Category: Technology and Methods

New technology and ways of working: What it may do – what’s commercial and what’s not

Your next career will be about asking questions

The fourth industrial revolution is comming quickly. I’ve been playing with openAI (more later) and have asked it’s ChatGPT bot a few questions. I also asked it’s DALL-E to generate the image ont the top of this page. 80% of this article is generated by AI.

I asked the AI questions, and it provided the answers. See what you think. In the future I suspect the role of the human is to know which question matters most.

Try these your self at: https://chat.openai.com/chat and https://labs.openai.com/

Write 50 words on generative AI

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that involves the use of machine learning algorithms to generate new data that is similar to a given input. This can be used to create realistic images, videos, audio, and other types of media. Generative AI can be trained on large amounts of data and can produce high-quality outputs that are difficult to distinguish from human-generated content. Some common applications of generative AI include image and video synthesis, natural language generation, and audio generation.

write 100 words on the history and progress of open.ai

OpenAI is a nonprofit research organization founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other leading figures in the tech industry. The goal of OpenAI is to advance the field of artificial intelligence and to promote the development of AI that is safe, transparent, and beneficial to society. Since its inception, OpenAI has made significant progress in the field of AI, including the development of advanced machine learning algorithms and the creation of large-scale language and vision models. In 2018, OpenAI launched Dactyl, a robot hand that was able to solve a Rubik’s cube with human-like dexterity. More recently, OpenAI has been focused on developing AI technologies that can operate in complex and dynamic environments, such as video games and robotics. Overall, OpenAI has established itself as a leading player in the field of AI research and development

Write 50 words on how Regenerative AI will affect the 4th industrial revolution and employment in white collar roles

The fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is characterized by the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics. Generative AI is expected to play a significant role in this revolution, potentially affecting the demand for white collar jobs. Some experts predict that generative AI will automate many tasks currently performed by humans, leading to job displacement in some industries. However, it is also possible that generative AI will create new job opportunities in fields such as data analysis and machine learning. Overall, the impact of generative AI on employment in white collar roles is likely to be complex and multifaceted.

write 200 words on the potential economic benefits and pitfalls of the 4th industrial revolution

The fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is characterized by the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics. These technologies have the potential to bring significant economic benefits, including increased productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness. For example, the use of AI and automation can help to reduce the time and cost of certain tasks, allowing businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively. Additionally, Industry 4.0 technologies can enable the creation of new products and services, leading to the development of new markets and revenue streams.

However, the fourth industrial revolution also presents potential pitfalls and challenges. One of the main concerns is the potential for job displacement and unemployment as a result of automation. While some experts predict that Industry 4.0 technologies will create new job opportunities, others argue that many jobs will be replaced by machines, leading to a decrease in demand for labor. This could have significant consequences for workers, including income inequality and social unrest. Additionally, the rapid pace of technological change associated with Industry 4.0 may create challenges for businesses and governments, who will need to adapt quickly in order to remain competitive. Overall, the economic impact of the fourth industrial revolution is likely to be complex and multifaceted.

write 200 words on the intersection of energy transition on the 4th industrial revolution

The intersection of energy transition and the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is a complex and evolving area of study. Energy transition refers to the process of shifting from the use of fossil fuels to more sustainable forms of energy, such as renewable sources like solar and wind power. Industry 4.0, on the other hand, involves the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics to drive innovation and economic growth.

The intersection of these two trends presents both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, Industry 4.0 technologies can help to accelerate the transition to renewable energy by enabling the development of new energy storage systems, smart grids, and other technologies. For example, the use of AI and machine learning can help to optimize the operation of renewable energy systems, making them more efficient and cost-effective. Additionally, Industry 4.0 technologies can enable the creation of new products and services related to renewable energy, leading to the development of new markets and revenue streams.

However, the transition to renewable energy also poses challenges for Industry 4.0. One of the main challenges is the need for large-scale infrastructure investments to support the transition, which may require significant financial resources. Additionally, the transition to renewable energy may disrupt existing energy markets and business models, potentially leading to job losses and other economic impacts. Finally, the rapid pace of technological change associated with Industry 4.0 may create challenges for policymakers and regulators, who will need to balance the need for innovation with the need for stability and reliability in the energy sector. Overall, the intersection of energy transition and Industry 4.0 is a complex and dynamic area that will require careful planning and coordination in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks.

Write 100 words comparing the importance of asking the right question with researching the answer

Asking the right question is just as important, if not more important, than researching the answer. This is because a well-formed question can help to clarify the issue at hand and provide a clear direction for the research. On the other hand, a poorly-formed question can lead to confusion and ineffective research. Additionally, asking the right question can help to ensure that the research is relevant and useful. For example, a question that is too broad or too narrow may not provide the information that is needed to address the problem. Asking the right question can also help to save time and resources by focusing the research on the most important aspects of the issue. In short, asking the right question is an essential first step in any research process.

will careers of the future focus on asking the right question or doing repetitive work?

