It seemed destined to slip into an awkward gap like teaspoons dropping between the fridge and worktop.

But there is ‘another way to look at iPads’, maybe one Apple has overlooked or is yet to see. If in retrospect we realise they saw it all along then good on them, if not then the hubris falls on Apple’s entire marketing and advertising teams.  Because the iPad is perfect for the elderly yet, as ever, is advertised for the young and trendy!

For many of the elderly, and in that I include anyone whose working or domestic life failed to cross the path of computing technology, learning to use computers has been  resisted assiduously. Take my mother-in-law (Please!). At 80 she was vitriolic in resistance, ‘I don’t want to learn about computers’ and more importantly ‘I don’t see why I need to use a computer’?

But something changed in the last year, a prime example of the tipping point, the social equivalent of the adage that ‘the final straw broke the camel’s back’; shopping. These mythical mother-in-laws became tired of hearing they could find something cheaper online and frustrated by begging favours to look something up on neighbour’s computer. When something ordered on Monday evening at 10pm arrived on Wednesday morning at 10am, cost less than a shop and involved no expedition they finally saw the rationale to learn.

Who has money right now, the young or the elderly? The answer is clear, the grey pound is king. It is a matter of financial insulation, their final salary pension schemes still pay out like clockwork, their houses increased in value by 1000% and they can sensibly downgrade releasing unimagined capital. Plus their day to day needs are modest. We have heard for 10 years this demographic blip was coming, credit crunch hastened its arrival.

So why is an iPad right for the elderly? Because there is no awkward mouse to grip, no dexterity of the fingers needed to manipulate buttons, a very simple and intuitive interface, a clear screen that can be used on your lap in a comfy chair rather, than a desk. typing can be managed by touching the screen with a pointed finger, a capacity we all retain despite arthritis. Of course the price is a challenge but buying a computer is a one off purchase and likely to see them right through retirement. Set that against the money saved on shopping trips and paying over the odds and it makes good financial sense.

So Apple may have a runaway hit selling iPads to the elderly first timer. If they planned it good on them, if they missed it then shame on them and fire the ad agency and hire a new marketing department.

Why you need to go to health4myself.com

You know how you sometimes come across an idea so good you must share. I can do that because it's mine. Go see www.Health4myself.com and see if it makes sense to you?

Another Way to Look At Manufacturing

As the recent election made us aware we no longer make anything in the UK. Once we were world dominant, Britannia ruled the waves and our goods exported to every corner of the world, but sadly those days are over. So is it hollow political rhetoric to sell the idea that skills and training are enough to make us competitive again? Will the UK never manufacture anything in the future or could we be about to enter a 3^rd industrial revolution and if so how might the UK benefit? Is there another way to look at manufacturing?

First understand why UK slipped from prominence. A litany of factors contributed; arrogance about our dominance, unions that became too powerful keeping wages high, a workforce that maybe grew lazy, lack of the right skills, lack of vision about changing markets, slow to use design, successive government that chose not to support ailing industries and the bosses ignored the future and failed to invest adequately or wisely.

Manufacturing is now less than 14% of GDP and fell from 27% in 1979.

 

Britain began the first industrial revolution and turned into the workshop to world. We generated this prominence by inventing technologies and using them to make new things in unprecedented volumes, feeding emerging consumer and industrial markets. At first we grew our local market and then began exporting goods globally using the merchant fleet we controlled. The spoils of this trade were used to import, in those same ships, the necessary raw materials, at suitably low prices, to keep our industrial machine going. When that slowed we exported an entire transport infrastructure to India to it grow their economy and give us bigger markets to feed.  Then to stoke the machine we exported our technology and knowhow, in areas like automotives and aerospace. But eventually the emerging economies caught us, using those exported technologies and skills, learned in our universities and workplace, added cheap labour and undercut us. And UK manufacturing crumbled. Looking at it this way we must wait until labour costs level out globally and Chinese pay meets ours, before that we cannot hope to compete. 

