Latest / Built by People / Part 2 from the ILP Summit: Innovation, Succession and Pathways into Lighting
Transcript
- speaker-0: Here we are. Welcome to Built by People, a DFL podcast. We're here at the ILP Lighting Summit and we're pleased to share with you some of the snippets and highlights of the interviews we did with guests over the two days. speaker-1: I feel like I've ambivalent you a little bit, Conor, you're straight off stage. Straight off, so the artist and the apprentice, you just presented upstairs. What are the key takeaways? speaker-0: I am. Yeah, so within the presentation we kind of focused on Jim and Aeri, the apprentice and the artist. The artist focused on how we utilize generative AI, a type of AI, to create quick concepts for our design and the implications of that, whether we should or should not be doing that and how a client or a designer might feel if it's being used as a concept design. We then moved on. into the apprentice, which focused on three main areas. The first was a simple use of AI. We looked at how custom GPTs can be utilized to improve your email writing by removing negative emotion and improving structure. We then went into the advanced use of AI, which was actually how AI can be used as a knowledge partner, almost like your own personal on-hand senior engineer when you're doing the role and how that could affect designers or new juniors. or also sales team who may want to utilize that. And the final element was the use of the future of AI, which was about agentic AI and how I believe it's definitely something that can be utilized in the future. It's not quite there yet. And it kind of focuses on kind of the AI taking over the situation. Right. And less human input. And think above all else, I kind of caveat it quite clearly that Although AI is utilized or could be utilized as an apprentice to our juniors, the juniors are not being replaced by the AI. That's the part. Learning, making mistakes, is key part. speaker-1: I guess you've still got to have that knowledge yourself to be able to analyze and cross-check what the AI is coming up with and a spot where it may get things slightly confused or... speaker-0: That kind of thing. Exactly that. The way AI can't really be seen, fitting the knowledge section I was talking about, it shouldn't be making a final decision and it shouldn't be making all of the judgement calls. What it can do is support possibly a new starter to develop their knowledge. But it really is up to the junior to be developing their knowledge to get to a point where they can become the senior. We need to not have an over-reliance on AI. speaker-1: Yeah, sure. And one final question in your sort of day-to-day role. Have you got a favourite kind of thing that you use AI for that you're able to share with us? speaker-0: good question. I'd say my most basic use of AI is actually just through my standardization of emails. But I utilize it for a lot of smaller items when it comes to data maneuvering, not GDPR issues at least. I'd probably say the emails are my most vital use, I use that on a daily basis. ⁓ outside the work practice, one of my best uses for AI is I'll actually, it gets to a Friday, I'm shopping on Saturday, I'm out of food. So I often use the chapter of your tea to write down what's in my fridge and then tell me what recipes can I make based on what's in my fridge. So it's a great way to actually cost save. You can take a picture or you can just quickly write a list of the key things you have in your house and go, give me some meals, I don't have X, X and X. speaker-1: You did just take a picture of the fridge and chuck it in. speaker-0: and it will then draw three to five recipes. So I probably utilise that the most, especially in the end of the week. speaker-1: The way I see it, and I need to get a bit better at this myself, but I think it's a way of thinking, isn't it? Like, how can I, what can I say here to get the best out of the AI to help me? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think currently AI is improving rapidly, but you do need to kind of nurture it to get the right answers. So it's about understanding how you word things to get the answer. Yeah. And I that's probably another talking point. So Alistair, how's the first morning of papers been for you at the ILP? speaker-1: It's been very interesting, yeah, there's lots of good, interesting topics and particularly like the AI chat just now. speaker-0: Yeah, Connor did well on that one, think, didn't he? All Connor's hard work, to be fair. speaker-1: That's quite an interesting move where it disappeared into an AI. Yes, yeah. speaker-0: you Was it believable? Good, because I felt a bit like Clee Shea when I was like, ⁓ my mum's calling me. But what I wanted to bring you on and talk to you about is, how has your career in lighting been and how long has it spanned for? we've, we're obviously transitioning through the business and you were our leader, shall we say, and you're still there championing him from the front. speaker-1: Lighting by accident really, as many of us do. So I was a mechanical engineer working in the aerospace industry and got an offer from various companies but the lighting one to move to Urbis in Basingstoke was the one that appealed to me. They had a sort of attitude that DFL has now, a real get up and go attitude. Wanting to change the world and coming up with lots of innovative ideas and fresh thinking and that was really what attracted me. speaker-0: Okay, speaker-1: those days it was a good career. I stayed there for 17 years, became the engineering director and then decided it was time to branch out on my own and sort of