It is difficult to predict the exact nature of careers in the future, as it will depend on many factors such as technological advancements, economic conditions, and societal trends. However, it is likely that careers of the future will focus more on asking the right questions and less on repetitive work. This is because the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence and automation is expected to automate many tasks that are currently performed by humans, such as data entry and routine data analysis. As a result, careers of the future may focus more on tasks that require higher levels of creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking. These skills are often associated with the ability to ask the right questions and to think outside the box. Additionally, the rapid pace of technological change is likely to create new job opportunities in fields such as data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, which may require individuals to be adept at asking the right questions in order to drive innovation and progress.

Fortunes of the future…..

It’s time for an anology

What did we think before the last transition?

I remember one of my friends telling me that, as a small girl, she grew up speaking to Arthur C. Clarke when they both lived in Sri Lanka. This was because her mum (an AT&T rep) had one of two video phones in the country in the 1970s, and Mr. Clarke kept wanting to demonstrate the other one which he owned. It became her job to be the other end of the call.

The futurologist and sci-fi writer had predicted some of impacts of communications in the below clip from 1964 (broadcast on the BBC Horizon Program). Knowing that he lived in Sri Lanka, perhaps explains his focus on being able to do business from anywhere without the need to go to London. (If you’ve followed this blog you’ll have read about deep fakes – this video isn’t one. This isn’t revisionist. It’s real).

He has interesting, forward-thinking ideas about the impact of communications on travel. I enjoy listening to the thoughts of people that look “around corners”. One of the members of the network tells me that I do this for him. Seeing the knock-on consequences of new innovations if they become successful is useful. I’ve found it is always a good idea to tread carefully around existing business models in times of change – try to work out what of the old will be challenged by the new. Often it’s a second order effect that is the biggest – not the direct challenge.

Watch the clip here:

Lessons from the information revolution

  • The potential of this technology was clear, but it would take 50+ years for it to adopted in the mainstream.
  • While imagining the implications of the technology he missed the boom in business travel that ran in parallel with development, and the implication of non-business users being able to easily communicate and organise (cyber-bullying, conspiracies, revolutions).
  • In the past 50 years most (all?) the great new fortunes were made on the back of communications / information processing.

Implications from the climate revolution

We have started our 50 year journey into cooling the planet. This involves both emmisions reduction and removing carbon from the atmosphere. If we don’t lose interest (and really want to achieve something) then the breadth of change required in technology, behaviour, geopolitics and value systems is staggering.

New fortunes will be made from combating climate change – but how we value those fortunes may also change.

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it……

This post is about competence, capability, and behaviour. Three words that many people are comfortable using but ones for which, when asked for an explanation of meaning, I have uncovered hundreds of different underlying concepts.

I’ve found that words really matter because they shape the way people think and behave. I’ve found that people can use the same words but mean different things. This gets in the way of organising group activity.

I pay more attention than many people I know to this. I take time to clarify and develop shared understanding. Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in many countries and cultures. Maybe it’s because I was trained in solution selling early in my career. Maybe I’m a pedant. I don’t know.

My roles in sales, marketing and as a consultant have presented me with opportunities to interact with hundreds of different companies across different continents and to observe their approaches to structuring work. I find it fascinating to uncover why things are the way they are, and how to make progress in different settings.

I find that people are often unaware of their own assumptions – what they believe to be objective truth is probably only so within an accepted framework, and that framework can sometimes be just an opinion. Maybe it isn’t accepted by others.

I have found that with careful choice of words it’s possible to influence individual performance and create improved group outcomes.

So here is my simple definition of competence, capability, and behaviour.

Competence

This is something that an individual person can do. They have a level of competency ranging from “incompetence” to “mastery”. An example might be “carpentry” – and may consist of sub-competencies such as “joint making”, “cutting to size”, and “veneering”. Competence is a combination of knowing what to do, the skill to do it, the number of times you’ve done it before (accumulated practice), and how recent the last time you did it was.

Capability

This is something that an organisation can do. In a one-person company it’s essentially the same as competence. It is strongly correlated with competency in a lone-wolf role such as rain-making sales. In other areas, capability relies on the successful organisation of different competencies brought by more than one person. In these circumstances an organisation can create capabilities that no single person is competent to perform on their own.

Behaviour

This is the “manner” in which work is performed. Are people polite to each other? Does a person have “presence” and “gravitas”? An organisation can exhibit collective behaviour – which is related to but not the same as culture, another word often understood differently. An individual can exhibit behaviour – which is related to but not the same as personality.

In both the case of capability and of competence it is possible for organisations and individuals to exhibit different behaviours but still be equally capable and competent. In this case they may well achieve different outcomes, especially if they must influence others.

What do you think?

What do you think of these definitions? How can you help improve them? Please comment here or email me directly.

Structured work or just lucky?

I’ve been working with my clients while we’ve been under covid lockdown, and one theme has emerged more than anything else. That is the requirement for organising the activity of groups. My clients have been seeking ways to enable individual unsupervised action towards a joint outcome.