You would be amazed how fast the UK stopped making things. In 30 years entire industries, sets of skills and a myriad of associated suppliers have dissappeared. We no longer make bicycles, motorcycles, cars, aeroplanes, machine tools, mass electronics or consumer goods, it has all evaporated. In 1979 Raleigh made tens of thousands of bicycles, now it is almost impossible to buy anything for a bicycle made the UK. Of course there are exception, Brompton bicycles, Triumph motorcycles, Rolls Royce aero engines and most F1 cars. Studying their success tells an interesting story, they are typically high tech, with strong marketing and brand, they rely on engineering excellence, niche markets, make in low to middle volume and above all else exude quality.

Need we bemoan the loss of these volume industries, I believe the answer is no, just making things should no longer be our goal. To answer why, we must factor in market conditions a couple of decades from now and explore factors that will challenge the current volume sales model.

Things being made in the Far East have to be transported around the globe. Shipping relies on oil and secure seaways, both of which will come under increasing pressure. Energy intensive industry and transportation will increasingly be subjected to carbon taxes and regulated ever harder as we strive to reduce emissions. Thus the advantages of Far East manufacture may diminish, though not so far as reinvigorate old industries here.

As this happens the economics of buy cheap, buy lots and carelessly throw away will seem less attractive. An intangible factor will emerge, the realisation, crudely put, that we have enough ‘stuff’. Once a consumer society matures it becomes more discerning about what it buys, for the simple reason we are more aware of the true cost of ownership of stuff. Cost of ownership balances the cost to buy, the nuisance when things go wrong, the end of life cost of disposal and the realisation of how hard we have have to work to earn in the first place. We realise repairing something cheap is uneconomical if not impossible, yet throwing it away feels morally wrong and will become increasingly difficult when local authorities charge to dispose of old fridges, computers, or plastic nonsense. Such niceties only emerge in matured societies, but where does this leave us in terms of manufacturing?

The clear answer is we need to make fewer items that sell at higher prices to buyers who accept a greater outlay in exchange for less frequent purchase. Design may focus on ensuring items can be repaired and on ways they can be customised, because we want things that better meet our needs. Clearly this is not the Chinese model, they rely on a Henry Ford volume approach that may ill suit this shift in market. Can the Chinese model adapt? I suspect not, far more likely they will choose to serve growing domestic and African markets for as long as they can, such is their reliance on that one model.

If this vision became reality then we can call it the 3^rd industrial revolution, the era of quality, longetivity and customisation, a model the UK is ideally poised to embrace.

Let us explore the idea we might buy higher value goods that can be customisation to our needs. Once car manufacturers made custom bodies to each user’s preference, then Henry Ford came along and said one colour fits all. Over the last 30 years the definition of marketing changed from ‘meeting the needs of the user’ to ‘making the user need what we make’, because this version better suits volume manufacturing for global markets. But the ability to customise has seeped back, even in the cheaper ranges of cars and will surely grow.

There is a further pressure. All products inevitably evolve toward an ideal specification, and as they near it they become commodities. A refrigerator should keep things cool as efficiently as possible, a vacuum cleaner should pick up dust efficiently, a music system plays music, a radio tunes into radio stations and a car gets us from A to B. Seen that way they are commodities bought with a clear idea of their specification and function. We don’t shop around for the best bottle of milk or follow the brand leader in milk and upgrade our choice to the latest version. We know what milk is, what we expect of it and what we are prepared to pay, expecting little difference between a pint from the corner shop or the milkman.

Take the latest iPod aimed at runners. It holds 4Gb of music but is hardly larger than a pen. This is fast becoming a commodity because it holds more songs than we can listen to in a whole day so the pressure to go buy a better one holding twice as many songs is marginal. Being so small it is very robust and more likely to get lost than go wrong, whilst its size makes any design qualities virtually meaningless. With commoditisation consumer desirability begins to disappear and the fizzle that spurred consumer demand fades. A purely functional object loses the factors that drive mass consumption, that necessitated built in obsolescence and the pursuit of fashion. Once consumers fail to be impressed by claims of improved specification the item becomes a tool for doing jobs that are valuable to us. Such a tool we are happy to use indefinitely. Think of your best kitchen knife or that perfect potato peeler, do you browse John Lewis kitchenware shelves looking for the latest upgrade or new stylish version? Hardly, you iterate to a choice that suits your need and stick with it; until it gets thrown out with the peelings by accident, or wears out. But supposing you found it easy and cheap to replace the blade or grip, maybe John Lewis could do it on the spot for 1/3^rd the price of a new one. What if the manufacturer could fit an extra large grip once your fingers become arthritic? Under those circumstances could you bear to throw this ideal tool away? Seen this way the notion that we would continue to consume, in the way Far East manufacture feeds, seems ridiculous.

