I was recently made aware of a superb book on organisational structure and management called ‘reinventing organisations’.
It’s an unusual book; firstly, you don’t have to pay anything up front. The author requests that you pay him what you think it’s worth, and only after you’ve had a chance to read and digest the contents.
Secondly for a book focusing on how organisations are managed, it’s incredibly readable. Yes, you read that right. It’s a book about how to manage your organisation in a different way, and it’s un-put-downable (particularly the illustrated version!)
For those of us who are juggling many important tasks related to work, family and schooling that’s important – we often don’t have the luxury of extended periods of time to dive into more ‘weighty’ tomes.
But I don’t want to do this book an injustice by implying that it is in some way not serious or worthy by virtue of it being readable in one evening (if my experience is in any way indicative).
It’s a revolutionary piece of work which upends the ‘traditional’ model of management, and which resonates instinctively with my own values and ways of working. In fact, I was so excited while reading it that I was sending messages with great frequency to my colleague, highlighting similarities or differences with the way that we work at Afallen.
I won’t spoil the surprise and excitement for you – if you have the niggling feeling that the organisation you work for does not exist to have you reach your full human potential, then you will be thrilled to learn that organisations exist which have exactly that priority.
In that sense, Afallen is already on the journey to becoming one of these reinvented organisations – called ‘teal’ organisations in the book.
Some of the characteristics of these ‘teal’ organisations are of a flat management structure, with devolved decision-making and high levels of internal transparency.
Given that the founding Partners of Afallen knew each other, shared a set of values and came with similar levels of professional experience, it’s perhaps not a surprise that we’ve set off in the right direction. Our challenge will inevitably come when we grow and are challenged by new Partners to maintain our openness and freedom of operation
I am delighted that there are many excellent resources available for organisations wanting to revolutionise the way that they carry out their functions – Valve’s employee handbook hits all the right notes in this regard – which will simplify the process if we decide to go ahead and ‘Afallen-ify’ the many variations of the different ‘teal’ organisations.
And I’m really pleased that we subconsciously designed Afallen along lines which are broadly compatible with a ‘teal’ organisation. In fact, if we decide to go down this path, we won’t really have to reinvent Afallen at all. We’ve just been made aware that there are many pathways for us to consider, and many people that we can turn to for advice and support as and when we need it.
I’m excited at the prospect of making this journey, and I believe that it’s entirely aligned with Afallen’s values and mission. I believe that it will make us a more effective collaborator, a more responsive organisation and therefore better able to fulfill our mission of supporting the practical implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations, in Wales and beyond.
As someone with a strong interest in politics and public affairs, I’ve been following the IndyWales discussion with interest for many years.
Nothing has the potential to change the nature of our politics, constitution, society and environment as much as becoming an independent nation, and whilst these discussions have taken place as long as my political awareness has been in existence, they have hitherto not been part of mainstream public discourse.
The meteoric rise of YesCymru membership which now numbers more than 13,000 (from just over 2,000 at the start of 2020) has changed the framework of public debate in Wales. According to some sources, paid-up members now number more than any political party in Wales except for Labour.
I decided to take a look at mentions of YesCymru on Twitter, from the very first days (August 2014) until now. I was curious about what was driving the discussion. Taking mentions of YesCymru as a proxy for interest in the organisation as a whole (and therefore IndyWales more generally) and I wanted to test the theory that pronouncements made in Westminster have an impact on YesCymru interest.
The early years
The first graph shows the frequency of mention of YesCymru over the whole span, from August 2014 until the present day.
By recent standards, there was very little activity over those early years; the activity tended to be catalysed by events within Wales itself, such as marches for independence.
However more recently there are clearly defined peaks in activity which correlate more strongly with specific events in Westminster. For example, there was a flurry of activity on the day following the General Election in 2019 in which the Conservatives were returned with a significantly increased majority.
As with many social media movements or campaigns, there was not much in the early years to report on.
Typically, early activity from any social media account consists of regular engagement to build up ‘brand’ awareness and forge relationships.
