Digital Workspace and Sustainable Energy Navigation for Tomorrow| Interview with Réka Wilson, Product Manager at Jersey Electricity

Ryan Purvis 04:27:57
Hello, and welcome to the digital workspace works Podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host supported by producer Heather Bicknel, in the series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field story from the frontlines, the problems they face, how they solve them. The areas they're focused on from technology, people and processes to the approaches they took that will help you to get to grips with a digital workspace inner workings.

Welcome, Réka to the digital workspace works podcast, you want to tell us a bit about yourself?

Réka Wilson 04:28:30
Yes. Hi, Ryan, thank you very much for having me. My name is Réka W ilson, and I am a product manager working at Jersey electricity in the Channel Islands. And I started as a marketer. And through the years working more and more with customers and customer problems, I became really passionate about user experience. And that's how I made it into the world of Product Management. And I never looked back.

Ryan Purvis 04:28:58
Great. And what does the digital workspace mean to you?

Réka Wilson 04:29:00
The digital workspace is everything for me. Because collaboration is such a key element of everything that we do. And without digital tools, we just can't really do them, especially in the last four years, we could have never gone through it without them. And I rely on a set of a massive set of tools to help me in achieving that and helped me and the team achieving that

Ryan Purvis 04:29:27
Right what were your key tools are so your idea of what you're using?

Réka Wilson 04:29:31
Yeah, so we do use quite a few tools. But I think one of them, the main one that I use is Miro, which is really, it has been a lifesaver. Because I always hated needing to after a meeting or brainstorming session to take everything that we put up and then needing to write it up. It was just such a waste of time. And also reading your own handwriting after a while. It becomes kind of tricky. So yeah, with Miro, especially as in some of my teams over the years, we had teams that worked in different parts of the world, from Bordeaux, to Jersey to Canada. So having everyone in the same room is very difficult. While Miro solves that problem immediately. And it's also so easy to use some other tools like for diagramming, they have been always just so difficult. Visio is a nightmare for me. Although I do like some of the Microsoft product is Visio is just Yeah, it is very clunky. And it doesn't support collaboration. And with Miro, even using it for vaulting and things like that. It has been super useful.

Ryan Purvis 04:30:42
Yeah, I must admit I'm a big fan too. Maybe one day they'll even sponsor us a hint hint, nudge nudge? Never know. Yeah, who knows. But you know, I like you probably grew up on Vizio have been my main tool. And it was very difficult to find alternatives to that. I mean, you've got dry Oh, you've got a few others. And before Mira was mirror, I think was called something else. We were using it. And it was it was called Rocket something I think and it was even then it was a really like just out there well thought out clever tool. And I'm amazed sometimes like when I'm doing a call someone I'm sharing, like a feature will pop up that I didn't think was it was a thing like you could do a talk through and record your talk through of your Mirabaud. Oh, that's so clever. Like, that's amazing. And we've just bought two products. And we basically built the entire product using mirror boards. That's fantastic. There's almost nothing that sits anywhere else. Okay, yes. Now we've had to bring it into notion, for example, to give a little bit of a workflow filter, because mirrors are very good for workflow but, but having the ability to put things into frames to just copy and paste an image, embed a video amazing from that point of view. So I agree with you.

Réka Wilson 04:31:46
Yeah, and I don't know if you found it that working in a synchronicity it just supported so much, because you can't always work on the same thing at the same time. And as you say, is because you can do everything in it. We have, for example, user personas are built in and user journeys, all these things that otherwise they would have been between figma and paper and other documents. Now it's all in there.

Ryan Purvis 04:31:47
Yeah. And I mean, you'll laugh at me, but I actually did. I wrote a book and I did some designs, all my designs were done in Figma. And everything went in Miro. And they said, you know you could do it in Figma. And I said no, but I can't do it in Figma. Like figures like really complicated to do but I could just do so much in Mirro that the actual images I did in Miro actually in the book. that's how good the tool is. Like it's that versatile.

Réka Wilson 04:32:33
That's really good.

Ryan Purvis 04:32:34
Yeah, so I'm impressed with it. So tell me about what you do on a day to day basis working electricity.