Here I list my vision of a virtuous circle of the future of manufacture in the UK as we move into the 3^rd industrial revolution.

Our consumer society has fully matured and this changes our approach to the ownership of things around us.  For example;

·         We become more discerning and learnt to avoid cheap goods that go wrong and can’t be repaired.

·         We expect to specify what we want rather than accept what is on offer and extend that principle to many things we need.

·         We will compare items on specification, but know that is not everything and visit a few trusted review sites before purchase to help us clarify our needs and ignore overblown claims from manufacturers.

·         We expect everything we buy to work well and appreciate that differences in performance and function are probably marginal and  

·         We hate being left behind by technology and appreciate that upgrading is better than junking so future proofing become part of our specification.

·         We want to be convinced at purchase that repair and refurbishment has been thought through and can be handled in a cost effective way.

·         We have learnt to take a longer view and see the benefit of a service contract as part of the price.

·         We appreciate good design where it makes things meets our needs and support brands that embrace this.

·         We see endorsement by a celebrity valuable only if they encompass similar values to us. 

·         We will increasingly value art and craft and especially enjoy being able to combine beauty and individuality of something made by an artist with practical, functional items.

·         Thus we are prepared to pay more for things that suits us better.

·         Thus we consume less, use less energy in manufacture, throw away less, need to earn less, reduce our carbon footprint and build a new manufacturing approach that the UK can embrace.

This gives the UK manufacturer hope because it creates two new paradigms; a new type of demand and the increased margins that will allow us to again start making things in the UK again. Not the volume manufacturing of old, but fewer higher value good quality long lasting items that we grow to value and trust. The 3^rd Industrial Revolution will see manufacturers using versatile but cheap computer based manufacturing systems able to customise and adapt products to suit the individual user, the potential for this being designing in at the start. They will use web based selling tools to attract orders from all around the world, have sales tools that capture user choice. They would offer the basic product specification to designers and craftsmen allowing them to customise the design as they see fit and offer these versions to buyers at a small premium with a royalty going to the designer. That way we might coordinate all sorts of items in our home under the design vision of an individual we admire. All shops will offer the type of service we currently get from John Lewis but with the addition of meaningful no haggle warranty and the on-site service capability of a Mercedes garage.

In Morocco they reinvent the wheel. The wheel of a new moped that takes a rich man to work becomes the wheel of a poorer man’s moped to carry his family to the beach on Sunday. It then drives a cart that transports goods to market, a pair became the wheels of a trolley to deliver tourist’s luggage. Finally it becomes the pivot of a potter’s wheel on which a sand blown desert town makes a living selling ceramics in the markets. We don’t need to reinvent our model of consumption, once it existed in the UK and it exist around the world now in less developed economies. When trying to explore these ideas the usual response is ‘how will people earn if you slow down the economy of consumption?’ The answer is you change the nature of consumption and in doing so create the 3^rd Industrial Revolution.

Making Innovation work in Healthcare

We are constantly being reminded that innovation is the key tool to drive modernisation in healthcare. It is a buzzword being used from senior government down as a metaphor for change. But what really is innovation and how can it be made to work?

 

Firstly, to be effective, innovation must to be supported from the top. It may be disruptive and challenging in ways that can move people beyond their comfort zones, so clear buy-in from senior management is vital. Innovation works by harnessing creative processes to alter how we think about things and tackle healthcare issues in fresh, novel ways. The myth that someone from outside cannot understand your challenges should be overruled; it is the role of the consultant to ask searching questions and this can be difficult from within an organisation. Principally the objective is to help you look beyond your sphere at innovative ways to address fundamental issues. In practice innovation works best person to person or in small groups, and begins by listening and exploring to build fresh insight. Innovative opportunities emerge by rebalancing issues in creative ways to meet stated objectives. Used this way innovation becomes a series of low cost thought experiments that throw fresh light on a problem, the typical deliverable being creative scenarios that illustrate new opportunities. 

