Where is the voice?
15 March 2011
How many ‘lone voices’ does it take before the electronics industry is heard?
The debate that has gone on through this column over the past few weeks has begun to take a bit of shape in my eyes. Greg Spring wrote in adding that he too was ‘a lone voice in the engineering wilderness’.
The thing is, I speak to many such ‘lone voices’, all passionate about electronics, engineering, education and the UK as a whole. There is no shortage of people who see the connection between the education system, a strong engineering sector and a successful economy.
I received a number of responses this week offering broad agreement on the subjects raised over the past two weeks, but have decided to post the two below for their contribution to the debate. However, without going into everything that has been raised, I think a large part of the problem boils down to communication.
If we accept that we have a brilliant engineering community, albeit one that is under-funded, under-valued and too small, the problem is that no-one in the ‘Ruling Classes’ (as Greg Spring puts it below) is capable of making the connection I mentioned in the opening paragraph. However, does that mean that we should throw up our hands in despair and point the finger of blame (if you can do both at the same time) at our lords and masters? Comfortable in the fact that it is NOT OUR FAULT should we accept defeat in a very British way?
Certainly we will get no help from the media. Professor Dissado (below) portrays a British media that likes nothing more than negativity, and if you add the cult of celebrity and triviality to that then it offers little in the way of promoting British engineering.
An example of this was last week, even before earthquakes and tsunamis dominated the headlines on the BBC News website. Growth in manufacturing output, it was announced, was the best for 16 years, but news of Kinect being the fastest selling consumer electronics device ever, and tougher rules for Olympic ticket touts soon saw this piece of welcome good news about manufacturing relegated to the bottom of the page. It was further reduced to a single line by lunchtime (the Libyians had dropped a bomb on themselves) and shunted completely off the BBC News homepage by late-afternoon (scientists learn what makes Kangaroos bounce). ‘Manufacturing’ is as specific as the Office of National Statistics gets for the broader oily-rag community, even those who work exclusively at computers.
It has been a nagging thought that what the engineering/manufacturing industries really needs is a champion within the halls of power – a cabinet minister with experience of the real world. But a political career is a life’s work, one that often starts in public school and by-passes experience of having to work for a living.
So the answer, I believe, is that we have to help ourselves. Individuals with ‘lone voices’ will not be heard. But that does not mean that we should be quiet. Going back a decade and a half I remember a chap called Brian Haken, who in his leading role at a small trade association (the PCIF) used to irritate people. He did this quite intentionally as he was aware that it was the only way to get things done, but his voice, being a representative one as well as a persistent one, managed to get things done. He made sure that the electronics industry was being represented. The PCIF, through several iterations, ended up being diluted within Intellect and rather than gain a stronger collective voice has lost any representation.
Which brings me round to the question we should be asking – what are the trade associations and institutions doing for us as an industry? The answer is quite a lot – their role in education, standards and the dissemination of information is generally excellent. But at a time when we need a voice, should we, as members of these organisations, be asking them to do that bit more and start fighting for the future of the industry?
If enough engineers start to raise these questions, it could be that the strong collective voice emerges.
Your views, as ever, would be welcome. Below are the two pieces of correspondence that I have mentioned above.
Dear Tim,
It seems from Andy Burnett's comment that, like Adrian Jones, and me here is another seemingly lone voice in the engineering wilderness asking ‘why has engineering in Britain become so hard to exercise?’ As I tried to illustrate in my earlier email, this wasn't always the case, certainly not for Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who through sheer force of personality and acting upon the sentiment of his age; got things done.
There is, in my opinion, a definite sense of acquiescence amongst the ruling class. An acquiescence that assumes British engineering can no longer compete on the World stage and in part, is the reason why many of our home grown brand names like Rolls Royce and Cadbury's are now owned by foreign companies. For clarity, my definition of the ruling class is the collective of Pension Companies, Bankers and Politicians who have taken control from the traditional ruling class of landed gentry.
There is also the Utilitarian argument that Britain is best served by the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This line of reasoning justifies selling Rolls Royce Cars and Cadbury's to foreign companies because these companies will perform better and will be more likely to survive in the commercial world and the negative effect upon the British population will be nil. However, this short term argument fails to take into account the long term damage done to this nation by the loss or emigration of skills required to run a business like Rolls Royce Cars or Cadbury's.
