No 170: Woolly thinking?

Ever agreed to something and then realised, just a little too late, that you shouldn’t have got involved?

A few weeks ago I was asked by my (former) good friend Andrew Walker if I would participate in a social experiment at the EIP Water Conference in Porto. Andrew was the compere for the 2 day event, which is always good value, especially for people interested in new water-related innovations. I was intrigued by the invite so happily agreed. After all, I thought, Andrew hasn’t ever steered me wrong in the past. I also took comfort from the fact that Frederico Fernandes, President of Aguas do Porto and Associate Professor Uta Wehn from the Delft Institute were also involved. Frederico is the boss of the local water company. Uta is a wonderfully respected individual, working on innovative forms of ICT-based governance.  

The experiment was being organised by Maria Freitas, from the Portuguese National Laboratory for Civil Engineering. As we stepped onto the stage it was clear that neither Uta nor Frederico were any more informed than I as to what was about to transpire. Maria explained that she was going to undertake an experiment to showcase innovative thinking. Balls of wool were handed out to members of the audience and they were told to hold onto one end of the wool and to throw the ball as far as they could. It took a couple of minutes for the audience to embrace their inner child but once a few keen individuals got the idea it soon caught on. 5 minutes of chaos ensued as 25 brightly coloured balls of wool flew around the room in gay abandon.

Uta, Frederico and I sat on the stage wondering what our role was. it was only when a ball of wool smacked into my shiny bald head and ricocheted off in a new direction that I realised how exposed we were. (You will note from the attached photo that my chair for some unknown reason seemed to be a foot lower than the others. I sense this was all part of Andrew’s campaign to ridicule me).

Once the balls were fully unwound and the room resembled a web made from rainbows by spiders high on acid Maria called everyone to order. Having utterly disrupted the staid, professional air in the room, she now wanted everyone to work together to unravel the wool and recreate the balls. The look of shock and awe on the face of the audience was a wonder to behold. After the initial astonishment at the scale of the task had sunk in, some people stepped forward and started pitching ideas for how this could be achieved. Others worked together in little teams to unravel their own local bit of crochet. Some sat stony faced refusing to engage (see the lady in the bottom right hand corner of the attached photo).

It soon became apparent that the role Uta, Frederico and I were to play was to try and interpret the mayhem and draw some conclusions. It was, of course, a lovely metaphor for how good innovation works. I babbled inconclusively about how good innovation first needs a problem to solve and then it takes a team, working together, to unravel the mess. Not everyone joins in, but those that do usually get a sense of satisfaction.

Uta took it a step further, referring to the work that she has done as part of Ground Truth 2.0 (see gt20.eu), she commented that the exercise had shown how for good innovation to work the interactions between the parties need to be ‘honest’. Everyone needs to understand the conditions and the scope of the problem, only then they can mobilise around it. Too often, she said, we have solutions which are looking for problems to solve. Once you have the problem (‘I am covered in wool and need to be unknotted’) you can design a solution, which is often much more local in nature than one might immediately assume. She also noted, with a wry smile, that it was clear from where we sat on the podium that most of the people who threw the balls were male, whereas most of those who stepped forward to sort out the resulting mess were female. She is a clever lady that Uta.

Looking back, maybe I can forgive Andrew for walking me into this. I learnt something new.  

No 169: The Bravest Water Utility in the World

Nestled in the South-West corner of the state of Victoria, at the bottom of Australia, 200miles from Melbourne, is the town of Portland. Settled in 1800 by James Grant it provided the only sheltered deep water port between Adelaide and Melbourne and therefore offered safe haven for passing ships. Today Portland is a beautiful town with 10,000 residents and a thriving fishing and tourism industry. It is, apparently, the place to go if you want to see whales and koalas (which I assume means either the local whales have learnt to climb trees or that the koalas can now swim). It is a bustling hub of Australian life.

For me however, the region is famous for just one thing. It is served by the world’s bravest water utility: Wannon Water.

Wannon Water serves 42,000 customers and they draw water from 14 different sources across their region. They are something of a regional peculiarity in that three of their raw water sources are drawn from large, deep underground reservoirs which date back millennia. Unlike many utilities and councils in Australia, Wannon Water does not suffer water shortages. Their water is wholesome and healthy and in copious supply. Unfortunately, however, the water from the groundwater sources just doesn’t taste that nice. It has a mineral-rich, salty sort of taste, no doubt reflecting its long history percolating through the ground.  

Sharing this news at a state-wide event (the always brilliant annual VicWater conference) takes a significant amount of bravado and self-confidence. Ian Bail (GM for Service Delivery), and Kellie King (GM Community and Corporate Services), supported by key members of their board and executive team who were in the audience, bravely and humbly shared how they first realised the true extent of the taste issue. It was when a local hospital manager (in Port Fairy….best named place on earth) was quoted in the press stating that they were removing sugary drinks and cordials as part of a health drive, but that they would look for suitable alternatives to address the poor water taste. This was a wake-up call for Wannon.

