Jaguar [oh dear]

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Hydrogen leak sounds very scary, but it is so much lighter than air that it dissipate very quickly, unlike say propane which is heavier than air and so can pool in the bottom of enclosed spaces. Narrow boats are prone to this.

The hydrogen explosions at Fukushima could have been avoided by having roof vents that fell open on loss of power. Not difficult,just needs a proper risk assessment.

[derek hall 1]

On derek hall 1 Said:

The very fact that we are still discussing the Jag advert will suggest that the advertising and marketing dept that made this ad have done a good job.

“No such thing as bad publicity”

Exactly so, but a point easily missed by folk who don’t understand advertising or why it’s vital to make a splash.  The more potential customers who know about a product, the more will be bought.  Attributes techies think important are much less relevant in a sales context.  It’s a different game, and engineers  rarely “get-it”; we don’t understand people!

Btw, I thought the marketing dept where I used to work, were a load of idiots and knew nothing about our product, and for example, spent weeks deciding on the “correct” shade of blue. I suppose it was important – to them. The product however, despite their marketing spin, was rubbish!

Yup, and it’s not necessary to understand a product to market it.  The gadget isn’t important, they’re all the same in the dark!  Many examples of over-priced and technically inferior products succeeding over less well marketed items.   Betamax was technically superior to VHS, and the world bought VHS.   What matters is identifying what appeals to potential purchasers and then presenting it in an attention grabbing way.  Colour matters, not in isolation, but ads need to stand-out in a crowd of other ads.

Like as not a Jaguar advert that satisfied Model Engineers would leave everyone else stone cold: we are not a sales target!  Best thing an engineer can do in a sales/marketing meeting is leave!  Most of the time marketing is too difficult for  professionals too.  Failed campaigns by the hundred.  Requires talent, and it’s easy to misjudge what others will tune into.

Nigel’s DERA example is a good one of a marketing problem.  The employer was trying to send the message “everything you know about this organisation is going to change, put your thinking head on”.   Nigel heard “they’re changing the name and that’s stupid”.

Much more was going on, the plan being available to anyone who chose to dig into the very boring information:

• Stage 1, government, looking at a MoD system set-up before and during WW2 to research military technologies, realised that, in peacetime, it was costing the taxpayer a bomb.  And the system was flawed in that government took most of the technical risk whilst industry enjoyed cosy safe cost-plus contracts.
• Stage 2, the cure!  MoD started a migration in which most of it’s internal research groups were given Agency status, ‘DERA’.   Not much change for workforce yet, who mostly carried on under existing Terms and Conditions.  Bigger impact on senior management and accounting – DERA was funded differently.  In effect DERA became a supplier, bidding for new work along with industry, instead of it being allocated internally.  DERA’s need to trade competitively highlighted the need for major staff and facility changes, most of which were queued for the next step.
• Stage 3, DERA was ‘sold’ as a going concern to the private sector, with staff transferred under TUPE terms, “expect redundancies, redeployment, and changed ways of working.”  Post transfer, more major change in the pipeline was signalled by changing the name to Qinetiq, a loud hint that the game was afoot.  Moving to Qinetiq created a shower of winners and losers.  Some found their talents worked better under private enterprise and a significant minority suffered severe culture shock.   In the middle, quite a few victims over succeeding years: chaps discovering they still had a job but had to move home and/or adopt new methods.  Many discovered that Qinetiq chose not to take a commercial risk on what they did, and shut down, not because their job was useless, but because Qinetiq didn’t want to make long term investments that might not pay off.

It’s a rough-tough old world and nothing is simple!

Dave

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Having said that, preventing hydrogen leaks is a lot more difficult than say methane as the molecules are so much smaller.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

JCB seem to be able to power their machines with it OK. Extream E racecars are going over to Hydrogen next season and I expect they will be OK. The electric ones have been racing with electricity from a portable hydrogen cell for several years. Even a couple of race trucks on the Dakar had hydrogen power. All quite testing enviroments.

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