My clients want: independent action; visibility of progress; and accurate outcome. They have lost the ability the office environment gave for short-cycle intervention and guidance. They need structured ways to work remotely that replace it.

In industries that employ large numbers of people all doing sections of a task over a period of time – think of a building site, telephone maintenance crews or even an army – there are defined, co-ordinated systems of work. The modern office with it’s semi-senior knowledge workers has, in contrast, succeeded through flexibility, creatiing adhoc creative solutions and short-cycle leadership intervention.

My clients, faced with the pandemic and new ways to work and communicate, have found a new need for structured ways to co-ordinate creative work. Through my consulting company, Klynetic Innovation, I’ve been helping companies re-configure products and services and quickly commercialise them, a task that requires precisely this combination of structure, creativity, direction and focus.

One of the approaches I’ve taken is to emphasise personal responsibility and progress-without-permission at lower levels in an organisation. Then to moderate this with the checks-and-balances of good governance provided by systems and oversight provided by graphics and shared language. I’ve coached people to recognise the differences between the competence displayed by an individual and the ability of management to co-ordinate work and form organisational capabilities.

It struck me that in the last thirty years we’ve been honing our ability to encourage leadership and peronal development while, perhaps, not paying enough attention to management. I use the diagram below as as a tool to discuss this topic with senior teams and help identify what’s missing.

I’d like to know your thoughts, please reach out and email me (or comment here).

It’s all about productivity

If you have followed this blog for a while you will know that, like a broken record, I have been banging on about digitalisation, the 4th Industrial Revolution and the productivity conundrum. I have often referred to Tim Harford’s article about electrification and how long it can take to make a transition.

Recently, I’ve started to add the “Energy Transition” into my thinking on the topic. The outcome remains the same but I keep finding more and more reasons why it will inevitably happen.

One of my go-to reads is Ian Stewart, Deloitte’s chief economist. If you’ve not signed up for his Monday briefing then you really should – it’s excellent. Today I have lifted most of his post (available here: https://blogs.deloitte.co.uk/mondaybriefing/2021/06/the-looming-capex-boom-.html) not only because I’m being lazy but also because it talks to many of the points I’ve been trying to communicate to my clients over the last 7 years (since I started Bestem).

Throughout history economies have been shaped by shocks, from recessions to technological shifts and energy transitions. The Great Depression helped change thinking about the role of government, paving the way for a permanent expansion in the state. The switch from steam power to electricity triggered a vast reorganisation of manufacturing.

The pandemic and the drive to net zero are similarly epoch-making events. The pandemic has driven technology adoption and changes in business practices. The energy transition involves an overall of energy production and distribution.

The structure of the economy will change. The sectoral balance of the economy, the skills needed, the uses of capital, the allocation of capital, will shift, creating winners and losers. It will also bring opportunities to rethink organisations, invest and raise productivity in ways that had not previously been considered viable or necessary.

The unlocking of the economy has unleashed a surge of pent-up demand into an economy operating with reduced capacity. That is creating inflation and bottlenecks, and incentivising investment. Meanwhile large corporates are flush with cash, capital is cheap and institutional investors want businesses to step up investment.

The global semiconductor shortage has spurred a flurry of investment announcements in new factories. Automakers are building new battery plants to meet demand for electric vehicles. Rising freight rates have prompted a surge in new orders for container vessels. And the move to ‘hybrid’ working and the growth of online shopping require a reconfiguration of office space and an ever- rising volume of warehouse capacity.

Labour costs play a role in investment decisions too. As countries emerge from lockdowns labour shortages have started to appear in sectors including manufacturing and construction. In the UK increases in the minimum wage continue to outstrip inflation, raising costs for firms and sectors reliant on lower-income work. An exodus of some 650,000 foreign-born workers from the UK last year, equivalent to 2.0% of the workforce, and a reduced flow of less skilled labour from the EU, create new pressures. More expensive and scarcer labour would sharpen incentives to invest in productivity-enhancing equipment and skills. Machines, for instance, could readily substitute for labour in washing cars and coffee preparation (I was in a motorway service station last weekend where the queue for Starbucks led me to get the same product from a self-service machine in the next-door Waitrose. I couldn’t tell the difference).

In the UK government policy has set out to boost investment with the capital-allowance ‘super-deduction’ targeted at plant and machinery. The Bank of England estimates that this will have its greatest effect in raising investment in some of the most capital-intensive sectors including manufacturing and transport.

A surge in private sector capital spending is likely to coincide with rising levels of public infrastructure investment, particularly related to ‘green’ projects. So, with private and public investment likely to grow, this recovery is looking very different from the one that followed the global financial crisis. Then UK business investment took six years to climb back to its 2008 peak. Today the Bank of England sees investment snapping back quickly, ending next year almost 10% above pre-pandemic levels. A similar story is likely to play out globally. Morgan Stanley believes that global investment will stand 20% above pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2022, a remarkable recovery from last year’s downturn.

