dimanche, janvier 17, 2021

Un retour?

Il ya un certain intérêt à ne jamais laisser mourir les choses. Vous pouvez les mettre en hibernation, respiration assistée mais il faut toujours garder un oeil vers le passé et un oeil vers le futur. J'ai donc fais une pause de 5 ans de ce blog. Je suis parfois revenu à la page, m'attardant sur les rubriques et me demandant si je devrais repartir. Je pense maintenant qu'il y a pas mal d'évènements et certaines de mes conviction qu'il faudrait que je laisse concilié quelque part. Je reviens sur ces pages et je m'évalue, ce que j'étais et ce que je suis aujourd'hui. Mes anxiétés anciennes et actuelles, la direction que je pensais que ma vie prendrait et celle qu'elle a pris (elle change toujours, après tout je n'ai que 43 ans). J'ai commencé ce post à peu près en même temps que ma vie professionnelle, je dis à peu près car maintenant je peux m'autoriser les approximations (après tout, 1 ans de plus ou de moins quand on a plus de 15 ans d'expérience ne change plus rien, quand on en a 5 ou même 10 ça change tout!). Je mettrais donc l'accent, si j'arrive à me tenir à cet exercice, sur 3 aspects:
  • Mon histoire passée, pourquoi j'ai arrêté d'écrire 5 ans et quels évènements ont coïncidé
  • La reprise de mes activités antérieures: 
    • analyses locales de l'environnement où j'évolue (j'aime prendre du recul sur les choses) 
    • Développements sur les points scientifiques qui me tiennent à cœur
Je ne promets rien, mais il est vrai que je resents le besoin de parler de ces différents points. 

jeudi, juillet 30, 2015

From Human Beings to LDAP entries

Nowadays tendency when companies merge or there is a take over operation and the resulting body reaches a critical mass of employees, the human side of the company which usually held HR or a similar body is gradually lost. A company's goal is to make money, but also save operating money to reduce cost; both help increasing share holders dividend if the company is listed. The merging or buying helps to reduce cost of operating, to gain in competitivity. So if you have X HR employees in the first company and Y HR employees in the second one, the resulting company would most certainly not have X+Y HR employees because higher management will most probably say the work is been replicated. Usually the HR force will be reduced by 10 to 30% because the baseline of work can be handled by a reduced number of employees and many tasks are run through processes, therefore can be "automatized".
There is one factor the you consequently loose: the factor that makes the company "human". It is when the employee feels like he's not a number, that the HR representatives looks at him as original, and not through a series of processes and ticking boxes. That factor exists because of a silent work generally not traçable and unseen in reports, statistics and other weapons used by high management to measure the value added of an HR employee, which is actually taking up to 30% of the HR body's time. As opposed to Marketing/sales where you pay more attention to this human side, because down the line it generates revenue. Reduced HR team will do the same work that is within their job description. The issue is that the human side is rarely part of it as you have to generate or save something traçable immediately (e.g. revenue), not happiness and well being. The energy consumed to do their extended work within the newly generated company is energy they do not spend anymore in perfecting the "human" side of the company.

That's when employees become LDAP entries: their past is forgotten, what matters is the present work they are doing and the prospect of what they can give to the company in the future. Hence, a young professional will be seen as more attractive as the past (the experience) is not taken into account in the new calculations, only the present which is ok (almost a cheap labor with great expectations). An experienced an old professional within the company is at loss because all that he has done is not taken into account, he currently works good but he is expensive and the prospect is short as he has few years left before retirement. Within this line of thoughts a natural reaction is to try to retire him, and maybe re-employ him as a consultant (less expensive and easily disposable) if the market allows it. Sometimes the limit is pushed up to considering out employees in the wrong place at the wrong time (e.g. location in a downturn, employee between assignments and a HR department with strict orders of headcount reduction). 

With the globalization, it becomes impossible to mix workload with emotions within a company that reached a critical mass of employee, because that company does mix only with numbers.

jeudi, mars 26, 2015

Hoovering off carbon dioxide, is it realistic?

First of all, I am an all out fan of the Carbon Capture and Storage technology. It has been already a few years I have been gathering information. As I love to dream and picture simple stuff in my mind (it kills time off metro-commuting for example) I always figured out a bright future, Brand-New-World lookalike with pastel colour automatic little hoovers buzzing around busy city centers sucking off CO2 from immediate atmosphere and shiting calcium carbonate bricks*... like rabbits. I never said it was clever thoughs but the idea was keeping me intertained for long enough. Another of my thoughts was, due to the GHG effect retaining sunlight's heat from evading the Earth, the high CO2 concentration is probably up there in high atmosphere and not down here. So I was also trying to figure out the same hoovers but mounted in drones hoovering the stratospheres.
This morning I checked my internet alerts and discovered that Virgin's Sir Richard Branson launched back in 2007 along with Al Gore a contest called the "Virgin Earth Challenge". One of the challenger company made a news statement earlier this month regarding a pilot plant talking about... sucking off CO2 from atmosphere! So first I thought "niiiice", but then I remembered my drones and I wondered if it is not more efficient to suck CO2 off from high up rather than from the ground level? On the other hand, to give them justice, I know that some industries use CO2 as soldering atmosphere to avoid presence of oxygen around the flame and not having to use rare gas, much more expensive. This would mean that CO2 is heavier than air, hence would stay at ground level. That question I will leave it to further investigation, as it triggered my curiosity but for now you can watch this company's announcing video:





*: Calcium carbonate is a by-product of heated up and compressed CO2 in the presence of calcium which could be stored on a little batch reactor behind the hoover powered by sunlight. I had it all figured out, you see? :-)

mercredi, mars 25, 2015

Power of images

I might state the obvious here, but advertising is something corporations take very seriously and that independently of their intention. They just cannot afford to miss their target on advertising, the "too big to fail" downturn is that, just like superstars, dirt goes off your public image way harder than glitter. That is why you will never see some huge companies advertising, they are simply scared of missing and do not want to spend the money it takes no to miss. I have a good example of successful (by my own standards which you might not agree with) advertising for a company that wants positive publicity: BASF sustainability Newletter. Before I go any further I want to say that I did like the way they formatted it, that's why I tried my best to explain it.
 First you look at the newletter and just let yourself go through their updates. Then take two steps back and observe. How did they format their NPO-type newsletter? The first picture is crucial, it is the one that will take the reader through and I stole it for you to stay with me and read my post (I know, I'm evil :-) ). Here we see a fragile human, female child and indian-lookalike. You immediately associate it with:

  • peaceful religion 
  • resilience to their fate 
  • general happiness of living (the colorful background underlines it) 
  • fragile financial situation of 90% of the population. 
 Then the first plan blurred out to understand the focus is on the human, the tap is only the context. It could be food she's pointing at, but you would not associate it with sustainability as easily as with water. The results gives you impression that the mighty can also take care of the frail and help him. It does not say up to where nor how. Then it goes on with other things that you might want to read or not, but you will be caught by this fragile little girl with her used tin bucket pointing at the tap with a happy face. You are now in the emotional with this picture, it would not be the same if it was that middle age indian man signing an important collaboration contract that will be much more of a help for the little girl and her family's future than the water tap (does it work?). BASF intentions are secondary for my analysis, what I want to emphasize is that BASF surely used media professionals to format this newsletter. They cannot afford to waste a Newsletter if it does not advertise inderectly and positively the company. Worst, the newsletter backfires because you did not care enough to what you would show the World. For this reason you will see many companies willing to remain out of the spotlights.

 P.S.: If you feel I am wrong, I'll be glad to hear from you. It is not my area but I have an inclination for marketing and a passion for photography.
 P.P.S.: I really would like to thank the photograph that captured such a beautiful and fragile expression of this child. If anyone knows him please let him know his photo is beautiful.

mardi, décembre 02, 2014

Carbon emission reduction IS feasible, if...

This article is actually comforting me into my positions: true carbon reduction will only come from fossil fuel majors. To continue existing they will find the way to reduce carbon emission. The only thing that needs to be done is Worldwide government laws and act to fiscalize or penalize carbon emission, fossil fuel production... only then will they, as a mean of survival, accept to invest in carbon reduction plans.

mardi, août 12, 2014

The wonders of chemistry ^_^

Nature published the Chemist's choices of 2014, within this review a lot of amazing stuff that makes you realize that Mother Nature can do it all, but not necessarily needs to! Here is a selection of my preferred ones:
A new plastic material imitates veins to heal itself:

A robo-chemist for organic synthesis

Heating up any organic material to make biofuel

Turning photons into fuel

Bath-salt chemical promises safer solar cells

Chemical treatment could cut cost of biofuel

CCS infografics for UK policies

I love infografics, it take a couple of seconds to read and you feel more intelligent afterward! Well it is not entirely true but at least if you want to get deeper in a subject it is a doorsteps. So the UK government issued lately a document showing the possibility of a phase 2 development in CCS. And they did put a couple of infografics that I will paste here, for you guys to appreciate their vision. The document is retrievable here and the infografics are below.
In this first infografics they show the 3 phases of development for an ideal CCS implementation plan. Phase 1 (in blue) is not entirely implemented but the idea is to build main pumping units (phase 1) and satellites (phase 2 and 3) to inject CO2 and also being able to retrieve extra oil reserves. It is the most realistic way to implement further CCS, through the integration with Extended Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques of aging oilfields.

This second infografic show their first power generation project integrating CCS as a plan to reduce Carbon emission (White Rose CCS project), and how it will still be able to fulfill it's goal of powerhouse, in a greener manner than it's predecessors.

This last infografics is their second large power generation project integrating CCS (Peterhead CCS project). 
Both projects plan offshore storage which most probably will be integrated as EOR feedstock. The document claims they should provide 40% of UK's energy by 2050!
Now that is a blue sky plan :-)





mercredi, juillet 23, 2014

The Guardians of the Earth

I read this very interesting article today  talking about carbon and nitrogen cycles from a seminar held in Brazil. The country might suffer the aftermath of a badly organized World Cup (FIFA did very well, but the host country forgot that the entertainment firm would not prepare the country... and all at a sudden it stopped just to accommodate a couple of athletes!!). The R&D is growing steadily and getting into speed with international level. Recently there was this conference on biodiversity from FAPESP A couple of very interesting talks were held talking about the nitrogen and carbon cycles and how the anthropogenic factor modified it.
You can find the Nitrogen Cycle presentation here:
The Carbon Cycle presentation is found below. It is actually part of the same video, I just pinpointed at the correct time for you not to wait 45 min:

What is interesting is the way the debate is elevated and we seem to see the practical solutions pointing from the smog. From a project management point of view, we can identify the problems to assess and define a road-map which will look better than a chat room of grown-up kids trying to "save the forest" like it was at the early days. Not saying we do not need them, actually these dreamers are crucial because they are the reasons the practical people are looking into these issues. The earlier clear the smog for the latter to work more efficiently.
Also from the Stockholm Resilience Center, Nine Pillars of our planet have been defined, boundaries after which uncontrollable events will occur to try to re-establish the balance:

  • Stratospheric ozone layer
  • Biodiversity
  • Chemicals dispersion
  • Climate Change
  • Ocean acidification
  • Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle
  • Land system change
  • Nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans
  • Atmospheric aerosol loading
The image on top is an estimation of how these factors changed since 1950.