The science of social media demonstrates empirically that large social media accounts grow more quickly and have far greater interaction, so even in the absence of external factors, there would have been an increasing trend of mentions of YesCymru over time.
However, what we can see from the data is that external factors are playing a huge role in engagement, and that the factors which appear to be playing the biggest role are indeed those performed by UK Government – as highlighted by Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts.
I find it particularly interesting that even where decisions are taken in Westminster that do not directly affect the people of Wales – the decision not to provide free school meals to the poorest children in England as a prime example – this still results in a huge amount of increased discussion around IndyWales.
This appears to suggest that the institutions of Westminster are becoming increasingly scrutinised by the people of Wales for unfairness, not just to Wales, but to citizens in other parts of the UK.
It’s still very early days for discussions about independence in Wales, but it’s certain that analysing Twitter will continue to provide a rich seam of data for researchers examining politics and society here.
I first started to develop the Afallen website in October 2018, as we were starting to move from the concept of our Partnership, to the reality of communicating our ideas to the world.
In 2018 the options for creating elegant websites were somewhat fewer than today. The basic wordpress functionality made it difficult to produce bespoke aspects of design, so we opted to use a commercial theme.
Fast-forward to 2020, and a number of things have changed, in the world of web design, but also more widely in our understanding of issues surrounding surveillance capitalism and privacy.
The new WordPress content management system – Gutenberg – has certainly not been without its critics; but the latest iteration allows for custom design and drag’n’drop type functionality, in a way which allows us to mirror the design of our previous website, but with a much lower code-base.
Our old website; 14 months of trusty representation
Privacy, surveillance and a ‘free’ web
In the 18 months since our first website was launched, we’ve become much more aware of data-mining, and the extent to which large corporations collect (and use) data on us as individuals.
This information can be used in unscrupulous ways to micro-target individuals, in some cases with misinformation in order to try to solicit actions such as voting for a particular outcome or candidate.
By using something as innocuous-seeming as Google Analytics, organisations are helping to maintain and strengthen the ability of private organisations to influence and direct our public discourse – and even our voting intentions.
That’s why you won’t find any tracking code on our website. In truth we never changed what we were doing based on our analytics anyway, so there will be zero impact on our operations. But there will be a minuscule reduction in the amount of data that Google – and others – are able to collect, as a result of your visit here today.
This article in The Atlantic magazine describes the worrying trend of using harvested data to try to spread misinformation in the United States; it’s a trend that we also see in the UK.
Accessibility
There are two other important improvements that arise from our change of theme.
Firstly, our website is now more accessible. Whilst not being perfect, it is much easier to navigate and read, because we’ve dispensed with a bunch of code that was necessary to create and place the elements that made up our previous website.
The other advantage is that the website is now able to automatically output new blog posts to the Fediverse, via the Activitypub plugin.
In other words, each of our posts will find its way to a (potentially) global audience via Mastodon and other federated networks – which will help us to reach, and influence, people everywhere.
So – a very warm welcome to our new website. And if you want to find out more about why we do the things we do, take a look at our values, or meet us over a coffee to talk about how we can help you in implementing sustainability and well-being. Privacy included as standard.
This week saw another significant step in Afallen’s evolution. Although we have been registered as a company since October, we hadn’t – until this week – had a chance to celebrate the company with our friends and colleagues from across our networks.
That all changed this week, with our official launch, a thoroughly enjoyable event which saw nearly fifty people turn up to hear more about Afallen, and how we aim to play our part in making Wales, and the world, a more sustainable place.
We also took the opportunity to reveal our new logo to the attendees. We were fortunate enough to secure the services of Hannah Garcia of Blod Design in the redesign, who is something of a specialist in creating beautiful logos for organisations with a strong environmental drive.
Our previous logo was a thing of beauty, created and gifted to the world through Creative Commons (something we love!) via OpenClipArt. However, being freely usable by anybody, we decided that we needed something a bit more bespoke.
Hannah recognised the significance of the apple tree to sustainability, and incorporated our style suggestions into something which is distinctive, unique, and represents the three founding partners through the number of apples in the tree.
