First a good story: Ryan has had a baby.
Well, technically I guess his wife did most of the work, but Ryan’s role was
crucial. I have a photo on my phone but it is beyond my meagre IT skills to get
this into this email. Zachary Richard Evan, 6lb 14 oz, born on Sunday night.
Congratulations Mr and Mrs Evans. If I have done my maths right, this is the
8th Isle baby in recent years. Not bad for a team of 30. What have
you all be doing? (actually don’t answer that, I can work it out).
Now for a bad naming: Yesterday I learnt about
a new company that does heat recovery from sewers. I love this idea. Sewer heat
represents a massive untapped energy source. However, there are many doubters
who (not unreasonably) claim that the temperature differential isn’t big enough
and that it increases the risk of sewer blockages. They claim that the companies
doing this are just snake oil salesmen trying to persuade people to buy their
dodgy invention. It doesn’t help that this new company is called Sharc. (‘We
are going to need a bigger boat…sorry, sewer’)
Finally an ugly truth. I sit on the UK Water
Innovation Leadership Group. This group involves the great and the good from
Defra, Ofwat, British Water etc. Not quite sure why I am there. To look pretty I
think. A year ago the committee decided it would be good to create a web-site
that captured all the various R&D activities that are undertaken in the UK
water sector (by water companies, supply companies, universities etc). I had my
doubts about this project. It would be impossible to gather coherent info, and
even if we did it would be out of date almost instantly. However we placed a
contract and the project was off and running.
A year on we have a web site with almost no data of any value
on it. Over the past year 15 people have visited the site, spending an average
of 20 seconds. In yesterdays’ meeting there was a half-hearted attempt to spin
this unmitigated disaster as a positive story. A few of us strongly resisted,
pointing out that if ever there was a time to knock this on the head it was now.
That to perpetuate it was to waste both our time and our precious resources.
However to make this bold, hard, decision would be to show
some backbone. It’s sometimes just too easy to continue with bad ideas. I fear
the ugly truth is that committees, which are surely designed to have the
collective power of many brains, are actually worthless. Compromise isn’t always
the right answer.
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