Réka Wilson 04:32:39
Yes. So my role while it is for Jersey electricity, we are not just an electricity provider, but also looking at how we can enable life's essentials and inspire a zero carbon future. This is our vision and what we are really trying to work hard for so over the last few years we've been looking at how we can actually do that. And one workstream is the emobility workstream. And I'm leading the product development on that side, when it comes to emobilities. Obviously, there are quite a few aspects. And we have been we started a few years ago by developing a strategy. And also looking at how what other products are needed for our end customers, when it comes to charging electric vehicles.

We are we concentrated initially on that, but we are concentrating on the entire immobility aspect, going forward. And we have poem charging the team have set up five years ago, but public charging network, and we are currently working on how we can extend that invest in it. And just make sure that we already as an infrastructure, which we are from a public perspective, but we do want to make sure that we do give it our best, and we are there for the customers where and when they need us. So my role is really exciting. Because I've always was very passionate about sustainability, I worked with one of the biggest international environmental charity, the Jersey Zoo, and it was, it's just, it's so important in our lives to do whatever we can, we can't do everything. This is obviously my perspective, or personal perspective is that, but we can't do everything. But we can do little bits, as long as we do our best to do them, we can make a change.

Ryan Purvis 04:34:20
Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, there was an episode with Dan, a while ago, and I always get the name of his company wrong. Or what they do is a look at the companies and what their sustainability is. And then you can do your own sort of sustainability score, where you put in like our bank, with Barclays Bank, with Mira with one Zoetis, etc. And then he will tell you like your what your personal carbon emissions are based on who you use. And then he will provide alternatives to banquets, for example, or that stuff. And I think that's, there's little things that we could all do potentially make a difference.

Réka Wilson 04:34:54
Yes. And as you said, is that even through banking, but also even through the platforms that we're using? Because yeah, as we were talking about Miro, there's also a lot of companies that have been investing heavily in the last few years on making sure that their processes and everything that supports the software packages that we're using, are sustainable to as a great degree as possible. And obviously, like the likes of Microsoft and AWS, they've been having a roadmap through words decarbonising for a very long time, which is great to see. But there's still a way to go.

Ryan Purvis 04:35:32
Yeah, I mean, I think with any of these things are moving sort of the Titanic of issues, because it is big enough and believes that iceberg because a sudden, I mean, you can look at anything and find the scientists that support your view, either for or against global warming. So I think that's tricky. But in the same token, I mean, I look at like, we buy a lot of food from the grocery store, and you get so much packaging with it. And you just think well, do we need all this packaging, like my recycling bin is full of recycling food. And I've noticed that when we were in South Africa, it's not nearly as much. And it's just because the the choices are different, I think, practically it didn't make sense to have as much packaging for food there. So we don't have as big a recycling challenge if you like, and it's silly, but it's just a it's a big thing when you when you take it on a scale of 40 50 million people. If they all have excessive packaging, then it's a big problem and the good straws how that's changed.

Réka Wilson 04:36:23
Yeah. And small changes, as you say. And we I've noticed the same. It's interesting what you say about the South Africa, because I noticed the same in France, we do go over quite often there and it just the amount of packaging there is far less than here I find it like even when it comes to just like the usual veg. Everything is out of packaging, except the salads, which still like obviously, because it's pre packaged. But we're not eating salads.

Ryan Purvis 04:36:49
Yeah, look, I mean, there's an interesting thing. I think this fragmented allows it now. But we saw I grew up in South Africa. And food waste is not a problem in South Africa. Like if you have extra food, you can give it to somebody on the street to eat it like this. It's not, you know, it's actually seen as a sort of public service in some respects, like we had, because unemployment is quite high. And there's a lot of poverty and stuff. So if you cook and you got extra food, instead of throwing it away, you can give it to somebody literally 100 and give it to them. But living in the UK, you can't do that you're allowed to. And I know like when we used to do catering functions, if you couldn't give away the catering food per se because she made somebody sick, because they weren't used to what it was in the food. There was issues there. But the general household could do what they need to do. And I think I recently saw something in France where they've allowed you to do that. And so at the end of the day, you can actually sell the food at a much discounted price, even if it's expired. Or give it to somebody who needs it because you don't want to waste the food because that's the biggest crime is wasting food in some respects. So

Réka Wilson 04:37:46
yeah, especially like in the last few years when poverty has increased so much everywhere in the world. And that's very interesting. Yeah, I didn't know about that in France.

