98 Barry O’Kane transcript

Interview Transcript

Provided by AI

Catherine Weetman  03:06

Barry, welcome to the circular economy podcast.

Barry O’Kane  03:10

Thank you, Catherine. Pleasure to be here.

Catherine Weetman  03:12

Yeah, it’s good to see you. And we’ve known each other for a couple of years now, I think it might have been a pre lockdown meeting that we first had.

Barry O’Kane  03:19

Yeah.

Catherine Weetman  03:20

So can we start by asking you to give us an overview of happy porch and what it does?

Barry O’Kane  03:27

Absolutely. So Happy Porch is a software engineering and consultancy firm. We I founded it in 2015. And we now specialise in the broadly Circular Economy enabling. So that is taking speaking to entrepreneurs especially, and intrapreneurs in larger companies, who are looking to develop circular solutions, and need the digital extra innovation that we can bring to the table. We’re also B Corp certified and fully remote, which I’m quite proud of.

Catherine Weetman  04:00

Yeah, and I guess that’s these days, that’s becoming more and more important, isn’t it as people want more flexible working, and so on. And you also host the Happy Porch podcast, which has had some some really interesting episodes with different kinds of software solutions featured and so on. And you’ve dug into the circular economy in quite a number of episodes and dug into what’s happening with the circular economy in Africa. So how did all that come about? How did the podcast get started?

Barry O’Kane  04:34

Yeah, so it’s called Happy Porch Radio. And it’s really an excuse to have conversations with interesting and inspiring people. That’s where it started. I also think that from a circular economy point of view, often software or software engineering is, you know, see the term enabler. And so what I’m really interested in is digging into that more, not from the geeky, let’s talk about code point of view. But let’s be talking more specifically about the role of software, as a product or as or as enabler or as a background infrastructure to circular projects. And so I don’t have the same energy as you do. So I split my podcast that we do seasons, we do a couple of seasons a year of 12, or 12, or 15 episodes, and pick a topic. And it’s been really, really fun.

Catherine Weetman  05:19

There’s been some really fascinating episodes on there. And over the time that you’ve been doing the podcast, are you noticing any trends related to the kind of circular economy solutions that you’re seeing and covering?

Barry O’Kane  05:33

We picked the geography last time. So we last season, we looked at Africa as a very big geography and some fascinating and very different context specific challenges there. But I think within the podcast, and generally, I am very aware of, of like a real, real growth in the startup ecosystem. So the genuine circular first kind of either in either either products and companies, or other companies enabling platform enabling platforms or software infrastructure. And so there seems to be so much energy and an excitement there, which is something that I’m really passionate about.

Catherine Weetman  06:09

That’s really exciting. And I guess, I think I’m noticing that, but but you’re never sure whether it’s cognitive bias. I know that that is true. But certainly, you know, going going back years, it struck me that most of the truly circular examples that I was seeing were coming from startups. Not not from within from within companies, even though you would think, though the bigger companies are the ones with all the all the r&d and the strategists and the people who can devote their time to long term thinking and all the rest of it. But they seem to be worried about being first movers. So when you’re thinking about the most interesting or groundbreaking software solutions, that you’re seeing what examples come to mind.

Barry O’Kane  06:56

So, so many, but there’s two areas that I like to split that that into one is sort of business models. So the really more high level radical changes, and there’s anything that as a service or product automation, I get really excited about some of those. One of my favourite examples was somebody we spoke to her a little while ago, now on on on Happy force radio, there’s a company called care, ke Kaer, who Singapore based air conditioning company, and they now do air conditioning as a service. So instead of selling you the big, massive pieces of equipment that sit on top of factories and shopping centres and industrial parks, they sell you a temperature in the building. And to me, that’s just a really exciting both from a circularity point of view. The phrase that always sticks with me is when he said, our finance director is our Chief Sustainability Officer, because operating the machinery for as long as possible and as cheaply and as energy efficient as possible. And having effective repairs and etc, etc, is the business rather than selling more of the of the machines being the business. So that is pretty that and similar examples. And from a software point of view, then you can really look at the ways that so you’ve got things like tracking and measuring, and you need to know the temperature, you can then the company then he talked about employing a you know, a whole bunch of software engineers and moving away to have all these exciting opportunities. He talked about temperatures in the building across the day. And they’re basically the whole mindset change, and they get really exciting about stuff. That’s more than just hey, let’s make another machine and sell it.

