All posts by Jim Muttram

The climate change narrative

7th March 2015 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

Winning the “carbon war” will be more about narratives than policy initiatives. That seemed to be the message of Jeremy Leggett, former Green Peace activist, and academic, current chairman of The Carbon Trust and founder of Solar Century, as he spoke to a meeting of the London Futurists.

And key to these narratives are what he says are three mega trends:

The plummeting costs of green technologies (called the “terrordome” by analysts AllianceBerstein)
The rising costs of fossil fuel extraction – over $700bn in 2014
Growing environmental activism around the world (there was a march happening in London at the same time as he was giving his speech)

These are inexorable trends and together they are pushing the world in the right direction ahead of the global climate summit in Paris in November.

There are counter narratives – such as the promise of cheap energy from fracking which is the current obsession of the Prime Minister and Chancellor. But Jeremy Leggett believes there are strong reasons why this fracking revolution isn’t going to happen. First, the U.S. success story is unravelling fast and may implode before the UK general election next May. That would force an abrupt change of line, he believes. Second, the British (and perhaps particularly those in the Tory shires) are pathologically opposed which makes it difficult to envisage, especially in the new era of minority government and coalitions.

The final reason Jeremy Leggett seems a lot more positive than many in the environmental movement is the growing acceptance by the financial community of the sizeable risk of a carbon bubble. Even the Bank of England is now examining the question to assess the systemic risk.

Taken together, he believes these narratives are turning the tide.

He is serialising, for free, a book outlining his arguments which can be downloaded here.

Climate Change

The Elephant in the Room

7th March 2015 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

It is great to see Alan Rusbridger driving a major push on Climate Change at The Guardian.

Generally the coverage of the issue itself is good on The Guardian. But they suffer from a common problem. When journalists cover energy related subjects – say the trials and tribulations of the North Sea oil industry or fracking or Alberta coal tar sands – they do so in isolation, without mentioning the Elephant in the Room – the carbon budget. This basically means most of even the oil and gas on the energy companies’ books can’t be burned if we are to stay below 2 degrees C of warming.

That’s not to say The Guardian doesn’t do a good job of reporting on the Elephant itself; it does. It’s just that the Elephant often doesn’t get a look in when other, related topics are covered.

And, in my opinion, it’s a good idea to keep your eye on the Elephant at all times.

Alan Rusbridger has said that the one thing he wishes he had done a better job of in his time as editor is cover Climate Change better. Here’s hoping this means the Elephant gets a look in much more in the future.

Business

The Soulful Organisation

22nd January 2015 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

I’ve just been to an inspiring presentation at the RSA given by former management consultant Frederic Laloux who was talking about his book called Reinventing Organizations.

He argues that many people intuitively believe that current management practices just aren’t working and that they are right and a big shift in how organisations work is about to happen.

He outlined three principles:
Self organisation
Wholeness, and
Evolutionary purpose

I have a lot of sympathy with the first two: I think it is quite clear that the less overhead you can put onto people who know what they are doing the better and I instinctively feel that fewer management layers is ideal; I also think all organisations would be much better with less ego and more emotional and social intelligence.

The third principle, though, I confess I’m having trouble with. The idea, as I understand it, is that instead of central strategy, planning and budgetary frameworks the organisation is left to respond to challenges and adapt as it goes along (almost like a susurration of starlings).

The presumption is that the people within the organisation understand where they are collectively going and what they are trying to achieve and are best placed to ensure the organisation gets there. I can’t help feeling this assumption may not always be true.

I’m looking forward to reading the book to see what more Mr Laloux has to say on the subject.

RSA Chief Executive Matthew Taylor (left) with Frederic Laloux

Miscellany

More Resilient Cities

20th January 2015 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

Dr Judith Rodin, president of the Rockerfeller Foundation

What does it take to make cities resilient? In a thoughtful talk to the RSA Dr Judith Rodin, current president of the philanthropic Rockerfeller Foundation, summarised some of the findings of the foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project.

In a nutshell she argues that cities can’t plan effectively based on past events – which is what they have a tendency to do.

