CTRL-Shift-Escape - #4

A New Waste System - we really messed it up!

This week was the go-live for a new waste management system, and we really screwed it up. We lost control of the timeline, the comms were awful, the container roll-out was terrible and the downstream disposal arrangements weren't in place either.

The only saving grace is that this was the new waste system in our own offices, but we have done an embarrassingly bad job of it. We didn't really identify it as a 'big thing', we didn't put anyone in complete charge of it and so everyone 'did a bit' without any really solid plan.

We do now have some engaging anecdotes to share from our own experiences in future consultations. So, if (for some weird reason) you want a case study in 'what a bad one looks like' - hit me up. We can do you one on fire safety as well, but that's another (older) story!

Implementing a CRM

Our adventures with Hubspot continue. It’s so far a very positive experience and opening up lots of thinking for not just how we do things, but why we do them at all.

After a lot of deduplication and validation we’ve now got a pretty clean contact list and can start to see a complete thread for the conversations with all of them. In the near future we will also start to see which of those contacts are actual users of the Collective software. That will let us give them a much easier way to get support, find out about events and training and keep full control of how we contact them.

Which leads me to start thinking more about how we help councils to sell more garden waste subscriptions and to incentivise use of food waste services…

Garden Waste

We’ve heard a few stories in the last week about garden waste services. Stockton in particular have had a very successful roll out of the new service, backed by easy sign ups through our Portal. They’ve far outstripped their budgeted revenue, which is a common theme to all our garden implementations.

But how can we do more? I think combining data from Collective (such as vehicle tip weights, lifter cycles and other telematics) with generative AI can help councils to have constructive conversations with residents.

I’m not suggesting that AI takes over, but when a resident goes online or telephones, it can quickly work out whether the caller is a diligent recycler or someone who could perhaps divert more of their waste. It’s a rapidly developing technology and would combine very well with Reya, the Digital Assistant we are currently trialling.

A Posh Meeting in London

There’s a balance to strike between running the business for today and setting a framework for the next five years. As we keep growing, with almost half of all UK councils using us in some way, it’s important that we look at new markets and new product lines to maintain our solid growth.

The USA is an obvious candidate, but alongside London Tech Week I had the opportunity to meet a delegation from another potential market at the Department of Business and Trade in Whitehall. It was an overnight trip, an early start and a very expensive way to have coffee with someone, but sometimes you have to let serendipity do its thing. It’s certainly given us a lot to think about.

It also lead me to some time on the train with ChatGPT for some market research...

There's no 'AI" in "Train"

After my meeting in London I decided to spend an hour looking around the stands at Tech Week. I hadn't pre-booked but imagined it would be straightforward to register and pay at the door.

It wasn't. The only provision was two laptops with the webpage open. These invited me to log into my LinkedIn account (on a public, unguarded laptop) and then asked me page after page of marketing questions. Having sidestepped the LinkedIn login I was then eventually asked to key in my credit card details. No EPOS terminal or ApplePay, just key your full credit card details into this random laptop. Erm, no...

Infuriated I decided to go through the whole rigmarole again, on my own phone. No signal in the Olympia foyer. Wifi - yes, if you pay for it! I went outside, got some signal and booked my train home. In the cab I read about a tech entrepreneur being turned away because she was carrying her baby. It seems Tech Week has some modernising to do.

Back at St Pancras I settled into my seat and decided to hit ChatGPT to research the new markets I'd been hearing about. I asked a few basic questions about government structure, which councils have their own services and who I should contact. I could have done it myself in may half a day. ChatGPT wrote me a full report in under 2 minutes.

Sadly, it took nearer to 2 hours because the phone signal and train WiFi are so poor on the GMR line to Sheffield. In a week when we were hearing about Tech Week and the UK's productivity problem it brought home that we are trying to build a power shower in a house with very shoddy plumbing.