Ryan Purvis 04:37:55
Yeah, it was it was recent, probably last five years. years or three years. I mean, we have this issue here. Like how, like, you know, we have extra food. And only to me throw it away. We actually like physically feel like y'all but like, like we really shouldn't like I'll eat stuff, just because I don't really get eaten anything, it's wasted. Anyway, that's not a digital problem. That's a humanity problem. So I mean, the mobility things interesting for me, because, you know, I would have thought by now, the amount of electric cars would have actually been a lot higher. Now, again, South Africa has huge power problems. So I don't see electric vehicles, they're ever very few maybe 5% of the thing everything petrol and diesel. In the UK, if I look outside, I got two electric cars and all my neighbours and there's six neighbours. So three electric cars. So it's not it's not a prestigious thing. I mean, what's it like in Jersey are people moving to electric or

Réka Wilson 04:38:45
Yes, people are and there is white concept about trying to be helping tourists becoming carbon neutral. However, as with everything there is also there the financial aspect, and as we know, electric vehicles are quite expensive. Even now, and with Jersey being an island, it is really hard to bring everything in. And the market for secondhand vehicles is still quite in his development is in infancy, there is quite a lot of work that needs to be done. But there, there are a lot of organisations that are working together and making this happen. Now throughout also, like in the last period, the government has launched an incentive scheme similar to what the UK has done earlier, incentivizing people to purchase a new to change if they need to do an electric vehicle and also there is an incentive scheme when it comes to having an EV charger at home do it all helps. And it is even if remove, we remove the financial aspect, there's there are still really a lot of good petrol and diesel cars out there. And it makes sense to change them at the right time and drive pace we do want to support people in in achieving when it when they need it to get an EV and to get the charging as easy as possible. Because if we think about it, yes, the electric vehicle costs a lot of front. But when it comes to the maintenance of it, even without calculating the petrol and diesel costs that would be replaced by electricity, which would be considerably lower. The maintenance cost ours are just reduced by such a large amount that maintaining it, it's easier, but purchasing it upfront it is a bit more difficult. So yeah, it is still quite in an infance. It's in its infancy and we do hope that we're going to see a bigger pickup in the next few years.

Ryan Purvis 04:40:36
Yeah I think it will come Yeah, I mean I think there's a level of and I'm gonna say petrol heads but there are people that like the sound of a decen diesel petrol car there's you know, I mean, I can't say essentially a power difference. I mean, we had a we had a BMW electric vehicle for about a month and it was extremely that have been rebuilt as electric car and I mean, I think it was amazing to drive because it was faster to mark the way it was in the middle so you could do a corner like being in a go kart, I mean, in fact, it was dangerous to drive because of the

Réka Wilson 04:41:07
Power Yeah, and they are it was interesting that over the years there have been so many myths around electric vehicles. And my my colleagues they have been working really hard in trying to to Busti some of them and like one of them Yeah, it was the power but actually as you said is that in an electric vehicle you don't have to wait for the motor to start working it works automatically. But also it's like the range it's a different myths that is still around and the newer cars are having bigger and bigger ranges like some of them have over 300 miles now with with Jersey such a small island you definitely do not need that you wouldn't need to charge for once in a row. But when you go like obviously on holidays to the UK or France then obviously it's a different situation. But even there the the charging networks have evolved so much that you don't have to worry about it. We have like like Devi platform that was implemented by my colleagues earlier in the year. It has roaming partners all throughout the world. So you don't have to download multiple platforms and use them you can have just one.