build up Designs for Lighting, which at the time was a very small company and has grown into the wonderful company we see today with some wonderful new leaders. speaker-0: I'd like to think Andy and I will keep it in the safe hands and nurture all the foundations of what you've built. speaker-1: But these things don't happen by accident, do they? And there's a lot of thinking and succession planning in any business and I think it's worked really well. speaker-0: I always have a chuckle to myself when I think about that because at the time when we started coming on board and you were introducing us into the inner sanctum of the business, you obviously had the plan in your head where you could see it was happening and I think I was blissfully naive or unaware of it and then I started to understand and now Andy and I are there and we're obviously looking at the next generation and how we create opportunities to keep people in the industry. speaker-1: I don't think businesses spend enough time on that aspect, the succession planning was so important. And I don't think I realised how important it was until I started getting to an age where I'm thinking, ⁓ you know, it's time to back away a bit. I think becoming the IOP president was, or the first IOP president even. speaker-0: Correct, because it changed from the ILP to the ILP, so you became the first ILP president. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, and that was a real standout moment. Yeah, and for DFL I think, you know, really started putting us on the map and Leaps and bounds ever since with you becoming HEA president. Yeah You know, we've now a well-known Sort of name in the industry headline sponsors of lighting life Yeah, so it's been very good and I was so proud at the time I became president speaker-0: Me. Yeah. There you go. I think there's a lot to be said for doing those sector roles, are voluntary roles ultimately, aren't they? Not only do they support the industry, they support a lot of personal growth, think, and help you understand and get a better appreciation of how industry is shaped, really. speaker-1: Yeah, and I think I've done that because I've always sort of wanted to encourage sort of young people to develop their careers and so I was the sort of membership secretary at the ILE as it was then for a number of years. was also really interested in the technical aspects. speaker-0: technical committee. speaker-1: And so it was a natural step to then progress to the president, but also since then still get involved in mentoring in an unofficial capacity, but also interviewing new applicants for membership. speaker-0: So two questions before we wrap up. What's the best party you've ever been to in the industry? speaker-1: or as your wedding party. speaker-0: Is that in industry though? Can we talk about that on the pod? I'm not sure. That was quite a party, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. And was it my wedding party or was it my birthday? You tell me. I'd like to it was my birthday, but we did get married that day. Yeah. And then, OK, the final question is what's the score going to be tonight for England? speaker-1: Thank ⁓ good question, you're asking us Scott what the England score is going to be. ⁓ Well I'm very happy that Scotland are top of the bear group at the moment. result for them. I also, unlike most Scots, I do really want England to do well as well. So I'm going to say 2-1. speaker-0: England. You're the second person to 2-1 today, so that'll be interesting. Let's see if that happens. Well, Alistair, thank you very much for joining us and thank you for everything you've done with DFL. Good afternoon, Scott. How are we? speaker-1: Hi, I'm Scott Pengelly, I work for Urbex Trade Air. I look after a little sales patch there and that, but I've been in lighting for a hell of a long time Rich, you know. we've in lighting for a Previous colleague and boss and whatever else that we've been in all those times. speaker-0: long way don't Shall we talk about our origins in lighting? We can do it. speaker-1: want it's going back a long time and there are lot of horror stories along the way but yeah speaker-0: Some similar questions I asked Alistair earlier. The first one is, how did you get into lighting? speaker-1: So yeah, great question because it's quite, well, is it a funny story? I don't know. I like my story. I had a job, I worked at a supermarket, and I was really fed up of the day-to-day work, and I went into a recruitment consultant in Chelmsford in Essex, and I said, I want a new job, and I don't care what it is. Long story short, got an interview, and I joined Atkins at the time as a trainee technician in the street lighting team, and I had no idea what that job entailed whatsoever. And then from there, just worked my way up the ranks, got some qualifications, got some experience, worked on some decent projects and then from there bounced around a few other companies but really kind of building up that experience and knowledge as I've gone so yeah. speaker-0: With the Atkins days, think I know the answer to this but I'll ask you, what is the greatest project you've ever worked on? speaker-1: So I've got two that I really enjoyed. I've got a really, I've got like a cool, enjoyable one, and then perhaps a bit more of a boring one, but I learned a lot from as well, you know, personally. So I worked on a widening of the M1 motorway from the M25 up to Luton. It was about 10 miles of motorway that they widened, and I learned a huge amount about proper engineering, electrical, lighting, all of that side of things, and that was a big win for me as well. But probably the project that I