We were delighted to be supported on the evening by an insight into the historical and cultural significance of the name Afallen in Welsh Literature, by Y Prifardd Aled Gwyn. In his beautiful and passionate description of the word, and its relevance to Welsh culture spanning more than eight hundred years, he included selected readings, including part of the famous poem, ‘Ymadawiad Arthur’. This poem was sufficiently highly regarded to elevate the author, T. Gwynn Jones, to the Eisteddfod Chair in 1902, and is considered a landmark achievement in 20th Century Welsh literature.
On an evening of culture and superb company, we were very happy to have brought together so many wonderful people. Officially launched, and with a new logo, we are already working hard to serve clients, communities and climate through our unique partnerships and ways of working.
Emergency: n. A serious situation or occurrence that demands immediate action.
Climate: n. The meteorological conditions, including temperature, precipitation, and wind, that characteristically prevail in a particular region.
On 29 April, Scotland proudly announced itself as the first nation to declare a Climate Emergency. This statement was closely followed by our own from Environment Minister, Lesley Griffiths, who added the voice of Welsh Government to the growing list of towns and cities that have signed up to acknowledge the need for urgent and drastic measures to combat climate change.
The arrival of National Governments to the Climate Emergency declaration ‘party’ is hugely significant; not just for the undoubted symbolism it provides, and for the political heft that it gives to campaigners within Wales and Scotland, but also because it heralds the likelihood that other countries will follow suit.
As Lesley Griffiths said, government has a role in making collective action possible. And we certainly do require collective action – both individually and at the nation-state level – if we are to arrest runaway climate change and to ensure that the planet we bequeath to our children and grandchildren is habitable.
It was interesting to note that the following day saw the First Minister outline the timetable for making a decision on the fate of the proposed new M4 relief road. The first week of June will see Mark Drakeford setting out whether he will grant the legal orders necessary to allow the project to proceed.
? @NicolaSturgeon was the first world leader to declare a climate emergency and Westminster now needs to follow suit.
? From setting world-leading targets to empowering communities, here’s how Scotland is leading the way in tackling climate change.https://t.co/RkO58iQjJm
Although a decision to issue Transport Orders in June would not necessarily guarantee that the project commences – it is still subject to a confirmatory vote in the National Assembly – it would signal that Welsh Government believes that attempting to ease the flow of traffic by building additional road capacity is a potentially higher priority than tackling climate change.
Whilst I have no doubt that our government could produce a narrative which demonstrates that a new piece of motorway is exactly what our young and yet-to-be-born citizens need, it feels to me as though this decision is totemic for what we, as the people of Wales, see as of value. Do we truly value the ability of our future citizens, innocent of blame, to live in a climate which resembles that which we ourselves have experienced? Or do we value more highly the convenience of private car owners in a small corner of Wales to shave a few minutes from their journey time?
It is Business as Usual, with modest tweaks, which has got us into this emergency. And if it really is, as Welsh Government states, an emergency, then we need drastic, radical measures, individually and collectively, to avoid tragic outcomes for our ecosystems.
As you know there’s a legal process that has to be gone through. The decision in early June is whether to issue Transport Orders – in effect outline planning permission. The final decision won’t come until there’s a full debate in the Assembly, as promised.
I applaud Welsh Government for making such a brave statement of intent on the Climate Emergency, as I have consistently applauded the creation and implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations Act. But if intent is to have meaning, we must make decisions differently. We must prioritise accordingly. And we must take every opportunity to decide against projects and systems which increase poor outcomes for the environment.
In giving credit to Welsh Government for their statement, I would also like to pay homage to the thousands of Welsh campaigners who have become part of the Extinction Rebellion movement, which has undoubtedly played an immense role in raising the issue within the national consciousness. Their bravery, tenacity and self-sacrifice is both humbling and heartening. We owe a debt of gratitude to our fellow citizens for campaigning on behalf of our future generations, and on behalf of the ecosystems which will continue to support them in the decades to come.