Ryan Purvis 04:42:20
Yeah. I'll be honest, I mean, I was impressed with with that just with a little bit about that we drove around I mean pulling into a parking at a supermarket and you are charging there for while you shopping. I mean, I don't think I've actually ever went lower than 90% in all the time we had it because it's a funny kind of anxiety in a sense because you always you know, every every night you get home, you make sure the car is plugged in. Even though it's at 95% or something and the next morning it's 100% you're like okay, cool, that's done, but then it's weird because now you don't pop past the petrol station anymore. So you don't pop in for like going to whoever Waitrose buy a suit at the shell to go into the Waitrose at the shell but you're not Putting in fuel is like a weird experience because now you are not there for your main purpose anymore. Now you there for the secondary purpose. And they were charged the charging points there now as well. So that's a really thing and, and I spoke to a few people that would take in electric vehicles on long distance into Europe. And the only gripe that I sort of picked up from them is not so much they were enough bays, it was more case that some of the vehicles didn't have the fast charge capability. So if you're doing 300 miles, and you were stopping, you would need to wait an hour for the vehicle to charge up enough to do the next leg, which is fine, if you're gonna stop for lunch. And you got to like we've got kids, so you want them to run around, stretch your legs, etc. But if you're a businessman, he's trying to open some you're trying to get somewhere quickly. And filling your car up takes 10 minutes, that 15 minutes is a problem. So you know.

Réka Wilson 04:43:45
Yeah. And technology has evolved in the last period and the newer cars, they do support it. But it's interesting that you made a really valid point about how customer behaviours change that you're anxious about making sure that it's charged all the time, even if it is at 95%. And it reminds me a little bit of when we initially had the mobile phones. And we were like, I just don't want to run out of it. And customer behaviour and the way that our psychology changes, because we are this is so different from from petrol charging, is really, really exciting to see. And it's a big challenge of changing that for us as users and for me as a product manager is a really, really interesting challenge to see how we can motivate and make people understand that you don't have to be that worried 95% will probably last you depending on your vehicle, either 60 or 200 miles.

Ryan Purvis 04:44:45
Yeah, and that was the thing that I struggled with. And obviously they only had one car, so I counted as all the cars but with a petrol vehicle or diesel vehicle, you kind of know how far you can go like it's a week before I have to fill it or whatever your activities are. And we and we didn't have that feeling with the electrical, which would have probably got over a period of time, you know, if this is this is probably a very minor thing. For all the benefits of be driving the vehicle, you know, things I used to I loved about that thing was it was so smart that I could tell it every morning at seven o'clock, you need to start warming up. So that's how we got in the car at 7:30 to take the kids to school, the car was ready to go you that you're getting it turn on whatever the safety gripe I actually had as the car was too quiet, and we have a electric car in our lab across the road. And her car, you can't hear it and actually said, so I'm pretty sure there's a there's actually a law that you have to have a certain noise level for the vehicle because of pedestrians. And I don't know if that's true or not, but it just, it's probably the graph that you get, because people want that noise of that you are use to when you're going up.

Réka Wilson 04:45:44
That's it. And it's going to take some time, I know that I've read articles in the industry that some automakers were actually looking at adding on noise, mainly because of this, that people need it out psychologically, that noise to make sure that they understand that because when you hear a car, you don't have to see it, you just know that it is a car with an electric one, it's so silent that you we don't have that connection in our minds yet. So it's gonna be an interesting one. And it's gonna take quite a while I think until we all get too comfortable with the different aspects. And from product management perspective, this is going to be great for car manufacturers because it is like constantly challenging them to make sure that they provide a product that not just that it answers the question from getting from point A to point B in a sustainable way. But also is that how it answers all these other questions from from a consumer behaviour perspective.

Ryan Purvis 04:46:45
Yeah, I mean, it is the ultimate product challenge because you got so many interconnected things and you know, the safety thing for my son, he's five you know, he rides his bike and I keep explaining to him you got to watch out for cars and he goes yeah, but I can't hear them I said yes or no now as we say I only hear them and then they find I need to look for them I'm like no but you're missing the point you got to now look for the car when you can't hear the car doesn't make a noise and it's difficult even for him and and he's grown up in this in this era where electric cars exist that common place in fact, you know from a school point of view there are also brainwashing is not the right word, but they are enforcing that electric cars are the only option so he's now looking at our cars going we need to have electric cars and I'm saying well we don't have to have electric cars because we got the most fuel efficient low emission vehicles on the road. So you know we've done we've done the right thing in that respect. Now what's interesting for me around that is their education is not take into account like that some roles require different vehicles to do different things. So I still think you will have a level of petrol diesel engine that we hybrid for example, you know, our vehicles a hardware designer, it's not a it's a diesel with a heart with electric motor, and it sells chargers so it's not just a case of everything has to always be all or nothing. It could be combinations of things I mean, my other cars got a hydrogen things liquid hydrogen. Not hydrogen, sorry, liquid liquid gas, I got two tanks. And the liquid gas thing is amazing because while it costs half the price is petrol. And I know you remember a car discussion here, but I found the power I got with the the LPG TV that little was better than petrol is interesting. And I was surprised by that, because because it's the same engine processing to different fuels. And I would expect it actually selfishly to be worse. And because of because I find LPG gas, you're worse than in South Africa, not as strong, but actually get a little bit extra oomph out of it. So it's just an interesting bunch of choices, I guess.