Catherine Weetman  08:35

Yeah, I think that sounds like a fascinating episode. And maybe I’ll go and have a look for that and put a link in the show notes for people. I heard care being interviewed on an architecture podcast as well. And that was, you know, it was it was fascinating to hear just how different their mindset is compared to most kind of, you know, seller seller product businesses.

Barry O’Kane  09:04

In the in the construction industry, that that’s the one area that I can actually see action happening is this sort of the internal so lighting as a service or the air conditioning or heating or, or potentially furniture in some cases. So that is, I think, an interesting area where the some of the larger businesses can see levers, easier levers for them to pull.

Catherine Weetman  09:27

Yeah, I noticed last week, I think it was. So November 2022, John Lewis are going to be going into renting out residential space, and they’re in that they’re going to include rental of John Lewis furniture. So again, they’re you know, kind of bundling up services and improving convenience, but also, you know, bringing more revenue, different range of revenue streams into their model. So you talked about business model was being one of the strands you’ve been thinking about. So was there was there another strand that you trend that you’re seeing?

Barry O’Kane  10:07

Yeah, so the other one is infrastructure. So and my angle on that is looking at the software that businesses operate on. So everything from start control through to ecommerce through to supply chain management, and purchasing, and everything. And just broadly lumping that on as a software infrastructure that businesses operate on with. And so, so much of that is has been born out of and is optimised for linear thinking, which means that it’s one of the reasons I think that it’s harder for larger businesses to change course, because they have this huge investment in, in optimise operations, including the software for linear processing processes. And so what’s interesting is when we see people developing, or working on solutions to actually create infrastructure to allow businesses to start to either pilot or genuinely change some of those linears into circles or parts circles. So to bring that to life, my favourite example there is Reath, in Edinburgh, R E A T H, a wonderful startup that we work with who are working on software to help businesses track reusable particular containers. But and starting with closed loop business models, where you’ve got, instead of the product going out, you’re getting the containers coming back. And then what then what’s interesting is your traditional stock control now has to have all these extra hacky and manual processes to work out, well, we’re getting this thing back, we need to track it, we need to know how many times it’s used as a clean, you know, can it have this other thing in it, what had it in the past all this information that’s really important to just operate it never mind to then optimise it and improve the containers and so on. So they’re working on software, exciting software that allows businesses to actually operate or start to pilot and operate those kinds of models. Yeah, because

Catherine Weetman  12:05

there just are so many different things that you need to know aren’t there if you if you’re kind of providing something as a service. I remember Tom Harper of Unusual Rigging, back in episode three, his company was sending out motors and lifting equipment to theatres. And so, you know, that motor might do duty, once a performance, lifting something light off the stage and back again. Or it might be you know, lifting something really heavy, multiple times. So to kind of know when that needed servicing was a tricky job. So kind of putting sensors and Internet of Things in and then the software to kind of keep an eye on that and flagging things needed needed, servicing or bringing back for refurbishment and remanufacturing. You know, that was the key to it really?

Barry O’Kane  13:03

Yeah, Tom is a brilliant, a really interesting example, because he’s so driven. And so it’s such a leader in that, that he was able to commit to this long, long, difficult process of creating the software to enable that, you know, he had to work with a company for many years and search sort of, again, to transform their sort of stock control thinking to this, well, let’s look at actually individual item tracking. And like you said, usage, and where’s our loss of materials. And he can talk, he talks passionately, on your episode on your podcast. And I also had a chat to him on ours about the business benefits that that did bring. But it took a long journey for him to create that software. It’s not that every company has somebody as talented and passionate as Tom, and so that those platforms need to exist for many, many companies to start thinking like that.