 

Effective innovation could drive change within existing NHS health delivery structures. It might affect all aspects of the patient pathway with new devices, better treatment techniques and more effective service models. But more radical innovation seeds step changes in the ways we do things, and is then known as disruptive, but has the potential for far greater savings. We see step change coming in the emerging focus on wellness, behaviour change and tackling obesity, areas where technological innovation is currently being driven by industry for its own commercial gain. Health policy makers need to engage innovation as a way to help them interface with industry, driving these technologies to become as effective as possible in preventing people becoming patients in the first place.

 

Pearson Innovation has been working with industry in the healthcare space for twenty years and has established a reputation for developing innovative devices and services in areas ranging from surgical instruments to drug delivery and new service models. We used the last ten years to build our understanding of the mechanisms of health policy and its delivery, before becoming invited members of the Associated Parliamentary Health Group (APHG). Mike Pearson has also been active with the Department of Health on several projects leading to his presentation at the launch of their i4i program in July 2008.

 

Insight into the realities of policy makers and empathy for the needs of people and patients is balanced by our understanding of the demands of the scientific community and the commercial pressures of industry, making Pearson Innovation a unique consultancy in healthcare.

Gerry Robinson versus Jamie Oliver

Gerry Robinson continues his dissection of health issues on the BBC. His hang dog delivery and exasperation are almost amusing, stunning reflection shots of him looking pensively at the landscape are dotted throughout. His approach is simple and direct, this can't be right?

Yes he is right, dementia care is challenging and unrewarding because it deals with the diminished dignity of the elderly and, yes, we are not doing it very well. But my objection is to his approach, he highlights the problems but we get increasingly depressed as he offers little hope beyond a 20 year old observation techniques that cost dearly and are not proven to deliver results.

When Jamie Oliver got stuck into school meals he rolled up his sleeves and used his experience to show caterers how to do it better. His major resistance was from pupils and parents, unlikely to be the case in dementia care. I expected Gerry Robinson to be like John Harvey-Jones, using his experience, spotting bad practise and suggesting positive action that show a business like approach would help. Instead we get a litany of hand wringing and nothing positive to cling to. Please step up the Jamie Oliver of health.

Another way to look at Youth

On a former racecourse next to the Thames near Hampton Court is a 1960’s housing estate. Being a flood plain they left a football-pitch width strip of land between the houses and the river and built head high brick walls around the gardens as flood protection. Naturally the grass attracts football and the walls make obvious goals, so obvious you assume anyone moving there would be prepared for the occasional evening of boisterous shouts and stray balls. Clearly not, one by one the owners have persuaded the council to plant bushes and build sloping earth piles on the public side to scupper games, even in front of garages walls where no home owners might be annoyed. The ‘No Ball Games’ signs look petulant and the message is clear, NYIMBY, No Yoof In My Back Yard. In boredom the youth congregate on mopeds in the Tesco mother-and-child parking bays tossing drinks cans and, as my son tells me, distributing certain chemicals to the passing community. Why are the needs of these young so poorly represented? Is our risk culture to blame, if so youth is fighting back.

Another way to look at this ridiculous state of affairs, repeated endlessly across the country, is the conflict of the British ‘me and my castle’ view of home ownership versus ‘we live in groups and are part of a community. It is impossible to argue that houses on an estate are not part of a community that should meet the needs of all its members, the young equally represented. But the local residents association target the home owners who voted them onto the council. Open spaces are safety valves for a community and safe experimentation spaces for the young, so by organising them as discrete ‘rooms’, sets of goals with nets that extend above the crossbar to capture stray balls, bike jumps, huge rope swings, secluded love seats where teenagers can go to learn affection would reduce the likelihood that problems focus in one place. Of course your mind has probably gone on to the safety aspects. Are you thinking ‘too dangerous’, we have to avoid the risk of injury, potential for litigation and any gathering likely to encourage drugs’? Wrong, drugs are everywhere, this doesn’t encourage them any more than Tesco’s car park does. This newly adopted US sensitisation to risk is the thinking that puts ‘this object may be hot’ on an electric kettle or ‘objects may be closer than you think’ on a rear view mirror; we laugh at them and wonder which moron is it aimed at? But if manufacturers absolve themselves of risk with inane labels then why not do the same around our open spaces with a standard notice saying ‘by passing through this gate you accept there could be risk’?