Réka Wilson 04:48:32
Yeah, and I think, again, like having my product hat on is that giving customers choice on what they want to achieve and what their needs are, is key and education, over time of what is the best way for your own needs, and for the planet's needs, is very important. Things aren't always black and white, I used to sing that things are very black and white. But over the years, the more that you work in product management and marketing, you realise that actually there are different colleagues.

Ryan Purvis 04:49:03
Well, and it's about sequencing, sometimes some things happen in a certain order. And you got to start with a little one and then becomes a bigger thing for sure. There was something else I wanted to ask you about, which was, say an economy where it was now. It was what you were saying before I said, explaining the same thing with my son. All right, well, maybe renewable side, I mean, how much renewable energy are you guys bringing in? And how's that affecting your approached in the space?

Réka Wilson 04:49:27
All the energy that we bring in is renewable?

Ryan Purvis 04:49:30
Oh, all of it. Okay. Wow.

Réka Wilson 04:49:32
Yes, yeah, it is something that the company has been very passionate about. Because, obviously, it it is so important for everything. And one thing that I really liked in the company, when I joined, I joined just over a year ago. And it was the fact that they are not just we find a lot of companies that love to talk about sustainability very loud. But not necessarily everyone walks the walk to the full extent. And with with Jersey electricity, I found that actually they are they do care a lot about that. They care a lot about few things. But sustainability is one of the main things and diversity and inclusion is another one is just so important on the agenda, which, which is obviously really good. Considering the new generations that are coming up, it is going to be very important. And with the the sourcing of electricity, they have been very clear about that. Yeah. And also, like we thought within our team, within product management, we have a solar team looking at different types of solar energy, that there are different discussions about how we can support this and looking at energy efficiency. We have a team that's working on that on home heating. So we are looking from a totally different perspective at everything is how we can support the sustainability side.

Ryan Purvis 04:50:49
Is your majority of your your energy from solar and wind or you got other stuff as well.

Réka Wilson 04:50:54
No, it's majority of it is imported from France. And they it is based on nuclear

Ryan Purvis 04:51:00
Oh nuclear as well. Okay. So nuclear sustainable, I suppose it would be clean? Yeah, I mean, fusion would would make sense. So I thought maybe you would have some tidal as well. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 04:51:10
there have been discussions over the years. So however, at the moment, the challenge with tidal is that it is a very, it's before its infancy. And we are in Jersey, we are in a great place, because we have one of the largest tidal movements in the world. But it just the technology because it's not quite there and making sure that we find the right solution for the right place. It's going to take a lot of time. And within the last period, both the government then and also our jersey accuracy. I've been looking a lot at also the wind because again, as an island, we have plenty of it.

Ryan Purvis 04:51:47
I'm sure you do. Yeah, it's funny. We were in Mossel Bay recently, back in April, I was there for four months. And that's on the on the edge of the coast. And they were having a wind there is phenomenal. But because you have sun, most houses have solar. And the UK has done the right thing in the sense that mandated, you have to do one kilowatts of solar energy with every new building. So each house has to generate their own South Africa is on my data. But most people have said because of loadshedding and, and poorly maintained power supplies. But I mean, it's Jersey mandating that all to houses and businesses or

Réka Wilson 04:52:20
No, no, not from my knowledge.

Ryan Purvis 04:52:22
Yeah, because it's interesting. So like in South Africa, and it was actually an article yesterday, I think. So where I grew up in Johannesburg, there's a big, there's a couple of ways. So it's a brand called Macro. But it's basically the Walmart. They're owned by Walmart now, but it's sort of like a Costco. And what they've done is they've covered all their parking lots. So you can imagine sort of, you know, kilometre square parking lot with a roof of solar panels plus on top of the roof of the store, and it basically powers the entire because I mean, South Africa gets a lot of sun. So you can pretty much power the entire building on solar power, and it's a huge expense. But actually, if you think about it from a return investment point of view, it's a huge return because they're basically off the grid.