Instead, she argues, they should build resilience focussed on their key risks (maybe earthquakes, or flooding for example). But they should do this in a generalised way which makes them more resilient to a wide variety of different possible events.

The example she used was Boston which put in place a number of key policies (Governor in charge of communication, FBI taking the lead etc) which then served them extremely well when the bombing of the Boston Marathon occurred. This particular event couldn’t have been predicted, but because of the city’s general level of preparedness much loss of life was avoided.

The keys to resilience, she says, are: awareness of the risks, diversity in social and economic spheres, integration and cooperation , self regulation and adaptability.

Climate Change

The Government’s paradoxical approach to the climate

17th January 2015 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

This week saw two significant climate change events.

Firstly climate scientists from NASA and NOAA officially confirmed that 2014 was the hottest year on record. Most scientists now believe that the world is on track for warming of 4C or 5C by the end of the century – and nobody knows what sort of a world that will be, except that it is likely to be exceptionally challenging.

Secondly, the Environment Agency gave approval for Cuadrilla permission to resuming test drilling two miles away from the site that caused earthquakes last time they tried. The coalition government is hell bent on promoting fracking in the UK as aggressively as they can – probably keen to emulate the energy revolution which has happened in the US.

But it has become clear that the last thing the world needs is more fossil fuels. If we are keep warming to 2C – a target that world leaders are still ostensibly signed up to – then it is now recognised that a large proportion of extractable fossil fuels will need to be left in the ground. Actually, the figures are 82% of all coal, 49% of all gas and 33% of all oil.

So, if the Prime Minister is genuinely simultaneously signed up for action on climate change and developing fracking it must mean only one thing – he thinks we can boost our fossil fuel production while expecting others to do the heavy lifting. Given the fraught nature of international climate politics, that doesn’t sound like a realistic position.

Internet Economy

The breaking of Glass?

18th November 2014 Jim Muttram 1 Comment

Techcrunch is predicting the demise of Google Glass as a consumer product, citing departing developers and a perceived lack of support from the top of Google. Techcrunch’s Mike Butcher predicts b2b will be where the product makes headway:

Industrial applications – building and manufacturing, security, training – could be the future for Glass. Indeed, Taco Bell and KFC are considering Glass as a potential training method for employees. And five developers that have joined the programme are all in the enterprise space.

I agree. The case for having a heads-up display is dangerous or difficult work situations (think nuclear plants for operating theatres) seems pretty self-evident. And it does seem that the general aura of weirdness which has settled around Glass is just too much to allow for a successful general consumer launch.

But all that is not to say that Glass isn’t pointing the way to the future. The end game in computing is ubiquity – being able to get help, find information, communicate effortlessly and at will. The watch, currently the flavour-of-the-month wearable, won’t fill that role. Eventually it will be a direct brain interface that does, I’m pretty sure. The next best thing is to use the heads-up display, however that is done. Google Glass, or some other variant, will be back.

Internet Economy

Short and long-term innovation

20th October 2014 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

It’s the mobile innovation season again. Apple launched the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the latest operating system iOS 8, announced the much-anticipated Apple Watch and last week launched new iPads. Google unveiled plans for the new Nexus 6 phablet and the Nexus 9 tablet and a new Android operating system, Lollipop.

But what does this innovation actually amount to? Our phones are now bigger and even thinner – so much so that they bend if we accidentally sit on them.

Apple is very focussed on getting all their technology to work “seamlessly” together. After Yosemite we should be able to start a Keynote presentation on our iPhone, pick up on our iPad, finish off on our Mac and then show it on our Apple TV, controlled by our Apple Watch. It’s clear that Apple’s future growth is going to come from getting us to buy more things and updating those we already have on a regular cycle.

Google, to some extent, is on the same merry-go-round. It too has watch software, a desktop (Chrome), phones, tablets and a TV streaming device, the Chromecast.

But Google also has Glass – a product still not ready for prime-time which has come in for increasing criticism after the initial burst of enthusiasm wore off. This Guardian review sums up the ambivalence well. What Glass does point to is a different interpretation of the way things will develop in the future.