Catherine Weetman  13:56

Yeah, and hopefully that is starting to happen now. And maybe there are businesses, you know, similar to unusual rigging, who’ve developed their own solutions, and then realise that it could be adapted for other companies. And, you know, that’s another another way of diversifying, isn’t it? So we’ve talked a little bit about the lack of action from established businesses compared to startups. But are you? Are you noticing any difference in approach from bigger businesses now? Are you noticing them starting to experiment and and think about this?

Barry O’Kane  14:36

I want to say yes, and I’m not sure I can confidently say yes, I mean, there’s definitely things that, you know, we’re seeing happening, but as you say, some of that is just being in the bubble. So I need to be a little bit cautious, but there is definitely motion and torque. When you now speak to people, even a few years ago, it wasn’t even on the tape like it was what is this kind of conversation whereas now, our conversations are at least when maybe net zero and sustainability is at the top and, and sort of built into that as an assumption that they need to think about circularity even if they’re not using that terminology. So I think there is definite green shirts and things happening in my experience there. And as maybe as individuals, people are getting it, but the real challenge, especially when everybody in business is often just running feels like they’re just running to standstill, is how do they? And so many of the conversations are like, I don’t even know where to start, or I need to do this big analysis project to understand, and how do I do that, and I’ve got no capacity to do that. And I need to convince by, you know, it’s like, all these barriers, even if they’re psychological, all these barriers in the way, even if people are starting to understand the need for it. So I have a mixed Yes, maybe, to your question.

Catherine Weetman  15:52

Yeah, that’s an interesting, you know, for somebody who’s not involved in software, the the different jobs that software could do through the process of developing a circular strategy and solutions at a company. So I guess this the software to do the analysis could could be kind of, you know, completely different to the kind of software that you need to manage the solutions later on.

Barry O’Kane  16:20

Yes, yes. And the additional challenges is that there’s no, there isn’t yet enough, a broad enough body of knowledge for, for us to say, okay, just do this. And it will work, you know, in that. And at any of those stages. There are some amazing people working on the consultancy side working with businesses to try and understand and look at their their circularity options, and so on. And they’re having to do a lot of sort of manual data crunching and data gathering from multiple different sources. And it’s slightly different than each. Because because we haven’t yet their site, they’re starting to look at how we can sort of use tools to streamline that process, but because it’s still quite nascent, a lot of the need to understand the problem, the analysis part is it’s not like, hey, we can automate this thing and just magically scale it up. And that’s something that’s really important from the software side, actually, that I think is a really important takeaway for software engineering. And for anybody who’s working in this industry, we’re in this incredibly powerful, privileged, industry and very sought after talent. And so we have, in my opinion, a moral obligation to be involved in these conversations. But we can’t go in with, Hey, I’ve got this technology, you know, here’s my hammer, and everything looks like a nail kind of scenario. It’s much more using some of the smarter techniques of okay, well, let’s learn and iterate and, and work out how to take small, lots of small steps quickly, instead of big, massive, chunky software projects, for example.

Catherine Weetman  17:59

And I guess, things like machine learning could come in there. And I’m thinking of a podcast I heard where, yeah, using machine learning to recognise things that were coming in for recycling and refunds. And that company had started out trying to recognise different types of fish on it, that were being landed on a boat. Yeah. And so and then using the machine learning to kind of get better and better and better at recognising this, the different species, and then the different ages of the fish in that species, and so on. So yes, yeah, I guess that that could help, couldn’t it to kind of evolve things that you start with the blunter questions, and then use things like machine learning to get more specific later on?