Réka Wilson 04:53:01
Yeah. And it's interesting you say that because we went to Disneyland in Paris earlier in the year, and they have the biggest solar array over their car park. It's just massive. It goes on and on and on. There are some videos online about it. But when you see it in person is just like you feel so tiny with it with it. But I've really appreciate it because as you say, is that it is a massive expense upfront, but it supports them. And especially in areas where you don't have 100% sustainable energy. It just supports both the sustainability side and everyone's lives.

Ryan Purvis 04:53:40
Yeah. And it's such I mean, it's such an obvious thing, like you have all this sun. I remember, this is a terrible reference. But when I first started watching the first Superman, when Christopher Reeve was still Superman, and his arch nemesis was his brother who was made through the power of the sun, and he loses power if he didn't have sun. Even in those days, I was thinking, why don't we as a kid thinking, why don't we use the energy from the sun to power things? I mean, solar panels won't even probably even come in, they'll probably be thought about been already built in. And I can't believe how efficient they become. I think the first one is like 20% collection, another deck 40% or something like that? I don't realise that is but.

Réka Wilson 04:54:20
Yeah, I must admit, it's like, I don't really know the details, I have a team that are really there, then they know it. But there are a lot of and you make a valid point that he has such a big opportunity, the sun itself. And there have been over the years, a lot of organisations investing in solutions. There are some really interesting and solutions within Asia and Arabia of actually harnessing this without the standard solar array. And it is going to I, from my perspective, I see as all of this is just as growing, having solar panels is probably just the start. But obviously, as I said, I'm not the expert on the search

Ryan Purvis 04:55:00
No sure. And to asnwer the question is, originally they were 15 to 20% efficient now that 42% In most cases, and the best one I got is 47.1%. Now, what's interesting about that, for me is that the combustion engine is about 50% efficient as well. So it's kind of an interesting correlation in some respect, because the one is free energy, and other one is you know pulled out the ground and manufactured and all that kind of stuff. But to your point around future stuff, I have seen a couple things that were interesting. One was a brick that could absorb solar radiation and turn it into energy, and a panel that's basically see through glass. So you can't even see the collection panel. Now I don't know how close it is to production. But that is crazy. If that if you think that all those glass buildings. Exactly. Glass and any building in your house. Crazy. Great. I'm pretty much good for there nothing else you want to talk about.

Réka Wilson 04:55:51
Yeah, I know that we don't talked a lot about immobility. And we haven't necessarily talked about like digital, while the tools and technology. So it's up to you, like, you know, what fits what you envisage for.

Ryan Purvis 04:56:02
I mean, I think it's, I think it's all related. In fact, that what I wanted to say. So the only thing that I had been trying to do for ages, and I finally did is because I mean, I come from South Africa, you know, I grew up in Johannesburg, where even in winter, it is warmer than than UK, you know, it can start at minus four, but can be still 20 degrees by lunchtime. So when we moved here, you know, obviously paying for heating and gas and all that kind of stuff was quite an expensive, I mean, still cheaper than, you know, just look cheap in those days gonna be it's an app. But one thing that always bugged me is if you've got heating running in your house, and and it was always done eating, so you'd set your dial to 19 degrees or whatever it was. And then the house would just basically sit at that temperature, but you couldn't turn the heating OFF or ON or anything like that. Because in those when I moved that you didn't have a smart sort of thermostat you just had what you had. And then of course you had hive come out, you have all these other ones. So, so this week, and that's why I'm excited because I finally got my intelligent House working.