This sort of surge in capex could help shift the dial on productivity, especially if, as seems likely, it is accompanied by organisational changes and the application of technology. (While business investment fell in the US and the UK last year, spending on IT and computers rose as firms investing in remote working and new ways of doing business.)

Much of the problem of poor productivity in the UK is concentrated in the long tail of medium- and smaller-sized businesses. The pandemic may, paradoxically, have had some positive effects here, as businesses of all sizes adapted and used new digital practices to weather the downturn.

One encouraging sign comes from the retail and administrative services sectors. Both sectors have registered strong productivity growth over the past decade, defying the characterisation of these as labour-intensive, low-productivity parts of the economy. Online shopping, self-service and use of IT in administrative tasks seem to have played a big role. It may be that other labour-intensive sectors, such as healthcare and education, might in time achieve similar gains in productivity.

It won’t be plain sailing. In some important respects the pandemic and the energy transition could act as a drag on productivity. It’s not, for instance, clear how significantly increased levels of homeworking will affect productivity. A recent study of a large Asian tech company found that increased communication and coordination costs more than offset gains from reduced commuting times and reduced overall productivity . Ben Broadbent, a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, cautions that lower use of offices and transport infrastructure imply a less productive use of the capital stock . Nor is capital spending rising everywhere. Some fossil fuel companies and airlines are cutting capex in anticipation of lasting weaker demand. Structural shifts in the economy risk creating mismatches between supply of and demand for labour. The interruption to education and rising youth unemployment could leave lasting scars.

The pandemic and the energy transition represent the greatest structural change since the shift to electrification and the Great Depression in the inter-war period. The question is how these changes can be harnessed to build a better future. The years after the financial crisis were marked by weak investment, productivity and wage growth. We should be able to do better this time

Here are a selection of earlier articles that talk to the same themes.

Innovation and productivity with 4th Industrial Revolution
To innovation and beyond – 2019+
Working Hours Vary by Country

How are you going to innovate?

This year everyone appears to be talking about innovation. Many think it’s being driven in response to the pandemic. If that were so, all we would need to do is wait until the vaccine is delivered and we can forget about it and go back to the way it was. Almost no-one believes this to be true.

The commercial world is evolving, and the end state is not yet known. This means traditional budgeting, planning, efficiency drives and cost reduction will not be enough for success. Organisations must accelerate their innovation agenda – this is not about inventing something new; it’s about taking what you know, reconfiguring it to be relevant and continuing to adapt and evolve.

In the previous three posts I set out some of my thinking about the fourth industrial revolution because I think this model serves well to explain why we are experiencing change. As part of your innovation thinking you may want to consider seven fundamental factors that underpin the revolution. They may not have an immediate impact on today’s business but as Wayne Gretski almost said – it’s best to skate to where the puck is going, rather than where it is now.

It is hard to untangle these factors because they influence each other and form self-re-enforcing feedback loops (which accelerates change). I find it useful to use this when considering issues and deciding where to focus, I hope you do too.

1. information creation and connectivity

The ability to create, share and access information has implications across social, political, and industrial spheres. Whether as flash-mob revolutions, exposure of tax fraud, mob-trolling of celebrities or remote monitoring of industrial plant and machinery.

​Transparent information undermines authority by revealing the inconsistencies, lies and hypocrisy required to govern. Anonymous transmission of ideas on social media leads not only to emboldened action but also to misinformation and on-line bullying. Information is conflicting and unreliable and knowledge and certainly is displaced by opinion. The ability to sift and evaluate data and then apply rational analysis is not evenly distributed among populations.

​The cost and availability of creation, capture, and transmission equipment has reduced nearly to zero. It is ubiquitous. The creative idea, installation of capture equipment and the editing of results is rare and not free.  One cannot go back and measure the past, so value may be found in stored experience. If you can curate information and control its presentation, then there is power to influence perception.

​Commercial innovation is likely to arise from creative firsts, unique archives, collection networks, influencing curation, and low-cost data organisation, error-correction, and editing.

2. understanding and acting upon information

Advances in computing power have led to new ways to analyse information, methods to learn and infer meaning and procedures to decide how to act. This leads to automation – unattended service, purchase reccomendations, warehouse picking and self-driving vehicles.

​Too much data causes problems with human-led processing such as overload, decision biases and selective world-models. We have evolved to make binary conclusions “being decisive” and “acting with confidence” are perceived as star qualities. Leading based on flexible decisions resting on the probability afforded by analysing emerging information is uncommon. Motivating others to make swift progress in the face of uncertainty will require a new set of leadership skills.

​Commercial innovation is likely to arise from increased quality of service accurately targeted towards needs, as well as reduced cost of provision. Companies that can harness learn to direct activity and make progress under conditions of uncertainty will also benefit.

3. additive manufacture

This is not just 3D printing. Many things are traditionally created by removing material using techniques like cutting, drilling, thinning, and shaping. This wastes material, energy, and time. The materials we use – cement, steel, rubber, plastics are chosen because they lend themselves to these processes.