Barry O’Kane  19:00

Yes, exactly. And there’s two things there to pick out. One is that sort of learning process, so starting as exactly as you say, with broader questions, and then narrowing it down. And software, good software development process anywhere involves learning and adapting quickly and so that this so that the software is actually helping with the problem or the business rather than becoming the the sort of thing that is that is difficult to change. But secondly, to that, the other part is that where are different technologies fit in? So machine learning is obviously an incredibly powerful and very exciting tool in the right place. And that is an amazing example of visual. Like, the other company, I think you’ve spoken to who do the who were working on food waste, AI, visual recognition AI and then they’re also not doing AI The the like, in those situations, you’ve got huge amounts of data as in, you’ve got maybe recycled objects going through a conveyor belt or a massive amount of thing. And if we can get something to analyse that and understand it, then we can start to do smart things. So that type of technology fits there. There’s other situations where you don’t have tonnes and tonnes of data yet, and the problem is how do we gather that data? Or how do we you know, there’s a different problem? And then maybe there’s a different type of technology that fits into that space?

Catherine Weetman  20:30

Yeah. And I think was the example you were thinking of Winnow? yeah. So Jamie Butterworth mentioned them in the in the podcast with Circularity Capital. So yeah, that’s a fascinating one, nothing less, they’re still going and going strongly. And I guess as we’re in the in the UK, we’re seeing all the issues with inflation in food prices and energy costs, then there’s another push isn’t there for chefs and kitchens and commercial kitchens to get on and do something about that. So in the in the, in the sort of circular economy press, exchange platforms get plenty of attention. And in the wider press, Blockchain seems to garner the headlines. And you know, let’s leaving Bitcoin aside, people still seem to think that blockchain is going to be the answer to trust and traceability and I guess, certifying whether the materials you’re using have been produced the same sustainably or are actually recycled as opposed to virgin materials and so on. How effective do you think those approaches are?

Barry O’Kane  21:50

So that takes that takes me back to what I was saying, just before about the right technology for the right situation. And any new tech, especially one with so much sort of on paper potential like blockchain, it’s very easy to get sort of caught up and our own buzz if you like. And so that’s my worry or concern about anything is like we can’t say no, there is no one magic solution that will magically solve everything. And there is no technology that can do it by itself. It needs to be in parallel with all the things in the real world, which means the really interesting, complex problems, which are people, I laugh because software engineers, we always say we like difficult problems. But the caricature of a cost software engineer as they avoid the really difficult problem is how do people work together, which is the most interesting part of any making anything work, whether that’s people or businesses or behaviour change, and so on. So going back to the blockchain thing. So yes, blockchain has a real potential, but only in the right places. And where there is multiparty trust, or where we’re trying to solve problems, like, like circularise, are trying to do where solving the incredibly difficult problem of long supply chains, where there is still a very strong need to maybe protect or hide some information, all the way down the chain. So I might not even know who’s providing the information, but I need to trust it. There are places like that where it can fit in the risk is that we use a very complex heavy technology. And another situation where maybe something simpler, is much more effective, because especially if we’re trying to iterate and learn quickly, there might be a different tech and different circumstances.

Catherine Weetman  23:41

Yeah, because one of the issues with Blockchain that gets kind of swept under the carpet is the amount of energy it requires. Which then means, you know, and all that sort of data centres and so on being required to run it.

Barry O’Kane  23:55

Yeah, definitely. And that is, I mean, within the within the blockchain world, there’s two, two broad, underlying technologies. And one of them the bid, the bid to on the Bitcoin relies on is massively energy intensive. And then the other one is less energy intensive. It’s a newer thing to try and solve that problem. But it brings other problems, and it’s still so it’s there’s just a lot of complexity there. But you do point at something else, that’s really important. And another thing that I think I always want to mention when I talk about digital enabling and software, and that’s the impact of internet and software and hardware devices themselves, so that always needs to be front and centre of any project as well.