So now if anybody opens a door, window, heating turns off. And when they close it, when they close the doors and windows, the heating comes back on again. And then it's also geo fenced. And I've been sort of playing with it for a couple weeks, I've actually seen like a 20% drop manageable, who was very, like I did a very like analogue in the sense of running with timers. And now that I've got the smart things working now it's done based on event. So I'm interested in what the future holds in that respect, but but just having a 20% reduction, you know, because when I when we would be back in South Africa during COVID, my energy bill was like 70 pounds a month, we came back, and it was that period with everything just went a bit crazy. And my bill went from like 70 is like 350. Now it's kind of gone down again, but now it's talks about going up again. And this is why I wanted to get it working. Because I think that's an important part of this, this sort of change that we talked about. where, you know, as a supplier, you can provide the energy all the way down the line to your business or to your business premises or your or your residential premise.

But the person or the people that run those things need to also do their part to be as efficient as possible. And the smart metres help. But it's also the internal stuff like turning off unnecessary appliances, turning off a car if you don't need it, and heating, etc, etc. So all those things, and I was curious to know how far you guys went in that regard from maybe its education and guidance to almost providing smarter technology in the house?

Réka Wilson 04:58:34
Yeah, no, very interesting point, we do have one of our product teams is actually focusing on energy efficiency, and how we can find new products, new solutions that would help customers in this, our technology team has been looking also at the likes of nest, and we are selling it within the shop in the power house. But we have been looking a lot at how we can support customers, especially through through the last few years, as you said that things have just gone up. And that wages didn't necessarily keep up everywhere. And the team have been really putting on a big effort on looking at how we can help people being energy efficient. And our comms team have launched not long ago, a new campaign looking at energy efficiency. With a great new face, it's called MO The slow, who helps people out and provides that educational part. And I think that is is like putting a friendly face and helping people understanding how these things, as you say, just switching things off at the right time, not having your heating on when you have the windows open, not filling up your kettle to the extreme when you just need one, one cup of tea, the little things, the little things add up, as we were saying also, at the beginning of our chat is that every little counts, you don't have to do everything at once you can start small, and just add on bit by bit. And our team have been concentrating a lot on that. And we hope that we are going to be able to help more and more people on island with that.

Ryan Purvis 05:00:06
Yeah, and I think it's yeah, it's the largest thing that's education. And I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday, he's got this thing about tiny houses, which which is something he's involved in where they're almost 3d printing. So this friend of mine, they, they're manufacturing, or they they're basically 3d printing, to an extent, tiny houses. And I was quite interested in this because I mean, I've watched a few YouTube videos ages ago, but actually hadn't taken into account some of the stuff they're doing. So the whole thing for them is they get so when you go build a house now, instead of getting brick and mortar and cement, and insulation and all that stuff, they basically give you a wall that has been pre built and that that wall or that has already got all the wiring in it that it needs, all installation needs. And it's got special connectors to connect it together to create your house. So you can create, you know, it's I mean to build a six bedroom or two bedroom house, but it's meant to build a reasonably sized small house, but what we're talking about is if you go down that route of modularized housing and this is obviously you know, one of the videos I had watched was an Elon Musk thing going to Mars and, and all that stuff.

But if you go down this route where you know, using specific materials and going, you know, conversation on solar panels and solar glass and and all that stuff, your sustainability goes up, because you're now able to you build that house you live in the house, you need to extend your house, you know, we've got kids, so we need to have more rooms than the average two person relationship. So we need four rooms, for example, five room, you could just add on the module for the extra room, and you get your different spec of wall. So three metre, four metres five metre, so you wouldn't actually get the three and a half metre. But you'd get pre build walls that you can just plug in and build. And like it's really easy, but it's not as obvious some some cranes involved in whatever it is to build the house. But what we're saying is that you could go and expand your house on why you got the kids there. And when the kids leave, instead of moving to a downsizing house, you sell off the walls and the components considerably to be recycled to go build new walls and in what you're saying is that the materials are using, like a 200 year lifespan. So that's great. You know, in theory, I mean, there's obviously you know, who's going to tick it, he's gonna check it in 200 years, but the point being is that if you were in the market to go and let's say you to go build a hunting lodge, or a thing in the middle of the wilderness, you don't need to go buy the brand new materials you go buy a couple of secondhand wolves and you go there and and then see how it goes.