As I recently blogged I’ve been working in the renewable energy sector for more than fifteen years, with nearly half that total coming from my post as Director of RenewableUK Cymru, a position I was very happy in.
So….why am I starting work today, for the first time, for a start-up partnership with no guaranteed income, no pension, no sick pay. Why – on the cusp of Brexit, with all the uncertainty that brings – would anybody want to augment that uncertainty ten-fold?
Perhaps to answer that question satisfactorily, the first question to answer is — what? What is Afallen?
Afallen
Firstly, the name itself. The word ‘Afallen’ means ‘Apple Tree’ in Welsh. The apple tree has many positive connotations around renewal, replenishment and sustainability. It is also the likely derivative word for Avalon, the island central to the Arthurian legends.
Afallen is a limited liability partnership (LLP), currently made up of three people. We work with gifted and experienced associates from across Wales and beyond.
We are a values-based organisation working on projects which we can influence for the good — in terms of the long-term benefit for environment, community, and the economy in its widest terms.
We champion and support the open-source and creative commons communities, and are busy building a supply chain which rewards suppliers who hold similar values to our own (see this blog about Triodos as our first ethical supplier).
We have committed to donating 10% of our net profits to a charitable trust to support sustainable economic development in Wales — though I am keen to widen this to enable us to financially support the amazing open-source products which enable us to work effectively, and to develop our own skills in-house on a range of platforms.
We want to maintain as much financial and intellectual capital as possible within Wales — all parts of Wales — as possible. We want to build resilience in communities the length and breadth of the country. And we want to help others deliver their own projects in the letter and spirit of the Well-being of Future Generations legislation. For me, that includes the ability to deliver as many project outcomes through the medium of Welsh as possible.
Why?
The ‘why’ is obvious when you understand the social and economic context of the Wales we are proud to call our home in 2019. One of the poorest ‘regions’ in Europe with one of the worst infrastructure systems, we see all too often our financial and human capital leaving Wales.
That’s why we want to build an organisation which can deliver extremely high-quality services across a range of sectors, and support delivery by skilled professionals who live and work in the communities where the projects are carried out. This organisation — Afallen — will increase the amount of money retained within Wales from public and private sector activity, and redistribute it as widely as possible to our associates across Wales.
If we are successful in our aim, we will make a material difference to individuals, households and communities across Wales for a number of reasons:
Highly skilled professionals living outside major urban conurbations will be able to work within their communities. This will reduce the need for commuting, increase the viability of remote and rural working, and improve outcomes by bringing project delivery much closer to the beneficiaries
We will improve the resilience of the communities we work in by empowering the people and organisations we work with. We hope to reduce the need for future intervention by the ways in which we work today
We will retain greater financial, intellectual and social capital within our communities the length and breadth of the country
What’s next?
I am incredibly proud and humbled by being able to work with Mari Arthur and Peter Trott, two highly experienced, motivated and delightful people.
I’m looking forward to developing our network further so that we can make good on our promise to provide exceptional project delivery, delivered locally, right across Wales.
And in the longer term, it’s not impossible that we will be able to take the expertise we’ve developed in Wales, and take it elsewhere. Our experience marrying sustainability with project delivery through a minority national language might be instructive and useful in countries such as Scotland, New Zealand or Ireland. Well….I can dream!
If you’re interested in finding out how we can help your project or service deliver its full meaning and value, and demonstrate superb alignment with the goals and ways of working of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, I’ll be only to happy to chat to you on the phone or over a coffee.
Infrastructure is the Cinderella of modern society. Underpinning every activity we undertake, it is nonetheless largely taken for granted, except when it isn’t there.
It’s the job of policy-makers and planners in the public sector, and their counterparts and engineering professionals in the private sector, to ensure that infrastructure is robust and accessible round the clock. To their credit, there are very few times when this part of the system fails.
It’s also the job of those same people to ensure that society’s future demands on infrastructure can be met, which requires direction and investment. The ambit of future scenarios is fascinating, in that it affords both great challenge and great opportunity for our infrastructure — and by extension, for society as a whole.