A few years ago my son took up downhill mountain biking. I may have jumped the odd lump but nothing prepared me for the speed, height, distance and overall violence of these races. They descend 300 feet in less than a minute, navigate rock strewn banked turns, clear 15 foot gaps in one jump, the youngest group is 12 and over. Most get down safely. Amidst this apparent anarchy I found myself asking who was in control because no adults were involved, anywhere. Those present were, like me, taxi drivers, oh and a one legged motorcyclist, but what message does he send? Yet when racing started it worked perfectly, policed by common sense and ten year olds politely announcing another rider was due and would I wait before crossing the track? Yet this odd reversal of authority held no irony. They had worked out how to make it work and got on with it.

Actually someone did get hurt. He broke his shin, was scooped up by a St John’s Ambulance driver who had spent the day chatting in the cafe and went on to achieve minor celebrity by posting pictures of his x-ray that afternoon to responses like ‘saw the fall man, it looked wicked, better luck next time’. This is not isolated, then same son took me to the Red Bull Empire of Dirt BMX event in Devon held on a private farm and organised by the energy of the farmer’s son. The Red Bull brand milked the atmosphere of controlled anarchy, self reliance and energy and needless to say there were very few obese youngsters there. It was well organised, well advertised with spectators bussed in from local bike shops and again the eldest there were taxi drivers and wannabees manning the merchandising stalls.

Youth has found ways to circumvent adult world restrictions by simply not involving them and not inviting them.  Adults assume it is regulated, controlled and safety checked but would be surprised. Yet it works. So maybe we should risk attributing responsibility to youth if we want them to act responsibly in return. And one of the first ways is to accept youth as part of society and tear down those NYIBY signs.

You have got to break it to understand it

I am fascinated by anything mechanical, especially with an engine. Not in a petrol head way, but more throughan empathy with mechanical objects. I figure it started aged three through motherly praise for being able to reassemble broken wooden clothes pegs and has escalated to become a form of escapism. It’s just another way to look at objects. For over 50 years I have taken apart all manner of objects and machinery. Nearly everything I have owned or used I have at some time taken apart having inadvertently and sometimes wilfully, bent, twisted, cracked disassembled, dropped and abused things I own. I have a professional reputation for breaking things which I deny assiduously, I don’t break them I test them and anyway I will usually manage to repair them or reassemble them successfully.

Think about it, how can you understand the strength of anything unless you push it until it breaks? How can you understand the effort, thought, logic and ingenuity that went into making the things around us, say a compact camera, a car or a health system, unless you have taken one apart and seen inside? I argue that in order to have the ability to design something strong enough to work, something that will not break easily when you use it, capable of resisting the abuse of use, you face two choices. You can choose to follow the current designer vogue and buy the most powerful computing hardware available, with the most sophisticated software, easily £5000 a licence,  often much more, then learn how to use it, then learn how to enter meaningful data and then learn how to understand what it tells you at the end. Massive cost, massive effort just in order to know how thick the screen of an iPhone must be. The other choice is to know by intuition, by feel, by experience.

The current way design is taught rarely allows or trusts intuition. Yet because of this the craft of design is being rapidly lost, replaced by reliance on ‘the computer says so’.  Does this loss matter; well I guess we now make so very little in Europe you could argue why bother attempting to impart this intuition? But Brunel used intuition for most of what he designed; Howard Hughes managed to make a massive Spruce Goose flying boat take to the air with a blend of intuition and elementary calculations.