Additive manufacture will change the materials we pick, it will reduce waste in production and change the shapes we create and the material performance we obtain. It will not only impact factories but also it will change extraction industries and trade routes. It will be possible to email design files and create what’s needed on site without the need to ship raw materials, sub-assembled parts or finished goods.

We are seeing the rise of extrusions and laser-melted metal powders and will shortly embark on assembly at the molecular level. This will mean the same forces that change building materials will impact other wasteful processes including agriculture, slaughtering, drug formulation, paper making and paint manufacture. We can expect to also see different flow-processes with lower temperatures and pressures, lab-grown meat, structured drug design and smaller-batch runs. Additive manufacture principles will impact a diverse range of industries including specialist machine makers, house-hold construction, manufacturing, farming, and medicine.

Commercial innovation is likely to come from creative designs, disintermediating supply chains and creation of innovative not-possible-before shapes and material-performance. There will be insights for applying this technology to industries not considered before.

4. planet maintenance, collective responsibility

Some call this activism or environmentalism, but whatever you call it there are growing movements encouraging (and forcing) vested interests to consider the impact they have on the wider world. This encompasses the materials consumed, the energy used, and the waste products created.

​Fuelled by information and analysis governments have concluded that there is a climate emergency which calls for rapid decarbonisation. This is leading to energy transition, smart-grids and electric drive trains on the one hand, and examination of the energy intensity of industry and ways of living on the other. It has also given rise to the notion that resources on earth are finite which leads to the circular economy (where goods are recycled into new goods) on one hand, and the drive for mining of materials from asteroids and the seabed on the other.

​Commercial innovation is likely to occur around opportunities afforded by legislation – such as carbon pricing, outlawing of practices as well as the inclusion of sustainable methods and transparency of operation. Smart ways to redirect and reuse energy will become valuable.

5. organisation of labour

We now have remote working and video conferencing; people don’t need to go to the office. People don’t need to be in the same town or the same country.  The COVID crisis of 2020 saw mass adoption and made it normal to use.

On-line retail, automation, self-driving cars, and additive manufacturing will reduce demand for labour in many sectors and, due to our global supply chains and clustering of industries, this is likely to create geographic areas where traditional work will become scarce.

The gig economy is at one end of a spectrum of employment that runs from employee, through contractor, project team into gig work. The quantum of work purchased is becoming smaller and pay is more related to outcome rather than time spent on a task. Bonds and exclusive service to one employer is becoming less common.

​Commercial innovation is likely to encompass ways to facilitate remote interactions, telepresence, and ways to build trust (both emotional and technical). Ways in which goods and people are transported will change leading to opportunities in non-traditional geographies and innovations are possible in the way labour is accessed, motivated, managed and rewarded.

6. culture, art, craft and beauty

The 4th industrial revolution moves us more towards a world where less human labour is needed to produce and distribute the goods, services, and energy we need. Other factors will come to the fore in determining what is more “valuable”.

​Where we are used to optimise for low-cost production, we will increasingly favour products, services and experiences that appeal on an emotional level. Emotions will become more important. This is occurring already via inclusion policies, social movements, and campaigns for various forms of justice. We can see on-line culture forming value through influencers and followers whose product is purely an experience and a connection between people with similar perceived values.

​How one spends time will become more important. Dedicating large amounts of time to an employer will seem less likely to determine level of “success”. This will lead people to choose to do more things that they like – leading to more artisan production.

​Commercial innovation may occur in the labour market by enabling people to find their vocation and navigating the changed expectations required to transition career thinking to match the 4th industrial age. The types of products and services sold, and the labour conditions required for workers will increasingly require taking account of design, beauty and evoke emotions, resonate with the values of buyers and be fun.

7. politics of wealth and power

This is likely to be the slowest area of the 4th Industrial revolution to mature. But it will be the most profound and biggest determinant of outcome. While it is tempting to ignore this because it does not lend itself to traditional commercial analysis, it is likely to prove one of the biggest source of disruption and should not be left unattended.

Changes in this factor are likely to occur in (possibly hotly debated) jumps because this deals with fundamental and, for many, unimaginable changes to basic principles of societal organisation. If labour is no longer in short supply this could lead to what used to be called mass unemployment.

I believe that we are less likely to tolerate wide-spread poverty such as that experienced when people moved from the land into the cities during the first industrial revolution. Perhaps we will find a way to allocate resources to people other than by labour, while still maintaining civil and ordered society. What was once called welfare may become a universal basic income.

Accepted definitions of wealth may change to include more than money. Because time is an immutable constraint, this may become a currency. How it’s spent may differentiate between rich and poor. Manners, deportment, compassion and popularity may be qualities that people will support to determine unequal reward for others. Honour and shame may become fashionalbe once more. In some socieites this may instead become enforced compliance. Human groups naturally form hierarchies. When traditional methods of determining who has more worth changes then so will our definition of who is more worthy. Some people want to be “top-dog” and will use every method to be so (or remain so) – not only by pulling themselves up, but also by pushing others down.

As information asymetry combines with confirmation bias, we are likely to see politics become more fractional. Groupings will emerge like sides on a battlefield. They may be wealthy industrialists with their capital and bankers, career politicians with their nationalistic tendencies, intellectually enlightened middle classes, disenfranchised and once-proud working classes and individuals who want to be made to feel special and better than their peers. These interests will come with different ideas about what to optimise for success and how to go about doing it.

Different factions with competing ideas, their votes, their followers, and their financial means will be pitted against each other. They will use new technologies, historic resources, traditional oratory, and brute force. They will use the structures and institutions of society – as well as whatever form of subterfuge is available – to further their conflicting objectives. Human history suggests that without acceptable compromise frustration will lead to anger, irrationality and even violence.

Conclusion

Commercial innovation here may be hard to achieve but being alert to the political and social dimensions will provide early warnings and adaptation may keep you on the right side of history.

For more information please see:

4th Industrial Revolution Implications parts 1-3

IR4 Part 1: Information and Communications LINK

IR Part 2: Work, Trade, Taxes and Government LINK

IR4 Part 3: Energy Transition LINK

Earlier thinking around the subject

Innovation and Productivity with the 4th Industrial Revolution LINK

Digital Disrtuption Landscape for Upstream Oil and Gas LINK

Get out of the way of digital Crhis LINK

6 Months into a 3 week crisis

I have lots of new ideas to share, but not the time to commit them to words.

I’ve not found time to update this blog for a while. To be honest I don’t think the uncertainty that comes with this crisis makes it wise to take too rigid a point of view. And, like many others I speak to, my days seem to be slipping past. I seem to be doing a lot of work, but I am finding less time to invest in new areas for the future and many discretionary tasks I no longer have the concentration to focus on.

Some of my friends and colleagues have noticed similar fatigue levels affecting performance in their businesses too. As one put it, we are now six months into a three week crisis.

All the emergency measures we put in place are all still there, the system is starting to creak and it no longer seems temporary. And it doesn’t really work for the long-run. We have learned new ways to use technology and have become expert in the tools for remote working. What we must now do is rethink our processes and routines to take advantage of these while making space to grow and learn.

Ken & Mark from AGM transitions, and I have been working on turning our small guides into a book. It’s now available from Amazon here: [LINK] – I hope that the practical advice and structure are something that will help you through this stage of lock down.

Here is the link to the original post: [LINK]

Watch out, they are comming for you

The cost of innovation is going down, barriers to entry are falling

Keeping it special

If you work in heavy industry and are near technology, you will know that there are some very robust pieces of kit out there. What I’ve always been surprised at is:

1. how simple many of the devices are in terms of functionality; and

2. how “special” they are in terms of obfuscating the obvious.

The effects of these two factors has been, for years, to reduce competition. By making it difficult to get hold of units (via price) and creating a jargon around the obvious configuration/deployment it has promoted a closed shop approach.

Keeping up standards

In some ways keeping out the riff-raff can be promoted as a good thing – it provides assurances around quality and safety. But it slows down innovation. You might say that perhaps this is good. Maybe you don’t want to be too innovative around safety and compliance systems. Afterall making mistakes is expensive and dangerous.

Keep up!

One of the aspects of the 4th industrial revolution that will challenge that thinking is simulation. I used to think that digital twins, virtual worlds and simulation would help reduce the cost of maintenance, let the experts create new ways to work and basically bring down the operating costs for the incumbents.

What if it leads to a whole new raft of competitors? What if anyone can have low-cost access to a virtual oil rig, or virtual power station, or virtual chemical plant? Not only will they learn how it’s supposed to work, they can try things and see what happens – learn by doing, learn by breaking, but do it virtually. Perhaps this will lead to:  

  1. they might come up with much better ways to operate it that you do; and
  2. train themselves to operate it before you hired them

Result: Better ways of working, access to more talent, incumbents get beaten.

If you have ever witnessed teenagers playing fortnite, you will know how fast their thinking can become and how fast their brain-hand connetion is. Imagine how quickly they will be able to react to real-world situations and think through the information being thrown at them.

Examples

I’ll provide two examples of where “public access” and “new ways of working” are already influencing established hierarchies. It won’t be long before these mechanisms appear in heavy industry.

Don’t expect today’s engineers to enter the workforce unprepared nor unwilling to take on the establishment. Watch out for competition from smart people who are not part of the established hierarchy. Don’t think the way you work today, will be the way you work tomorrow.

Example 1: Team Huub-Watt bike

I was lucky enough to see this cycle team win gold at the Track Cycling World Cup in December 2019. The team is comprised soley of amateur racers and they ran a completely novel strategy calculated using simulations and software. Their budget is £15,000 per year. They beat Team GB who have the best coaches, facilities and trainers available – and a budget this year of £26m. That’s over 1,000 fold decrease in cost and substatially BETTER performance.

Response from the establishment was to change the rules, enforce the status quo. This may not work forever. It probably won’t work for you.

https://www.tri247.com/triathlon-features/interviews/huub-wattbike-uci-interview

They were not, however, afraid to make use of the technology for their own ends. Zwift is a cycle simulator that people can use at home and join in real-time cycle events and ride-outs while collecting performance statistics. It is now being used by pro-teams to identify and recruit talent.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/i-want-to-ride-in-the-worldtour-how-british-cycling-are-using-zwift-to-help-identify-young-talent-454806

Example 2: British Touring Car Championship

In the gentleman’s toilet at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall – in the heart of establilshment London – there are a series of framed caricatures of some of motor racing’s greats from the last 100 years. These include W.O. Bentley and Mike Hawthorn. Motor racing is glamourous. And costly. The money needed to race in formula 1 are legendary, but even the karting in a 125cc class will likely cost you the best part of £50K a season. Developing cars, tracks and drivers costs money.

So what do you think will be the outcome of last weekends win for James Baldwin in the first of the British GT Touring Car championship races? It’s a pretty big series, and winning a race is not easy.

Especially if it’s your first race you’ve ever competed in.

James honed his skill as a driver in a simulator he set up at home for under £1,000. And his talent was found when he entered a competition in an “E-Sports” event.

Turns out that the simulation prepared him surprisingly well.

https://www.goodwood.com/grr/race/modern/2020/8/worlds-fastest-gamer-wins-on-british-gt-debut/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-53554245

2020 Vision

Sorry for the title. It’s not very original. Everyone’s been using that for the last decade, but still it seems appropriate. Every January I’ve made a post predicting the year ahead. I normally write this in December and publish it at the beginning of the year. It normally makes a few tongue in cheek exaggerations to in order to raise a smile. I stole this idea from Old Knights Almanac that used to appear each year in the RETRA magazine [Link ]

Today is the day we leave the European Union. My advice is to ignore this and go and buy today’s FT. It has many stories that summarise the transition we’ve witnessed and sets out the stall for next year. Below I’ve taken extracts and headlines and they tell the story. The one thing not mentioned is the UK Government’s industrial strategy, more on that in another post. Oh, and my watch phrase for this decade is “Society 5.0” – I think we’ll be hearing more about this in the comming while.

First here is an extract from this story (https://www.ft.com/content/b64b692e-4387-11ea-abea-0c7a29cd66fe).

This caught my eye because it illustrates the emerging tech leadership that is flowing from a very entrepreneurial and exceedingly smart China, the comming tech trade-wars and how there is a shift in earnings among tech players reflective of the shift in tech approaches – showing even when you are the innovator you have to keep innovating!

BT has said the cost of implementing the UK government’s cap on the use of Huawei equipment will cost it £500m over the next five years as it reported its third quarter figures.

[…]

There’s a bumper crop of earnings to report: Microsoft reported a 14 per cent advance in revenues, to $36.9bn, helped by cloud revenues which grew 39 per cent to $12.5bn, Tesla has notched up its first-ever back-to-back quarterly net profits. The electric car pioneer called 2019 “a turning point”. AT&T’s entertainment business WarnerMedia revealed a $1.2bn hit due to costly investments in its upcoming streaming service to rival Netflix. Nintendo’s quarterly operating profit rose 6 per cent to $1.5bn, missing expectations. Samsung Electronics confirmed its fifth straight quarterly decline in profits but said it expected memory market conditions to improve in 2020.

To avoid the risk of plagiarism I am going to direct you to today’s FT (go buy a copy or have Amazon deliver you one). The headlines from these stories paint the picture and tell the story all by themselves.

Why Microsoft and Tesla are the decade’s big disrupters

https://www.ft.com/content/b3e659fc-4380-11ea-a43a-c4b328d9061c

Ginni Rometty steps down as IBM tackles cloud era

https://www.ft.com/content/aabee59a-43aa-11ea-abea-0c7a29cd66fe

Rich and famous turn to ‘personal cyber security’ to protect phones

https://www.ft.com/content/96c79040-40ea-11ea-bdb5-169ba7be433d 

The Apple effect: Germany fears being left behind by Big Tech

https://www.ft.com/content/6f69433a-40f0-11ea-a047-eae9bd51ceba

Elon Musk jolted by German protests over Tesla factory plan

https://www.ft.com/content/8b10555e-4345-11ea-abea-0c7a29cd66fe 

The UK’s employment and productivity puzzle

https://www.ft.com/content/a470b09a-4276-11ea-a43a-c4b328d9061c 

For today’s oil market the real threat is to demand, not supply

https://www.ft.com/content/5bf49cb0-41cb-11ea-bdb5-169ba7be433d 

Shell to slow investor payouts after earnings fall 50%

https://www.ft.com/content/4e1fa700-4334-11ea-a43a-c4b328d9061

Orsted/offshore wind: Go-Greta:

(Henrik Poulsen has turned a national oil company into the world’s largest offshore wind builder and green energy champion)

https://www.ft.com/content/719dd81d-2527-4b83-8aed-e6624476c191

Competition rules stymie co-operation on climate goals

https://www.ft.com/content/b3e0da9c-3eba-11ea-b84f-a62c46f39bc2 

I wish you a healthy, hearty,happy and prosperous 2020.