But it’s my personal fear that we are failing to meet the challenges and obligations set to us by our future generations.
Gridlock
Foremost amongst my areas of concern is our electricity grid. The capacity in Wales, both in distribution and transmission, is completely full. This means that most new renewable generators face punishing costs to upgrade large chunks of the system, leaving many projects unviable.
In mid Wales, the situation is particularly severe. This is where Wales’ most productive and dependable wind resource is literally stranded, pending the development of the mid Wales connection. This 400kV connection would greatly facilitate Wales in meeting its own renewable energy targets, but is itself dependent on the ability of onshore wind — the cheapest form of renewable electricity — to access the market.
Mid Wales is doubly-penalised; insufficient grid to generate and export renewable energy, and potentially insufficient grid — ‘grid poverty’ — to make use of new technologies such as electric vehicles and heat pumps. As I wrote in 2017, this lack of access to potentially money-saving technologies has the potential to further disadvantage rural dwellers, and could lead to communities becoming increasingly dependent on unaffordable ways of heating and transport.
However, although the position in mid Wales is particularly acute, the grid is squeezed everywhere. I have been told by the two Distribution Network Operators in Wales that no new thermal generation or battery storage greater than 1MW can be installed until 2026.
This limitation is crippling our ability to take part in new energy and economic systems, once again condemning Wales to use legacy 20th century infrastructure as our UK neighbours move seamlessly into a more enlightened system of low-carbon generation, storage and smart use.
Opportunity
Wales is at a crucial point with respect to a range of infrastructure issues, and rural Wales, in a Brexit landscape, is particularly vulnerable.
However I believe that within this uncertainty lies opportunity. With Wales’ rural areas replete in notorious ‘not-spots’ for both mobile signal and 4G internet, could we combine new grid infrastructure with 5G mobile networks, leap-frogging old technologies in ways advantageous to rural livelihoods?
Why shouldn’t Welsh Government — and other public sector organisations — take a stake in the grid infrastructure which would be needed to connect much-needed onshore wind projects, facilitating the development of renewables in Wales and simultaneously providing opportunity to a whole host of modern, low-impact manufacturing and processing clusters across rural Wales?
Could the proposed ‘Lôn Rhiannon’ also incorporate a grid line and future-proofed mobile network infrastructure, alongside a new cycle network, up the spine of Wales?
With the new National Infrastructure Commission about to sit, there are a range of future opportunities which could change the way in which we view infrastructure. Multi-use, combined infrastructure, paid for in innovative ways and by new participants (crowd-funded grid anyone?) could unleash the creativity and enthusiasm of our citizens, businesses and public sector organisations. I cordially invite the new members of National Infrastructure Commission for Wales to use their imagination to the fullest when considering how best to serve the future interests of our people.
And if they want some food for thought, my door is always open.
(This article was first published on the Institute of Welsh Affairs website here.)
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge — Galileo Galilei
I’m a scientist. To be more precise, I’m a physicist. I’ve had a strong interest in energy conservation since being a small boy — I remember asking my dad why he didn’t take the car out of gear when we were going downhill as it seemed as though we would save petrol. That interest in science continued through my schooling into ‘A’ levels, a physics degree, and eventually a Ph.D. And I’ve always thought that science was a good start for policy; not the whole story of course, but policy-making without evidence is almost certainly a recipe for poor decisions.
Those of us who work in the renewable energy sector are confronted by irrational opposition on a daily basis. Those who oppose renewable energy — and onshore wind in particular — do not generally take the trouble to provide evidence. On the contrary, they produce fantastical accounts of the terrible harm which results from wind turbines (Including claims as bizarre as disappearing worms and dead goats), severe (but unquantified) impacts on tourism; or the massive costs which burden the population from supporting the technology (just 1% of your electricity bill); or the fact that wind isn’t wanted (it’s very popular) — and, despite the best efforts of the Advertising Standards Authority, these claims continue. (See, for example, a general search for ‘wind’ in the ASA database
Irrational opposition to onshore wind would not be a problem in and of itself; but the (historical) nature of the debate, characterised by a relentless focus in some sections of the media on opinion, allusion and denunciation, has led to some people with decision-making capacity mistaking the invective for reality.