The thing that makes Glass work is the voice interface and that is an area Google has been investing a lot of time and effort in – and with striking results.

Research by Stone Temple Consulting set out to compare results from Google Now, Siri and Cortana from Microsoft. And Google came our firmly on top – the chart here summarises those results.

Stone Temple summarise their findings like this:

So there you have it. As of October 4, Google Now has a clear lead in terms of the sheer volume of queries addressed, and more complete accuracy with its queries than either Siri or Cortana. All three parties will keep investing in this type of technology, but the cold hard facts are that Google is progressing the fastest on all fronts.

Google has been taking the whole artificial intelligence space more seriously than any other technology company. They have bought some serious talent like Demis Hassabis, the founder and chief executive of Deep Mind, the artificial intelligence business bought by Google for £400m at the start of the year.

On a visit to Microsoft way back in the 1990s I heard the head of Microsoft Research say that consumers already knew what they wanted – it was the Star Trek computer. This means a universal interface which is largely neutral about the actual device it is using at a particular moment in time.

Apple’s business model I think largely rules it out as a contender. It is too invested in creating physical devices and it is telling that it already let the Siri team depart when their work is clearly not done. (They have founded their own business called Viv aimed at delivering their version of the Star Trek computer.)

But with its heavy focus on understanding and organising knowledge, and its commitment to the development of powerful AI, my money is on Google to finally deliver the vision. And whether we access that through Glass, or through an Android-powered watch, or for that matter on the iOS platform, I’m not sure they particularly care.

Economics

The end of the German Economic Miracle?

19th October 2014 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

There was an interesting article in The Observer today which argued that the German Economic Miracle maybe coming to an end. The argument was that the obsession with balanced budget had resulted in years of underinvestment in infrastructure and innovation and that the country was therefore unprepared for the challenges of it’s changing demography.

The Observer quoted Christian Democrat politician Jens Spahn saying:

“While we have been enjoying our success, we’ve been falling behind in key areas such as the digital economy. Today people across the world may be buying BMWs and Mercedes cars because of their quality engineering, but tomorrow we may be choosing one car over the next because it has superior software.”

I must say I agree with him on the car front – German cars definitely don’t prioritise software and to my mind it is unquestionable that software functionality will become more and more important for car buyers – to the point that it may indeed become a deal-breaker.

At the same time I’m not sure I really buy the picture of German industry starving for investment in advanced technologies. I have recently (and co-incidentally) been very struck by the number of times it has been a German firm behind innovative precision engineering products which have popped up in various TV programmes. In Grand Designs, for instance, any really innovative module systems seem to be built in Germany and then shipped in on the back of lorries to some forlorn plot in rainy England. And I seem to recall the huge tunnel boring machines which are cutting Crossrail tunnels under London are – you guesses it – German. And I seem to remember that the dramatic lattice work for the roof of the new Canary Wharf Crossrail station is also German.

I realise this is all rather anecdotal – but still…. it makes me wonder if the article is writing off German industry a bit too soon….

Miscellany

A tale of two Virgins

27th September 2014 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

My daughter, a second year student at Royal Holloway, University of London, has just moved into her new student house Egham. She was offered a student-only deal of a 9 month contract instead of the usual 12 months.

Meanwhile, my son Alex, who spent last year in the States and has now returned to do this third year in Leeds tried to get the 9 month contract deal he had two years ago but could not find this deal anywhere. He and his housemates have taken a 12 month contract even though, in common with most students, he will only be needing it for 9 months.

I wonder whether this is anything to do with regional market share?

Miscellany

Comment spam

25th September 2014 Jim Muttram Leave a comment

I moved to WordPress on August 29th and one of the plugins which I was recommended to install immediately was Akismet from WordPress themselves. This turns out to have been a very smart piece of advice. In under a month I have 121 comments caught in its spam filter. Now I appreciate what people who have moved to WordPress and Moveable Type have been talking about all these years.