And if it goes well then you'd probably invest more but but that whole concept because if you look at average house, you know that been built 100 years ago, the insulation, the all that stuff was so bad, a lot of his houses have to be gutted and redone and that, you know, obviously it's a huge cost implication so most people don't do it. And really the best thing to do in those cases is to flatten it and to build a new house which again, you'd think but but if this concept came along, and you look at South Africa, you know there's a huge amount of of informal housing which is basically checks that are made out of corrugated iron and wood and whatever else they find And we forget about the corruption side of things but to build these tiny houses, which is why this conversation came up because that's he's he's also from Africa, you know, your your concept of giving people a roof over their head, a sustainable roof over their heads, repurposing materials, like those corrugated iron sheets are part of the part of the wall anyway, so they would have materials that thing and you could teach people how to build the walls. This is the other interesting thing is that some of them are actually almost like kits that you can go and buy. And it's interesting.

Yeah, it's, I mean, you know, I don't know the name of the products and stuff like that. But how that's come along. And I was just, we're just saying, like, if you get a piece of land, and you want it to go and build 20 houses, your time to build 20 houses, is basically limited by the number of walls, you can build in a factory. And they literally are because it's so repeatable, you literally just building 100 walls a day. So you can build a house for like a month.

Réka Wilson 05:03:47
And the modular design, it's so important, like you're obviously seeing it from products and in software products that I worked with before, we always tried to be as modular as possible. And it's like, in real life with these things, it's actually has such a massive impact as you say, because you can and I really liked that idea of like you grow it until it while you need it, and then you can just downsize it when you don't need it. Like that idea.

Ryan Purvis 05:04:14
And initially, I thought we were talking about all the rectangular square he said, No, they've even when they can do stuff at angles to so you can have a 45 degree or a 49 degree angle and stuff like that. And then the roof, the way they do the roof, that's the part that's that's difficult to make reusable, that that kind of fits whatever your layout is. But if you stick to a really rectangular thing, then your cost is then kept low because it's just rectangles square, whatever it is. And then the way they do that is basically just panels in a row that they connect up. And then they that's the part that is it has to be weatherproof, and all that sort of stuff. So it's very difficult to reuse that pot as it stands. But it's still reusable stuff, you can still recycle it, you can melt it down and stuff. So it's a fascinating space. I'm so very curious to see how that goes. Because there's a lot of opportunity there. I think for simpler houses and more componentize houses, which goes back to the smart stuff.

Réka Wilson 05:05:01
Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting to see like I one of the reasons why I love working in product, whether it will design software, as I've done before, like working on identity verification, product, and location verification, up to even the websites that we were doing, and naps and now working in emobility. It's all just like everything, because of where we are from an innovation perspective. Everything is pushing, we're becoming better, more sustainable, more mindful of what our needs are and what each other's needs are. And that's one of the great things that I love about what I do. And they use a centred design approach to it, because we can really make some great things and and do some change in the world do a little bit.

Ryan Purvis 05:05:49
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's in some respects is a very daunting, overwhelming thing. But then if you break it down into the small bits, which is really what what product management for me is about breaking down to very small, but putting in the right order, then you get you get great results. So also, I mentioned, see what you come up with. And I'd love to you know, if you ever have anything you want to share with us to have a look at please do.

Réka Wilson 05:06:08
Thank you. Yeah, that's great.Yeah, we will

Ryan Purvis 05:06:11
Super. So if anyone wants to get ahold of you, what's the best way?

Réka Wilson 05:06:14
Email in general? It's good, because I do have a lot of meetings I was to mister. I can't be necessary if they get hold a lot of the times on the phone, but yeah, by email, it's absolutely fine.

Ryan Purvis 05:06:25
Okay, so could you email them then obviously LinkedIn as well, if they want to look?

Réka Wilson 05:06:29
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Email or LinkedIn. Yeah, that that's probably about it.

Ryan Purvis 05:06:34
It's been great having you on and appreciate your time.

Réka Wilson 05:06:36
Yeah. Thank you very much, Ryan, for having me.

Ryan Purvis 05:06:39
Thank you for listening to today's episode. Heather Bicknell is our producer and editor. Thank you, Heather, for your hard work on this episode. Please subscribe to the series and rate us on iTunes or the Google Play Store. Follow us on Twitter at the DWW podcast. The shownotes and transcripts will be available on the website https://www.digitalworkspace.works/. Please also visit our website https://www.digitalworkspace.works/ and subscribe to our newsletter. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues.