Pushing at an open stable door
How a tech disrupter is helping the newly appointed Minister for Stable Doors to keep the horses from running wild.
The recent decision to close the UK’s borders to control the spread of Covid-19 has been dismissed as ‘closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.’ Having found itself on the back foot and at the wrong end of a well-loved idiom, the Government has turned to the private sector once again, this time to support the work of the newly appointed Minister for Stable Doors.
Of course, the Government’s reliance on private firms to help with everything from Covid-19 testing to track and trace procedures has been controversial. To this end, Maximilian ‘Max Impact’ St John Reason, head of delivery at self-declared ‘tech tavern’ and ‘idea bank’, Mindflush, explains how the firm will be helping the Government stay ahead of events by keeping the stable door shut.
Me: Hi Max! Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!
Max: …
Me: Hi, Max?
Max: …
Me: Hi Max, how is lockdown treating you?
Max: (unmutes) …OR THE DOGS DIE!…
Me: I beg your pardon?
Max: (looks at the camera) Er, sorry, hi! Yes, I’m here. What did you say?
Me: Hi! I asked how lockdown has been treating you?
Max: Hi! Well, let me turn your question on its head. How have I been treating lockdown? Great! – It’s been an adventure from start to finish! We moved out to the country last year and I have to say I don’t regret it. My home office at the end of the field is big enough for all my Memphis design classics, and being in such a creative space has really helped me be more productive. Having the paddock and the pool means my Ironman training is firmly on track, and my motivational LinkedIn videos now have a really pastoral mise-en-scène that is sending engagement levels through the roof! My wife’s online subscription-model organic soap hamper startup can operate from anywhere, of course, but the extra space is great for the kids and their quad bikes, their climate change projects, and our newly acquired puppies. My experience has proved that WFH is here to stay and I insist all our people do likewise from now on!
Me: (nudging my laptop lid forward to hide an unmade bed) Right… Can you tell me how Mindflush will help the Government get ahead of what has been fairly critical coverage of its failure to act swiftly during the pandemic?
Max: So one thing that Mindflush brings to the Equine Containment Mission is data. The Government faces a daunting task: how to respond to a fast-changing situation where lives are literally at stake. We bring a unique multidisciplinary focus to the task in hand and have masses of data to hand that will help us get ahead of the virus in hand.
Me: Data like the widely-available statistics on covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths that are already available?
Max: Yes. But way more than that! Many firms claim to get behind the data, but at Mindflush we use augmented reality to actually BECOME THE DATA. (That’s a trademark, by the way, when you come to print!) It’s cutting edge work. Other firms have data scientists — we have data astronauts, drawn from every field of human endeavour and trained by NASA for journeys into the deep space of numbers. The logbooks these so-called numberjacks keep — heroes, all of them, to a man — are analysed on their return using AI, so we can see what’s coming around the corner. Our work is at the intersection of science and art. As someone profound once said: “We are not only guided by the science but made giddy by the art.” (Wait! that was me, at our user conference last year!)
Me: Wouldn’t it be easier to simply check what other Governments around the world — around the UK, even — are doing, and then follow suit?
Max: One thing we have all learned during the pandemic is that a virus doesn’t respect national borders. So why should we?
Me: Eh?… Right… But couldn’t events like a second spike have been more easily predicted and then acted upon? Why must lockdowns take so long to put into effect, when everyone knows prompt action is required, and the majority of the public supports them?
Max: Look, you need to get past your fixation with the process. In many ways, our work is not about data or information. The remit we have been given is way bigger than simply seeing what the virus is doing, and how others are managing its spread. No, our work is really about knowing when to open the stable door — and when to close it.
Me: I'm sorry?
Max: So, having spent an afternoon watching my daughter Amelia on her lockdown pony, I know horses are no use if they are locked up in stables, and this is something I made clear to the Minister on our latest zoom. Horses must breathe the clean air of free enterprise, get the innovation wind in their manes and chase down creativity. The UK’s economy depends on wild horses galloping through the high tide of global trade.
Me: Like that TV ad for a bank?
Max: Sure! I love that ad. So, I don’t know — arty — yet also commercial!
Me: Hmm. So you’re saying that Mindflush is not actually helping the Government to keep the stable door shut, but leaving it open? Your work is not so much about equine containment, then, but equine liberation?
Max: Exactly! ‘Who let the dogs out?!’, as the man said. Spoiler alert: it was us! Haha! But horses, not dogs. That would be daft. A dog can’t sniff out added-value green tech export opportunities.
Me: No, I, er, suppose not. But how can you help the Government get ahead of events if the default position for the stable door is actually ‘open’?
Max: Listen. I like to think the Minister brought Mindflush on board to disrupt things. The government gets a bad rap for its handling of the pandemic if you ask me. If you instead see its actions in terms of Silicon Valley’s ‘fail fast, fail often’ mantra, what this Government has been doing to manage the pandemic has been nothing short of world-beating.
Me: Indeed. But if your task is to leave the stable door open, and the Government is not too bothered about failure, isn’t the appointment of Mindflush simply a desperate PR exercise? The equivalent to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic?
Max: Hey! You will have to agree to my disagreement there, I’m afraid! One of the many deep insights I gained when kayaking up the Amazon is that deckchair arrangement isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If it takes moving a few chairs around to bring some creativity to a situation, then you’ll find Mindflush is brave enough to do it, while everyone else has given up and are heading for the lifeboats. That’s the sort of mentality we have!
Me. Wow. You really can’t make this sort of stuff up.
Max: You may not, but we can! Making stuff up is exactly what Mindflush does! Thanks for your ears!