Intuition is the bedrock upon which innovation is built. Its absence leaves the necessity to rely on a complicated computer process to get any feel for what is possible, which can stifle invention and narrows our horizons. Accurate calculations are vital to engineer an item down to the lightest possible weight in instances where weight versus strength is key. But away from aeroplanes or performance bicycles this aspect of engineering becomes far less relevant simply, because of safety factors that can be easily built in. Safety Factor is a ratio between how strong something needs to be to just prevent it breaking versus how strong it actually is. For most objects we daily encounter this ratio is typically in the range 5:1, meaning something is usually five times stronger than absolutely necessary providing a wide margin of error. Only for highly stressed objects like the aeroplane does that number drop to just 1.5:1 and even that does not make it unsafe to fly, you just need to know more accurately what a maximum load might be to add the appropriate margin of error. For everything else reliance on a computer to calculate strength can be overkill, unless of course it is your business to sell computer software. Generally it needs neither their accuracy nor precision but without intuition what else can you rely on?

Really the value of intuition depends on the type of society we are and want to become. If we continue to accept a predominantly disposable society that landfills at will we come under pressure to conserve resources making it worth engineering out weight; less plastic means less landfill. If, on the other hand, you see the fallacy of disposability then the future would lie in making fewer, better things that last longer, where weight equates to strength and longetivity? If so then the experience that sufficed for a century from Brunel to Concorde could still be relevant. Sadly now we no longer value it or trust it.

I met a lifelong friend at British Leyland in the 1970’s. 35 years later he works for Ford in Detroit poor man. He was asked to sort out a product recall on the Ford F150 SUV, that gross overkill of a vehicle that slipped through the US regulations because it had the word Utility between the words Sport and Vehicle.  On needing to find a way to fix a bracket breaking in the cooling system he asked his team for ideas. ‘Do we have  an idea of the strength this needs to be and will it fit the space?’ he asked. Silence. ‘Come on someone must have a feel for it?’ Silence.  ‘What’s the problem?’ he raged to a circle of blank faces, then settled on one. ‘I don’t know’ came the reply, ‘but I could work it out on computer’.  No feel meant no idea meant snail’s pace development process leading to delay and cost.

This may be sounding luddite to you but I led the use of computer aided design in UK design consultancies. In the mid 1990’s we had five seats of this complicated software, each costing nearly £40,000 because II saw its immense benefits; but I soon appreciating its drawbacks also. So why do I take things to pieces? Because by looking inside an object you see a form of industrial archaeology, the thought patterns by which that object was formed, the decisions made, the compromises needed, the level of ingenuity or plodding obviousness is there on display.

Is this process any different from looking at a Van Gogh and appreciating the speed and certainty with which the paint was applied? Or in the Anita Eckberg drawings by David Hockney where he capture shape, depth and perspective with a single fine outer line, the form depicted with the barest minimum of mark. Picasso’s early sketches in the museum in Barcelona show what an outstanding draughtsman he was in his early teens and it is vital to appreciate that skill before commenting on his later disjointed figures. Barbara Frink sculptures show her hand marks, thumbs sliding in the clay of a maquette to produce human forms with emotion and expression yet crude and unfinished. So in the same way Etorre Bugatti left his fingerprints on a Bugatti Type 35. He joined a spring to a damper with a beautiful shaped form of metal that not only looks effortlessly right but cleverly performs multiple functions, a fitness for purpose that can only be appreciated by someone who has struggled for weeks to achieve that pure simplicity, and failed. 

So in taking apart an object I can see the thought processes and decisions made. It is possible to see where the need for quick assembly led to otherwise inexplicable complexity. Where a material choice allowed a component to perform several functions and more frequently where assembly is clearly impossible by hand and must have been automated. Whilst not elevating engineering to the level of art I am saying it is possible to appreciate mastery and dullness within it. Are not Brunel bridges and Concorde both called beautiful? So why not appreciate the ability to combine beauty with form and function in object designed to be used and rate it a little higher when compared to a cow in formaldehyde?