Catherine Weetman  24:34

Yeah, because you know, the kind of internet’s invisible, we tend to forget about exactly the energy that’s required. So, you know, we’ve we’ve done a little bit of work together to help support and promote the circular economy in Africa and you did your excellent podcast series, interviewing people who were doing circular things in Africa. So I know you think the social dimension of it Business and the circular economy is critical. What kind of things are you seeing there in terms of software that businesses are using?

Barry O’Kane  25:10

So, absolutely, yes, that like the software has to exist in the real world, we can’t go around thinking that we’re going to, you know, solve everything with with antivirus just force the software onto people. And so given that, I think the thing that I’ve that I kind of understood before really working with certs, that project that you mentioned, which was with Footprints Africa, and an amazing organisation, and and then the conversations we had across the podcast was how important context specific solutions are. It’s, it’s, it can be that something as simple as SMS is, or the, you know, which we don’t see as technology, because it’s so ubiquitous now. But it’s, but it’s not, it’s still possible that that’s a powerful tool in some parts of the world, for enabling, for example, some of the informal waste pickers scenarios and things like that. So there’s this real mix of situations where technology is very, very limited, but a small thing can have a massive impact. Particularly in those low resource settings. But I think the lesson that I would really like to emphasise in the thing that I want to take away there is it’s context specific. So you know, something where we’re using Blockchain over here, because we’ve got, you know, all the infrastructure to enable that is almost definitely not the right solution in in a different context. And maybe there’s something much simpler, much more basic, that’s more relevant.

Catherine Weetman  26:47

Yes. Interesting. And are you seeing organisations using software to create more inclusive systems or bring people into the system as co-creators or to use that buzzword ‘prosumers’?

Barry O’Kane  27:01

Yeah, there is some interesting, I have got tiny exposure to some of those things, which are really interesting. I feel like so many of them are so nascent, and the real, the people who are really impacting their, that the technology is a very tiny part of what they’re working on, it was maybe just the communication medium, for example. And it might be as simple as SMS is or even simpler like as as a way to communicate with external parties about funding or promotion. But actually what they’ve got as a social enterprise with people literally on the ground, you know, very local, or, or they’re making products from waste, and then selling it and it’s the selling at the maybe got an island element of ecommerce or something. But I think there’s, it’s quite humbling really to think you know, that there’s all this amazing talent and these amazing projects happening in, in some of the rural parts of, of Ghana, or Kenya, for example, that are that are very low tech, and potentially very high impact. On the other side, there is some really interesting and relatively and pretty high tech technology, just thinking about Hello Tractor in Kenya, who have got an IoT structure and a tractor rental model. And that is enabling, like small scale farmers to do things where they could they couldn’t have before.

Catherine Weetman  28:29

Yeah. And that one’s been going for a number of years, isn’t it? And it’s one of the one of the early ones. So Barry thinking back over the last number of years where you’ve been starting to work on more circular projects, and thinking about your lessons learned? How would you suggest that businesses approach sustainability or circular projects?

Barry O’Kane  28:54

So, so often, it’s context specific, but I think the main thing or is that I worry about or see is people getting stuck in a little bit of either analysis, paralysis or a bit of fear of it’s too difficult. And so some small scale learnings, even if it’s not, at the stage of pilots, I think there’s some really interesting ways to just take small steps and that to open doors that you know, they didn’t need to completely understand everything until it takes lots of small steps like I said. So I always suggest starting small, but and hopefully allowing that to accelerate quickly. And with fast feedback loops and so on. In terms of software on the digital side, often that means literally not even not not big investment, not big like off the shelf tools, or on the coding on the no code tools. So that allows fast process fast iterations of piloting and prototype thing. So that’s my sort of strong recommendation is to always start small, and then take small fast steps, and whatever whatever that looks like in the context of what you’re working on. Even, in fact, especially in situations where you don’t have all the information, there will be resistance and problems. There’ll be a long list of challenges from financial to you know, there’s all these things that seem like hurdles. So we don’t need to solve them all at once, let’s just start taking some small steps in there. And my second thing is always, particularly with digital product projects, especially as they start to get to the piloting phase, is to put circularity and the sort of energy and climate impact of the hardware and software that we’re using as a as a as a front runner. So for example, if we’re providing devices or thinking about IoT devices, then just ask the same question, what do we do with these at the end of life? Where do we source them. And by incorporating that thinking into the project, I think that has a an exponential effect of mindset change for the people working on the project, because then they started playing the same thinking outside the project as well. And one other thing, too, that I think it’s really important is to is to think about this, the importance of collaboration, we don’t need to do it alone. So big businesses, there are huge talent out there in terms of consultants and other startups and other people to speak to, even if that’s just advice. And for anybody out there who’s thinking, I’ve got this huge problem, I want to start working on it. Don’t do it alone. There’s so many people interested and passionate and willing to help that those conversations can change everything.