For those of us who believe in evidence-based policy and decision-making, this is worrying. It’s worrying because decisions are potentially being made contrary to the evidence — to the detriment of communities in rural Wales, and to the people who make up those communities. Let’s explore some of the issues in a bit more depth.
Powys
Powys plays a potentially pivotal role in Wales’ renewable energy ambitions. Blessed with a phenomenal wind resource, and with a low population density, it was one of the main areas of development for onshore wind outlined in the Technical Advice Note on renewable energy published in 2005 known as TAN8.
TAN8 aimed to concentrate developments of onshore wind in Wales in those areas most suited to them, in terms of wind resource and population density. The conclusion recommends the use of Strategic Search Areas to target onshore wind for “efficiency and environmental reasons”.
What they would actually find is a local authority which has objected to a number of large wind farms, such that a public inquiry has been launched into the issue. I’m not blaming anyone for historic decisions here; but I do think it’s worth looking at the example of exemplar local authorities — Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taff — in the way they have engaged with a wind developer (Vattenfall), and the result for the local community of that engagement.
What might have been
In May 2012, permission was granted for the development of the Pen y Cymoedd wind farm, which lies within the Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taff local authorities, following their decision not to object to the scheme. The Pen y Cymoedd windfarm at 228MW is the biggest scheme in Wales.
The fact that local authorities supported the application, meant that the Secretary of State’s decision was more straightforward. It also meant that the decision was made more quickly. Part of the local authority negotiating stance was the requirement to facilitate the involvement of local businesses — and it worked. More than 600 companies signed up with an interest for the development, with 90% coming from Wales, and more than 30% from the local area.
Vattenfall have explicitly stated their commitment to support local businesses; indeed, they require contractors to maximise their use of local companies, something which is written into tender specifications and scrutinised as part of the project development process.
But the local business involvement is only part of the story. Pen y Cymoedd will also have a community benefit fund to match its status as a large energy generator; it will benefit the local community to the tune of £1.8m per annum — index linked — over the lifetime of the project. So on top of the benefit to businesses, the community is going to see investment on a scale which is almost certainly unmatched in the experience of the area surrounding the site. They have already started on a new £350,000 mountain-bike trail, which will be completed before 2014.
The training potential is also starting to be tapped; a group of students from Neath Port Talbot College recently returned from a study tour to the Netherlands to learn about energy generation from the experts. The students teamed up with apprentices from the wind turbine apprenticeship programme, which is being supported by RWE and Vattenfall.
That’s Pen y Cymoedd; but what does that mean for Powys?
The community benefit from these developments would be considerable; I’d go as far as to say transformative. If we use Pen y Cymoedd as the comparator, we can make an assumption on the total annual funds. Using Pen y Cymoedd as an example is helpful because it’s the biggest scheme in Wales, and therefore most closely resembles the impact which might be achieved with a number of large wind developments in Powys.
Pen y Cymoedd generates a community benefit of £1.8m/yr for a size of 228MW. Using the figure of 480MW (assuming all wind farms in the public enquiry gain consent), the equivalent fund for Powys would be (480/228)X1.8m = £3.8 million.
That’s the easy stuff — the ‘clean’ money which can be match-funded and spent on things desired and needed by residents in areas in and around wind farm developments. But what about the business benefits from the developments themselves?
Well, the ‘Economic Opportunities’ report, produced by Cardiff Business School and Regeneris Consulting, suggests that 20% of the economic benefit to Wales from onshore wind development accrues to Mid and South West Wales. Let’s split that 50–50, and agree that mid Wales sees 10% of the total.
The total GVA to Wales from 2012 to 2050 if an ambitious development approach were taken — compared to historic trends of installation — would be £1.4bn.
That’s £140m for mid Wales, that will unlikely see the light of day if Powys continues to deny the opportunity for economic diversification that so many are crying out for.
