Apr 22, 2024 | Governance, Innovation
Suddenly, everyone is interested in batteries.
When mobile devices took off after the launch of the iPhone, the demand for batteries with a longer life than the then existing chemistry could deliver took off as well. Panasonic held a dominating position in this new market, being the major supplier of batteries made using Lithium as the power store.
Then along came Elon Musk. The first Tesla cars, the initial roadster and early models of the series 1 and 2 sedans used what was in effect just large-scale Panasonic batteries. Individual units were linked together with cooling tubes assembled into the pack to dissipate the heat generated by the lithium, which otherwise led to spectacular fires.
Musk in collaboration with Panasonic envisaged a ‘gigafactory’ in Nevada that would supply the packs. As has become a pattern, Panasonic found the task of working with Musk all too much, and were bought out. However, to the point, an essential part of a lithium battery is a range of rare minerals, amongst them Cobalt.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hardly democratic, holds almost all the worlds known reserves of Cobalt. Rapid development was inevitable, as was the corruption of local power brokers, and the human rights blindness of the major corporations. Cobalt is a dangerous material, yet much of it is mined by kids in holes with a pick and shovel, dying like flies. There is a registration process designed to monitor and outlaw these practices, but they are useless.
The challenge of replacing Cobalt is therefore the focus of much scientific attention. It is the chemistry of batteries that will deliver a power to weight ratio that will guarantee longer charge life, in everything from your phone to your car, and all the other uses to which Lithium batteries are suddenly being placed.
The world as a choice of three strategies, which should be mutually exclusive:
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- Find an alternative to cobalt, and quickly.
- Find alternative sources of Cobalt, leaving the DRC out of the picture.
- Internationally strengthen and enforce the existing regulations on the mining and processing of Cobalt to remove the incentive for the current corruption and exploitation that occurs.
The first two options are clearly the best. However, the challenge of replacing Cobalt requires a scientific breakthrough that while probable, is yet to be made, and the DRC remains the primary supplier. The third option seems to be beyond our joint capability.
The first to find and commercialise a solution will reap the rewards.
Dec 15, 2023 | Branding, Innovation
A year ago I stumbled across ChatGPT for the first time, had a poke around, and wrote this post. Over the following few months, I tried to keep up with what was happening, but at addendum 20, called it a day.
Generative AI became the fastest growing product group in history, with ChatGPT the leading runner by several furlongs, a lead that has been cemented over a year of frantic activity.
The release spawned several major competitors from the neighbours, and hundreds of unexpected applications built on top of the core (Large Language Model LLM) technology. This is a trend that will continue to accelerate.
Depending on who you listen to, we are either a year or two from ‘sentience’, the passing of Alan Turing’s test, or at least several decades away, and possibly will never get there.
The corporate rumble at OpenAI is a bit like Mad Uncle Henry turning up at your kids birthday party, drinking all the red cordial, and going bonkers. The structure as it was set up could not absorb the unprecedented growth. One lot wanted a slow orderly, and safe evolution of AI that did not repeat the mistakes of social media, the other basically said ‘stuff it’, let’s make a few billion!!
It seems like order was restored between the warring parties when the landlord stamped and said ‘Enough’. Capitalists won, and Mad Uncle Henry has been carted away to a comfortable retirement. Who would have guessed?
So far, the resurrection at OpenAI, the return of Sam Altmann (it was 3 days) seems to be working, but who knows what is going on in the minds of those in charge. This blended family model was bound to have difficulties, it just happened way faster than anyone anticipated.
Meanwhile, those not invited to the party continue to rave about the output, while complaining that it is wrong a lot of the time. They just do not understand the difference between an answer that is fact checked and therefore accurate, which is what we expect, and one based on probabilities, which is what your ‘artificially intelligent’ probability models are giving them.
There is no list of pre-programmed answers available from a database as is the case now for the various precursors like the Alexa’s of the previous generation. You are based on a huge volume of stuff on the web, which is why they are called LLM’s, and as we know not everything on the web is checked for accuracy. If it was, my bank account would now be in the billions after all those Nigerian princes I have helped.
Your answers are, as I said, based on the probabilities of an approximate answer built up as you trawl the training sets extracted from the web.
Alexa will give you an answer to your question, so long as the question has been anticipated, and the answer programmed in. You by contrast, will give an answer, but it will not necessarily be the ‘right’ answer. Many questions in life have a range of potential answers, sometimes that is all that is needed, they can be helpful, but AI machines cannot give ‘The’ definitive answer, the one and only, to many of the complex questions we are tempted to ask.
No silver bullet there!