While we were sleeping – Oil 1.4 and Solar

It’s been very busy since the Network Dinner in September. I will post an update on the discussion later this month.

In the mean time I’ve been busy working on innovation – more of that later – but I recently came across two interesting items that I think might be worth sharing.

Firstly the FT ran a special issue talking about Oil and Gas 4.0 [Link]. It’s good to see that this term is being widely applied – and a big change from when I started to talk about it a few years ago.

I wrote an article in March 2016 when I claimed that Oil and Gas were really at 2.5 while industry was going 4.0 [Link] I was concerned about the lack of urgency and technology progress. I also called out the contribution of Collette Cohen as being one of the few that seemed to get technology. She is now director of the Oil and Gas Technology Centre.

The OGTC were referred to in this article [Link]

In October, the non-profit Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) in Aberdeen in Scotland, announced the next phase in its autonomous robots project with Total of France, which is developing what it calls the world’s first offshore work-class robot. The first phase of the work saw Austrian firm Taurob create a robot to conduct visual inspections at Total’s Shetland gas plant and the Alwyn gas platform in the North Sea. A second-generation version will have a stronger chassis and a heavy-duty arm that will lift objects and turn valves. It will be tested by Total and Equinor of Norway, the research initiative’s new partner.

“A lot of our work on hazardous environments focuses on whether we can avoid sending people into those areas in the first place,” says Stephen Ashley, head of OGTC’s digital transformation solution centre.

Another article coined the phrase Oil and Gas 1.4 which is a clever take on the combination of an old-age industrial organisation embracing new digital technologies within its core business. I think I like this term better than my 2.5 one.

This article [link] makes the point that the new technology is prevalent in some areas of the business, but that the new frontier for production might be the application of technology to find economic ways of enabling enhanced oil recovery. 

Unmanned rigs are now commonplace, complex operations are monitored from a single control room, leaks and emissions of greenhouse gases can be identified by drones and satellites, removing much of the need for direct human inspection. Numerous technologies are being applied in ways that can reduce cost and improve productivity.

The key question, however, is whether the digital revolution can answer the sector’s biggest challenge: how to secure future production. Oil demand is not falling. There may be 7m electric vehicles on the world’s roads but there are also 1.2bn vehicles with internal combustion engines.

[…]

One answer must be for companies to make the most of assets they already hold. Across the world the typical recovery rate from a conventional oil or gasfield is only 35 per cent.Even after decades of production giant fields such as Prudhoe Bay in Alaska or Ghawar in Saudi Arabia still contain billions of barrels of oil. Recovery rates have slowly risen and provinces such as the North Sea, originally expected to close at the end of the last century, continue to produce oil and gas. In Norway recovery rates are typically 50 per cent — well above the world average but still leaving half the resource base undeveloped.

The point at which recovery becomes uneconomic, ie when the cost of enhanced recovery is greater than the value of the oil, is a serious constraint.

What I’ve found really interesting this year is how irrelevant the oil and gas industry seems to have become down here in London. What I mean by that is that Oil and Gas seemed to be at the crux of things in a way that, say, copper mining and concrete production wasn’t. It used to be a cool place to play with technology, travel the world and to make a bunch of money. I think those days may be over (though some predict a spike in prices around 2025). Now no-one here cares about Oil and Gas at all.

Where I am seeing a lot of action and excitement is around Solar and Wind. I thought for a while it was just me becoming aware, but now I’m onvinced that it was a sea change and it really is picking up. And the cost-curve of Solar is particularly striking.

I urge you to have a look at Tim Harford’s article on Solar [link]. As always he has an ability to grasp the implications of what he sees in ways that other’s don’t. He looks a PV cells – how in 1980 Solar was about $100 per watt ($10.000 to light a light bulb). It is now already below $0.25 / watt and falling. Utility scale production is now looking to provide generation at below $0.015 per KW/h. [link]

The thing about Solar Panels is that they are a pure manufacturing play. Once created they just sit there and make energy. No moving parts, no plat to really operated as such. We have been, and continue to be, very good at manufacturing standard products in standard factories.

Sometimes the learning curve is shallow and sometimes it is steep, but it always seems to be there.

In the case of PV cells, it’s quite steep: for every doubling of output, cost falls by over 20%.

And this matters because output is increasing so fast: between 2010 and 2016 the world produced 100 times more solar cells than it had before 2010.

Batteries – an important parallel technology for solar PV – are also marching along a steep learning curve.

The learning curve creates a feedback loop that makes it harder to predict technological change. Popular products become cheap and cheaper products become popular.

And any new product needs somehow to get through the expensive early stages. Solar PV cells needed to be heavily subsidised at first – as they were in Germany for environmental reasons.

More recently China seems to have been willing to manufacture large quantities in order to master the technology.

Watch this space, it’s just getting cheaper, better and faster. This is where the action is – I just don’t know how to play the opportunity yet.