In the late 1990’s I was travelling fortnightly to Austria to the Philips factories in Vienna where the Persona contraceptive system we had designed was to be manufactured. At these facilities Philips personal stereo CD players were being designed and developed.  On one wall of their development facility were fixed two long thin panels, one above the other. Displayed on the top one were all the generations of CD players developed by Philips over a five year period. The Philips generations were highly innovative, brilliant breakthroughs of miniaturisation and invention, each one a clean sheet of paper exercise that took huge effort to perfect, was often delivered late but produced hugely successful step changes once delivered. Below were all those developed by Sony, their direct rival. A pattern was obvious, a simple first product, followed quickly by a second with identical CD transport mechanism but smaller electronics and more elegant outer casings that was in reality a triviality to develop. Then the next used a similar outer of the earlier generation but with a newly developed smaller CD transport mechanism. And so the pattern repeated along the board. Philips had been ground breaking in their approach Sony iterative; they both competed in a fast moving market but who was right? Which way was best? Which feels intuitively right to you? Are you maybe of Asian or European origin and does your answer correlate to that divide? Sorry I am not going to provide answers, you decide! The iteration created a more dynamic market with each model quickly becoming out dated and therefore suits a more fashion orientated disposable approach. The step change approach is riskier in fast moving markets but delivers more significant improvements to the consumer.

Now you see why you have to break it to understand it.

Another way to look at ‘things’

Whenever we travel or shop we will come across things that are stupid, objects that if we stopped for a second to consider would have us screaming in outrage at their stupidity and demanding things change?  But we have been sleepwalking into the present, so it needs a fresh pair of eyes to provide  ‘another way to look at things’.

We are not stupid, just that many of the things we buy, use, that we drive, ways we travel, how we organise ourselves, are actually quite stupid. If we were starting afresh we might see their stupidity but our world has been constructed incrementally, piecemeal, shoring up the gaps like the roof of a squatter camp that has become permanent. When things evolve that way we lose the opportunity to implement common sense and react against the stupid things.

What is stupid? Detergents sold in plastic pump bottles that could happily work for 16 years yet are dumped in landfill after 16 weeks; having being made out of three different plastics and metal springs so they can never be recycled. Cars that do 120, 150, 175mph when 95% of our journeys never exceed 40mph are stupid. A car designed around the use we actually put it to would reach 50mph, could weigh a quarter  it does now, go four times further on a gallon and last forever because it can be upgraded with better emission engines.  Kerbs stones 4 inches high that separate kids walking to school and a 40 ton lorry doing 30mph, that’s surely stupid? High on the stupidity list are unique wall chargers for every electrical item we buy, each with random plugs sizes and voltages so in the end we all have a tangled drawer of orphans. Years ago someone suggested that the mini USB plug and 5 volts would be adopted as a universal standard, so obvious, so sensible, but why has it not happened?

Most packaging is high on the stupidity list. Take for example those deodorant bottles that shrink from their generous ball to a disappointingly emaciated 20cc container. To make it hold 100cc might only cost 1p more in plastic and 2p in contents, so little you would think it stupid not do so; four million fewer bottles going to landfill or about 15 articulated lorry loads every year.  But to the manufacturer this represents commercial suicide; larger packaging means fewer sales.  Now you begin to see the mindset behind terms like ‘new, better, improved, new formula, longer lasting’; brand was invented to raise the apparent value of your product, through brand the manufacturer conspires with the consumer to weight brand values against wider common sense and that is how we end up with stupid things.

Nobody tells manufacturers what is stupid, quite the reverse, we allow them advertising to persuade us to pay extra to buy stupidity. Did a consumer ever say that the soap bar wrapped in waxed paper that dissolves to nothing is stupid; no, I prefer soap in a plastic bottle with a pump that cannot be recycled! But this is free market economics, consumer driven, manufacturer led; can you argue consumerism is stupid?

Even if we had the courage can we do anything about it? Well if web marketing is as powerful as some believe it then if we can agree with what we don’t want we can use it try and end it. And then move from that to what we do want which is much much harder.

So is that it? Do we simply accept that market forces got us here so market forces will get us out?

Do we have the courage to choose a way forward rather than be led to it by a set of forces we are increasingly ill at ease with?