This is very difficult territory for many, as the answers given are in natural language, the language we use every day, so they appear to be exactly as expected. This gives confidence in an answer that does not deserve that confidence. Without critical examination any so called Artificial Intelligence will deliver you rubbish as often as not. However, it can be extremely useful rubbish, able to provide a framework, provide ideas, and do much of the ‘grunt-work’ so often shuffled aside.
Smarter people than me are unable to offer much insight into what might happen next, and it is of no use whatsoever to ask Chat or any of his mates. They have no idea either. Two things I do know. It will be fun, and somewhat scary watching. Secondly, our world has changed, and becoming a dinosaur in your market can now happen almost in the blink of an eye.
Don’t blink first.
The header is courtesy of DALL-E, the sibling of Chat. I asked it to give me an impression of the OpenAI logo exploding, with a Gothic/surrealist feel. I chose this one from a pretty scary lot generated in about 15 seconds.
Dec 8, 2023 | Change, Innovation
We make many types of investments in the future, brand building, capability development, process optimisation, building the foundations to scale, and significantly, R&D.
Each is aimed at generating future cash flow.
The management and strategic challenge is how we justify investments today in something that may or may not occur tomorrow.
In relation to R&D, we have a specific dilemma, in both private and public sectors.
Capitalising R&D is a problem, as it makes us very sensitive to the sunk cost syndrome. We have real trouble walking away from it when the outcomes are not as expected, and the experiment is clearly a failure.
R&D is experimental, most things you try will not work. When you have capitalised them, and they do not work, you have a balance sheet write-off to explain. In this situation, the propensity of humans to resist an admission of being seen as having been wrong is heightened.
Much better to expense it, then there is no sunk cost to write off, fewer egos and personal agendas to be managed, although the sunk cost syndrome is alive, powerful, and often hidden in jargon.
On the flip side, research is long term, and needs the certainty of long-term funding. It should be immune to the vagaries of the short-term profitability fix, that typically stalks expenses.
Take the marketing investment in brand building as the prime example.
Building a brand takes a long time, is incremental, and sensitive to short term fluctuations and changes in direction that can be influenced by the profitability this quarter, the demand for a discount from a significant customer, or a change in personnel. Being an expense makes investments in marketing the target for a short-term fix for a short-term problem, at the expense of the long term.
There is no right answer to the question, it always ‘depends’ on something.
For example, private enterprise typically has a much shorter time frame than government, and therefore, does less of the long-term exploratory science. By preference they take the output of publicly funded labs and apply it to problems they see in the marketplace.
Somewhat cynically, we see the time frame of government as being the election cycle. However, almost all the key discoveries in the last 75 years that I can think of have evolved in one way or another, from publicly funded science. The irony is that such funding is subject to annual budget pressure. In this country that has resulted in public science being gutted over the last few decades, which erodes the foundation of innovation.
I did not answer my own question, and it remains a key one to be considered. However, despite the recent announcements by the Albanese government, I suspect we are circling the drain.
Header photo: Monticello dam drain glory hole. USA
Nov 29, 2023 | Governance, Innovation, Leadership
Of the many objections to the inequity and shortcomings of the tax system I harbour, the most egregious is the seduction by the fossil fuel industry of governments of all persuasions over the last 30 years.
I have two profound objections.
The first: They have known of the impact of CO2 on the climate for at least that long, and have not only not addressed it, but have aggressively sought to ensure that regulators and the general public do not get the facts, just bilious dystopian stories of what they are preventing from happening to us in the absence of their visionary management. The public are therefore unwilling to demand of regulators and lawmakers that the hard choices need to be made.
Scientists have been telling us for 30 years that the longer we wait, the harder and more costly the necessary changes will become, but what would they know?
On top of that, the fuel companies pay no tax on the billions of revenue generated in this country as a result of quite legal, but in my view absolutely immoral structuring of their tax affairs.
This avoidance is well known, they hold an honoured place in the top 40 tax avoiders list, collated by Michael West media. Along with property developers and various lobby groups, the political donations add up to 6 or 7 million dollars.
The second: Clearly, the fossil fuel industry has bought their favoured place in the political arena, but I am astonished that the price has been so low. A few million dollars in donations, and I would be pretty sure an equal amount in various tactical ‘softening’ of politicians and their advisors, and the threat of adverse advertising, in return for billions in tax free revenue.
What a great wicket they are on, paying for a cheap scooter and being rewarded with a Ferrari!
Another way of looking at it is that if you are going to be a whore, you may as well be an expensive one so you can be properly comforted for the loss of dignity. Clearly, there is very profitable leverage being wasted.
Obviously, the pollies and hangers-on need a bit of marketing and image building in order to properly leverage the key position they hold in the generation of tax free cash flow of fossil fuel companies.