Catherine Weetman  31:32

That sounds like great advice. You mentioned no-code tools there. And that’s a new bit of software jargon for me. Could you unpack that a bit?

Barry O’Kane  31:42

Um, yes, of course. So yeah, you’re right. It’s a bit of tart jargon, no code and low code. What it really means is that most coding literally involves an engineer or someone who’s learned how to code setting writing lines of code programming, and doing all this sort of messy behind the scenes or complex behind the scenes things. No code tools are or a new terminology for tools that allow people to do things quicker, maybe with drag and drop, or with with less with needing to have less training in the coding side. Examples include WordPress, where instead of having to code your individual web pages, you’re able to log in and just create a new page and put in stuff. So that’s like the sort of iconic examples of a CMS tool. There’s also things like, even there’s multiple tools that people are familiar with things like Zapier, or, or other online tools, which allow you to do things, connect things together, or send messages and want to automate sending messages from one place to another without writing code. So that’s all I mean, there are fast, there are good way to sometimes fast create prototypes or iterations. And in many cases, you can, you don’t you can build things where you don’t need a whole 20 engineer team.

Catherine Weetman  32:55

Okay, so I guess in even simpler terms, it’s a bit like the functions in a spreadsheet, where you could bring in something like a regression function, and it does all the hard work for you. And all you’ve done is kind of, you know, use a recognised phrase.

Barry O’Kane  33:11

Exactly, exactly that.

Catherine Weetman  33:14

Moving away from software if, if you prefer, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing to make the world better, what would that be?

Barry O’Kane  33:25

So the absolutely crazy magical thing that I love to do is just to have everything cost, what it actually cost, if you see what I mean, so externalised costs actually be an output in the products that we buy. If we did that overnight, I think we would. We’d be really shocked. But I think that’s the part that’s missing from everybody’s personal, automatic and business costings.

Catherine Weetman  33:47

Yeah, good one. Thank you. And who would you recommend as a future guests for the programme?

Barry O’Kane  33:53

So I reckon I mentioned REATH earlier, who are an amazing startup, Claire and Emily, who founded Reath and that’s R E A T H, in Edinburgh, their software platform to enable reuse, amazing, amazing businesses that are building.

Catherine Weetman  34:10

Great, thank you. I’d love to follow up on that. And Barry, lastly, how can people find out more and get in touch with you and the happy porch project.

Barry O’Kane  34:19

So the best place to get in touch with or to find out anything but happy porch is just happy porch.com Everything’s on there. You can find us and learn a little bit more about us there. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m happy to speak to people there.

Catherine Weetman  34:33

Thank you. Yeah, I’ll take those links and put them in the show notes so people can look them up. Barry, thank you very much. It’s been great to catch up with you and get some of your insights from all your learnings over the last few years as you’ve been involved in this range of business software projects and also talking to all these these excellent podcast guests. So thanks very much.

Barry O’Kane  34:54

Thank you. It’s a pleasure and it’s fun to be on the other side of the conversation as well.