Another way to look at Somalian Pirates

If you search for Somalia on an the atlas it appears as a bulge on the west coast of Africa, an inverted ‘L’ with two sides sea, one the Indian Ocean the other the Gulf of Aden and the entry to the Red Sea leading eventually the Suez Canal. Being on the coast In Somalia must be like living in a squatter camp on two sides of Sloane Square watching a succession of Mercedes and Porches drive by; the wealth of the industrialised world parades before you, visible yet untouchable. That a 20 foot Somalian power boat can enforce acts of piracy on a super tanker must be like an optimistic hyena hassling a hippo; laughable and improbable. Yet Somalian pirates successfully seize ships and hold them hostage, sensibly not targeting the cargoes, your Lloyds Register information may be wrong and you find 20,000 Barbi Dolls and 50,000 watering cans; instead they hold them to ransom and release them, usually unharmed. Do I hear the opening bars of Robin Hood? 

If your life expectancy is 49 years, your annual earning $600 and your only exports livestock, bananas and hides, piracy could seem a sensible if unorthodox career, and apparently one supported by 70% of the population. It feels a victimless crime, if the spoils went to support schools in Boosaaso I would applaud it. But naturally the problem goes deeper. In absence of a domestic military presence it seems the Somalian seas are being pillaged by fished out nations and waste is dumped off the coast. Another way to look at Somalian piracy is as a form of taxation on the first world.

The developed nations were slow to wake up to the threat of piracy but there are now about 40 ships in the Gulf of Aden, including three from China, the first to operate outside the Pacific. NATO has been able to organise only eight ships, grandly calling it a task force yet the efforts of pirates in this region alone have stretched world maritime resources thin. 16,000 ships a year navigate these waters and some attacks take place as much as 500nm offshore so the capacity of a ship to police against piracy is limited. So the big danger is that buoyed by Somalian success piracy spreads to equally impoverished West African or South East Asian coasts; if it does we have little capacity to stop it. The International Maritime Board already reports attacks in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malacca Straits, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore Straits, Vietnam, Tema, Lagos & Bonny River Nigeria, Dar Es Salaam, Gulf of Aden, Brazil and the Arabian Sea. If we treat Somalian piracy as purely a criminal act and shoot to kill we address the symptoms and not cause and risk escalation to national conflict with such a supportive population.

What danger does piracy represent? Far East trading success is only possible if the cost of exporting goods around the world is low; as an estimate less than 5% of the cost of items that arrive in the UK covers sea freight. China can control fuel prices, build plentiful shipping and ignore the record of ships as bad polluters. But piracy would destabilise the flow of goods and costs could escalate to cover policing. Once freight costs rise to 15% of goods then the benefits of cheap Far East manufacture are neutralised; so no wonder China is offering naval support. Another way to look at this though is it would stem the flow of cheap Far East goods and relieve the pressure on western economies. So maybe NATO should withdraw its ships and allow the nations that benefit most from Far East trade to pick up the cost of piracy?

Surely the real issue is that the developed nations let Somalia dwell in such poverty. Why do we allow it? The answer seems to be that richer nations are willing to reap the benefits of globalisation without facing up to its responsibilities. If a member of our society falls on hard times we offer free retraining, income support, free health and free schooling and do what we can to ease them through. Should not the support we offer struggling individuals extend to poorer nations?

How can we relieve poverty in Somalia? Altruistic individuals and foundations build schools, sanitise water supplies and proffer healthcare to the needy but their limited, sporadic and overstretched resources mean the effect is minimal. Multi-nationals might actively locate business in Somalia, but even that prolific globaliser Coca-Cola only risked returning there in 2004, their launch party guarded by 100 armed men. The only sensible option is for the industrialised nations to accept the responsibilities that go hand in hand with globalisation and help raise standards in Somalia to a world accepted minimums; simply a national version of the help we offer individuals. If that seems a hugely expensive option then factor in the global cost if piracy escalates. Yet without effective world governance how can we make the industrialised nations face their global responsibilities?

I watch with interest, hoping the pirates won’t go too far, whistling Robin Hood and imagining how a hyena could bother a hippo.

Copyright Mike Pearson 27^th May 2009