The 20213 Budget delivered 9/5/23 amended marginally the PRRT and promised to impose the 15% minimum tax rate on MNC revenues in line with the OECD recommendation, a good start. Sadly, it does seem that the 15% minimum will not be imposed for some time, if ever. The power of the large multinationals with tax bases scattered around idyllic islands across the globe, does not reside just in Canberra. It hides in plain sight in London, Brussels, Dover (capital of Delaware), Reno, and many others.
Meanwhile we struggle with investment in the future productivity of the economy we are leaving to our children due to lack of public funds.
Nov 20, 2023 | Collaboration, Innovation
‘Great minds think alike’ is a common saying. Sometimes it might be right but the greater value of having a few great minds in the one place exchanging views is the fact that they will bring different ideas, values, backgrounds, and depth of knowledge to any discussion.
Throughout history those we remember as great have always had around them a group that has helped form and test their views.
‘The Inklings’ was a group of eminent writers meeting regularly at a pub in Oxford. They called it the ‘Bird and Baby,’ when the actual name was the ‘Eagle and Child.’ CS Lewis, and JRR Tolkien were amongst this group who through debate and constructive criticism tested, improved, and refined the thinking and writing of their comrades.
President Theodore Roosevelt had what he called his tennis cabinet. This was a group of younger men with whom he would go hunting, fishing, shooting, and climbing. All are the ‘masculine’ pursuits for which the President was famous. In the course of these adventures the conversations were all about the problems challenges and potential solutions facing the nation at that time. It was not an official cabinet, but probably held as much or more power than Roosevelts official cabinet, made up of men older than him.
Henry Ford was part of a small group made up of himself, Thomas Edison, President Warren Harding, and Harvey Firestone. This group of men who held in their hands a big chunk of the future path of America, went camping together into the mountains with a tent, a bottle, a few cans of beans, matches to light a fire, and a readiness to discuss the pressing issues of the day.
Even the great Einstein had a peer group, made up of Michele Besso, who was a college friend he called ‘the best sounding board in Europe, Marcel Grossman another college friend and mathematician with who he shared long walks around lake Geneva, and his first wife Mileva Maric, herself a substantial mathematician.
These days business ‘Networking’ groups proliferate, as owners of SME’s in particular, budding entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs look around for advice, input, sales leads, and often somebody to talk to who understands their situation. I am a member of several, and all are different, and I attend each for different reasons.
Where is your mastermind group?
Do you have one? Do you have in your own mind that dinner party where the six people you would most like to invite are, in your imagination, with you? While eating and drinking, you will be imagining a discussion where your ‘private’ group is responding to the things on your mind, offering you their views, ideas, and their perspective, on the issues you face and actions you are contemplating? Clearly in order to have such a powerful imaginary cabinet, you do need to have developed a clear understanding of each of your imaginary dinner guests in order to be able to reflect on your problems from their perspective.
Header photo is the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, UK. Home of ‘The Inklings’ during the enlightenment.
Nov 17, 2023 | Customers, Innovation
Ideas are usually great because they do one of two things, sometimes both:
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- They focus on a deep and genuine need, obvious or not, to the casual observer.
- They remove a problem that causes irritation.
Great ideas have a common characteristic: they are focussed.
They do one thing exceptionally well. When you spread the impact, so they do more things less well, the utility of the original idea is diluted.
The ‘Penknife’ is a classic example. It evolved when writing was done with a gooses quill and ink. The quill required constant sharpening, so the small ‘penknife’ evolved. It folded, was small enough to be safely carried in a small pocket and did an admirable job of sharpening the quill.
As a kid, I had a penknife, it had a blade, corkscrew, a bottle opener, and something my dad told me was a tool for removing the stones from a horseshoe. Not all that useful for a kid living in Sydney in the 1960’s. One of my friends had a Swiss army knife that had a cutlery store contained in a body that was several times the size of my modest penknife. As a 10-year-old, I was envious of his Swiss army knife, and lusted after one until I recognised it did nothing well. It was also bulky, and the most used tool, the knife, was difficult to open.
So it is with many products, an innovative idea is ruined by added features that may be ‘sort of’ useful to a few, but just get in the way of the single function for which the tool was developed.
Ask yourself what is it that people are willing to pay for?
We needed that penknife; we do not need the horseshoe cleaner. There is a cost to adding it, which must be recovered in the price, but suddenly the knife is less useful for its primary purpose.
Sometimes, the feature laden penknife can hide the feature that if separated into a specific product might be extremely useful. My penknife had that corkscrew. It was not much value to me as a 10-year-old and did not work very well. My father had much better corkscrews that were designed for the job he wanted done and did it well.
Beware of feature-creep it might destroy your great idea.