With every engineering company that is sold or goes bust, we lose a valuable collection of skills and we lose the opportunity to employ any number of young people who will never know the experience of working in an engineering environment.
For myself, I was fortunate to find a place as an engineering apprentice with W & T Avery Ltd at a time before Arnold Weinstocks and GEC took over the company. Regardless of whether you agreed or not with his business philosophy, Arnold Weinstock was an engineering giant in the 60s, 70s and 80s who promoted engineering in Britain and furthered its interests around the world.
So what happened? What went wrong?
The honest answer is that we went wrong. We put our faith in politicians and bankers in preference to traditional and defence industries. When Marconi went bust, or very nearly bust, Arnold Weinstock said he would quite happily strangle every Board Member who voted to sell all of Marconi's Defence interests. Marconi lost its way because of short term thinking created by the dot.com bubble.
And who among us remembers Inmos? Inmos had the potential to become a world beating company because it had developed parallel processing at a time when most people hadn't even thought about the future of computing and parallel processors. They developed the Transputer, but technical problems eventually led to SGS Thomson taking over the company in 1989 and we, i.e. Britain, lost or gave away another technological lead.
Inmos lost their way because the Thatcherite Government lost their nerve and were wooed by Milton Freidman's argument that market forces should decide a company's fate. But would Milton Freidman put his newborn baby outside? Of course not. Why? Because it would die of hypothermia or may even be eaten by wolves. And this is why and how short term thinking damages Britain.
The plight of Marconi and the lost promise of Inmos are both good examples of what Britain does so well. It puts its babies outside too soon, so that they either perish or are eaten by wolves. Other countries nurture and protect their interests regardless of political doctrine which is one reason to explain why most of the cars driven in Germany are of German origin and why most of the cars driven in France are of French origin and so on for every other major manufacturing country you care to think of.
But are we bad engineers? Of course not. Rolls Royce Aero Engines are world leaders in their field and the much acclaimed Millau suspension bridge in France was designed by a British Architect. So Britain needs to learn to love its engineering and its engineers and not treat them as just another utility to be bought and sold like any other commodity.
The ruling class in Britain seems to regard British engineering as an automatic liability, a problem to be solved preferably by sale or by neglect. British engineering therefore needs to re-brand itself so that the automatic thought or association is positive and not negative.
And here it is interesting to note that David Cameron and his Coalition Government have found a new cause, that of the entrepreneur. But many engineers are entrepreneurs and many entrepreneurs are engineers, so we need to lobby Government to make ourselves heard and here our respective institutions can do a lot more for our cause.
It is my belief that Britain will only value British engineering once we value ourselves and we can value ourselves by taking action through our institutions and lobbying Government to take us and our contributions to the economic welfare of Britain much more seriously.
So when, as Adrian Jones said, 'no one from the Department of Trade and Industry was available for this exhibition or that technical conference', we engineers should kick up a fuss, either directly or better still in concert with our institutions.
If we do nothing, we will continue to be ignored by Government and the wider ruling class.
Greg Spring. C.Eng MIEE
Polycomm
----------
Dear Tim,
I think that the key really is to get the message before the public and for this we need the Media, perhaps unfortunately. We need to counter the media anti-Britain propaganda. So it is necessary to get articles in print, get onto TV programmes, and so on to make the point. Can we not think up a reality show? If we make the public realise just how indifferent the politicians have been (perhaps because nowadays they are politicians from school and have never seen the real world) the climate is right to put pressure on. Perhaps we can have a running competition each month choosing the most indifferent politician in Britain. Handing them a prize (booby) and making sure the media know about it. The media would love this.
Not sure that this is a help, but I wanted to say something as I spend quite a bit of time trying to make the points discussed in your column with students and potential students.
Prof. Dissado
Oh, and by the way, in case you’re wondering, all kangaroos are born with springs attached to their feet…
Please send your thoughts to tim.fryer@imlgroup.co.uk.
Contact Details and Archive...
Most Viewed Articles...