think you're using to is I got to work on the Olympic Park. The London 2012 Olympic Park was split into two halves and at the time Atkins looked after all the highway stuff for the north part of the park so I got to work on that. I got to travel the Olympic site before anything was built in a little Land Rover because we had to do a site visit for CDM regs. We had to say yeah we'd been there so just drove over all the mud and you know just all being excavated in a Land Rover so that was a hell of an experience as well. speaker-0: the Olympics on so I remember I joined Atkins and you were knee-deep in that and I was like oh my word Scott has not and he's got the greatest project in the world speaker-1: And do you know what, when I started working on that as well, I was really, if I'm honest, well out of my depth. And all of a sudden, a bit like probably the M74 project for you, it took you from boy to man, know, in terms of that experience of having to bring you along as an engineer, the Olympics was really one for me as well. speaker-0: That's it. Yeah, one thing I wanted to touch on is obviously Rebecca was with us at kids. Who? Rebecca. speaker-1: ⁓ We always get linked up so much. She must be so sick of having to talk about it. speaker-0: Tell us about the YLP, because that's where it was born, at Atkinson. was, Again, was new to it all and I had someone say, have you heard about the YLP? Scott was there. How did that come about? speaker-1: Yeah. So that was, it did come about from when we worked at Atkins, but what it really came about from was we went to one of our first or second ever ILP events up in London, and this is going back 20 plus years now, and it was a different environment that you get from ILP events nowadays. We went into the room and it just felt very, we felt very out of depth and very like we didn't fit in there, even though everyone actually is wonderfully good, but we felt a little bit out of depth. And we came out of that and basically just had some conversations in the office and said, you know, there needs to be something here that really appeals to younger lighting professionals to try and get them involved on board, you know, at events and things like that. And you're right, from those little two desks in the Chelmsford office came the idea of the YLP. and we were really supported by them. We came up with some ideas and they said, come together, you know, put a plan together of what you think the YLP could be. Just some ideas, just jot them down. And we wrote, we ended up writing a business case for the YLP that was just unanimously approved. And that was, I don't know how many years ago now. 2010, no, no, no, it's before then. Crank it. Possibly. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: I'm gonna say how long is that? speaker-1: And it all went live actually in both of our friend Alistair's year as president. That's when the ILE changed to the ILP and at the same time the YLP was launched as well. Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: Two last quick fire questions. Sure. First one, what's the best industry party you've ever been to? speaker-1: Okay, I'm gonna go right back to an initial one. So the Bournemouth conference that we had when the YLP was first inaugurated, we had a beach party there. Those pictures that were famous of like... archives. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was brilliant because we had a real good vibe there and it really lightened the mood of the conference which hadn't really happened. It was always quite an informal affair. We had a beach party and it was brilliant and people came along, they got involved. It was fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. speaker-0: Big question. What's the score going to be tonight? speaker-1: I am really, I worry that we're not going to do any well. I think we might win 1-0. I think we might win 1-0. speaker-0: Yeah, well, okay, so I think that dare I say are you even bothered after this season? speaker-1: As an Arsenal fan? Well, yeah, I'd like to have done one little bit better and got the Champions League, but no, it was a good season, yeah, it was a good season and we are pleased, but yeah, it was wonderful. speaker-0: Thank you much. speaker-1: Welcome to the Built by People podcast. We're just grabbing people as we see them here at the event, lighting live. I thought it would be a good opportunity to have a little bit of a chat about Pathways into Lighting, which is the programme that you're sort of pioneering, sort of following on your year as president, year before last. So how's it all going? It's been brilliant. I think part of, and you'd heard today with Michaela's presidential address about collaboration being one of the big keys and big movements for us as an institution. think with strategy 2026 coming to a close for the ILP, now we're really looking at what those pillars really mean going forward as part of the strategy and pathways into lighting being a key element of that. I'm talking tomorrow, I've got an hour slot tomorrow talking about updates of what we've been doing. There's numerous elements of that that we've been looking at, Brian, so you think around the careers and qualifications side, what's out there, what qualifications are. especially young people looking at the moment and how that can interact with the lighting industry. I don't think anyone's really mapped that out. So that's been interesting. So there's elements of that that we're trying to work on and get into colleges, talk about lighting and have that employer engagement. especially the partnerships that we've got with Baker Deering Trusts, for an example, ⁓ going into UTCs, those university technical colleges and actually having that interaction with tutors and giving them content and resources to deliver lighting-based ⁓ challenges or ultimately ingrain ourselves into their syllabus. That's been a key element so we've really had a buy-in from those nationally as a BAKED EARING trust and then really push on that going forward to try and ingrain those everywhere. So think that'll be pulling on resource from the industry hopefully getting those volunteers in, getting those employers that can go in and engage and volunteer. And what's the response been like when you go in and talk about lighting to both the tutors and the students? Is it a kind of eye-opening moment for them where they go, oh wow, that's really cool? Or do they go, oh yeah, it's a bit whatever? It's definitely a mixture. We have had a few. So I always try it, and you call it the sexy element of what we do, right? So I always introduce the architectural side. I've got some slides about. projection mapping onto buildings, we're talking about big infrastructure, so yeah trying to make the fun elements of it and then actually going down to the granular detail of what a lamp column is. ⁓ It's not just necessarily the lighting aspect, we've got EV chargers, we've got attachments and how those interact with the students lives and I think that's probably the eye-opening piece for them where yeah it's brilliant, we have sports lighting, we have companies here that sponsor F1 and it's It's brilliant you have those aspects of lighting but... actually a few tasks that we've been doing with the project light of all the colleges is redesigning a lamp column. Yeah. And it's as simple as that. Yeah, maybe on the initial outset you don't get that real engagement and excitement. But on my second visit, once they've made the prototypes, right, and they've got fold down columns, they've got telescopic columns they've made, and they've been out, they've been on their street, they've looked in their local area and you've had that feedback and it's brilliant. Well, that is great because I would say that there's more elements to lighting than just physical lighting, is that engineering side of it. And I was particularly interested in a keynote this morning, was a mention of a collaboration with the University of South Wales. Yes, yep. so, and only because it's sort of close to my heart, because I studied at the University of South Wales, so I did lighting, design and technology in Pontypridd. yeah, brilliant. So I'm keen to kind of see where that goes and how that kind of takes off, because I went... into that with the aspiration to get into theatre and concert lighting. But was in my second year that I discovered the environmental side and then the street lighting avenue and the work that I'm involved in now with what I do. So, yeah, I'm keen to see where that goes with USW. the forgotten cousin, aren't we, on the exterior lighting side, on the street lighting side anyway. So we've got, and I'll talk about it tomorrow, so we've had a partnership with the Engineering Education Scheme for Wales, so EESW. They are a STEM related ⁓ educator, if you like, or association that are delivering STEM projects for local schools in South Wales. So Jeremy Morgan used to be one of the lighting engineers ⁓ for South Wales. and he's arriving tomorrow so hopefully he'll do a very brief update of what the ESW are all about and what we've been rolling out with them. So back in October we rolled out a project like VIL and that was exactly the same sort of task that we had with the UTCs and that was looking at how to redesign a street and how to make it. how to design that street with columns that ultimately you can't maintain with a vehicle. So it's up to them how they come up with that. And there's no wrong solutions, right? They can come up with a hinge column, can come up with telescopic, they can have flying lanterns if they want. So it's really about them designing it. The key bit about the South Wales project is they have to do ultimately it ends up becoming a 40 page document. So they need to talk about health and safety and maintenance, all the stuff that we would do as engineers. But they deliver that. In April ⁓ 22nd we had an award ceremony at the back of that and then it was brilliant because the school that we engage with, Bishop Vaughan, which are coming to the event tomorrow, so all the way from Wales we have a few students, they have won best written report of the whole of the competition so it was brilliant. They thought about all the engineering considerations we would have as engineers. They come out with working models. One the students had 3D printed a telescopic column, put a motor on it and it was brilliant. So I think having that sort of competence at the age of 16 and aspiration for engineering is brilliant and that's what we want. I think it is and it's inspiring those young minds at an early enough age where it might just click a switch in a few of those students' heads and go, this is something that I would actually like to do and that's what we want, isn't it? So well done with everything that you're doing on that. It's absolutely fantastic. One final thing before I let you go. What's your prediction for tonight? England, Croatia, is it? Do we ever know? Being a Tottenham fan as well, I've got nothing but disappointment in football. Who knows? Let's hope we get a few goals in, obviously start of the World Cup for us. Fingers crossed. There's got to be few England goals, I'd like to think so. I'll keep it close to my chest. Completely, we won't get too excited. Cool, thanks very much. Cheers.