Wannon already provided safe clean water but some of their customers simply didn’t like the taste. Rather than using the tap, customers were buying sugary soft drinks. Rates of obesity and tooth decay in the region were abnormally high. Something had to be done. Their first approach, not surprisingly, was to propose building a nice spankingly new RO facility which would remove the taste issues. Not cheap, but a practical solution. Unsurprisingly when they tested this proposal with the public they got a clear ‘no thanks’ response. People were happy with their soft drink alternatives.

Long story short, Wannon have embarked on a number of high profile ‘Great Tasting Water’ projects, working with the local hospital and even daring to extend their reach beyond the water meter to provide point of use solutions. There is much more to do of course, but the work at Wannon has highlighted the challenge the water industry has of ensuring that the water we provide is both wholesome and tasty. Wannon’s work has demonstrated that if we get this wrong all sorts of wider societal problems (such as obesity and dental decay) become rife. The challenge isn’t just about taste, it is about mobilising all the organisations in the region so that they appreciate the benefits, and perhaps even share the costs, associated with getting it right.

There are very few water companies that would be prepared to enter into such an honest and open public debate. Their stance has legitimised a community wide discussion around public health and well-being that reaches far beyond just the taste of the tap water.  Wannon Water: Bravest water utility in the world.

No 168: How to make a $million

I first met George Theo back in 2012 in a greasy spoon café in a grey drizzling London. Back then I was working at Thames Water and George was the recently appointed CEO for Unitywater, a newly formed water utility in South East Queensland, Australia.  Unitywater had been created through the merging of 6 council water businesses, each with their own systems and culture (no challenges there then!). George, bless him, was visiting London to see if there were any lessons he could take from Thames Water. Obviously I was no help at all. Thames Water is the Mary Poppins of the water sector and is practically perfect in every way. She has clearly never been even remotely dysfunctional or complex to navigate.

Despite my inability to help, I distinctly recall that we had a great fried breakfast, and that I was blown away by George’s fervent Aussie spirit of optimism.

I met George again yesterday, this time in his home city of Brisbane, which was distinctly sunnier and cleaner than London, and rather than a cholesterol-imbibed breakfast I instead sipped a healthy fruit smoothie. Five years on and we are both a looking a little bit older, balder, fatter but our collective passion for the water sector is unchanged. The last 5 years for George have been a roller coaster. If Thames is Mary Poppins then Unitywater is Bert Dawes (the Dick van Dyke character that played opposite Julie Andrews in the film). Unitywater is an organisation that has that a cheeky, optimistic, unrepentant, take-no-prisoners approach to life, where everything is possible if you just throw enough attention and energy behind it. I just love Australians.

Unitywater serves about 750,000 people in South East Queensland, stretching from Noosa in the north to Moreton Bay in the south.  It might not be the biggest water utility in the world, but it makes a big noise. They have a style and approach that is fundamentally different. They don’t try and excel at everything, but instead they adopt a laser-like focus on a few key areas where anything less than perfection is unacceptable. Water quality, for example. This focus of resources has created a culture and ethos that breeds further success, even on stuff that might seem peripheral.

For example, I was in awe when George told me their 60+ day debt was less than 1%. This is unbelievable. Water companies (even the perfect Thames) usually have no end of trouble getting pubs and nightclubs to pay their bills. 6 years is a good payment schedule, let alone 60 days. When I asked how they achieved this George explained that one of their initiatives is to deliberately not charge their maximum allowable revenue,  because to do so would make cash recovery more difficult and ‘why try and get an extra $2m revenue if we then have to spend as much building a debt recovery team’. The logic here is so obvious it is embarrassing. Play fair with your customers and they will play fair with you.

My favourite story however is how George and his team managed to persuade a massive chunk of their customers to switch from expensive quarterly paper bills (costing about $10 a household) to an online service. A simple campaign was launched inviting people to switch, with the only incentive being their entry into a  quarterly draw where the prize was free water for a year (capped at $1500). A $6k investment delivered a $1m/year saving. Beautiful.

We were joined by Ray Aspey, one of Georges senior managers. Ray is responsible for delivering some of the non-regulated aspects of Unitywater. He is a  glorious cross between an enthusiastic Labrador and a Great White Shark. He has boundless energy and eagerly embraces new ideas with an infectious, almost child-like enthusiasm, yet he is also scarily hard-nosed and has a commercially savviness that would make Gordon Gekko look like a pussy cat. Ray is developing plans to provide a new service to their industrial customers that will revolutionise their offering. The next few years are going to be fun in in South East Queensland. I fancy the best is yet to come!