Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 225. The Industry's Daily News Source: The Story of The Cooling Post with Neil Everitt

Transcript

Episode 225. The Industry's Daily News Source: The Story of The Cooling Post with Neil Everitt · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Once again, thank you for taking the time to come and hang out with me with people from all over the world, sharing their knowledge, sharing their journey. This week, I have a really cool guest with a really cool story and journey within the HVAC and refrigeration industry, Neil Everett. He's the founder of The Cooling Post.
• 0:01
  And what The Cooling Post is, is really a collection of all information from all around the world. From different manufacturers from different wholesalers from different training, uh academies And he's really the one doing this research for us bringing us information on some of the key topics in refrigeration and hvac and Diving in deep to find us because this being an editor being a researcher is really difficult, especially when it's on a global Uh aspect and we're gonna dive in to find out the key things about what he does he talked about his journey And uh where we see he sees cooling posts go in the next few years neo.
• 0:02
  Welcome to the refrigeration mental podcast How you doing? Um, well, thank you. Yeah, how are you? I'm doing so so good. So thank you for taking the time to chat with me I've been following cooling posts for for many years now when I first found out about it when I was working out of manufacturer Trying to find more information about refrigeration at that time.
• 0:03
  It was about the f gas regulations And talking about learning about the different changes happening. That was back 2015 or 2016 And I really I I think you said that you started in about 2013 13 on this venture, but love to find out a little bit about your journey. How did, how do you start it and even get into the HVAC industry?
• 0:04
  Um, well, I guess I, I mean, I consider myself quite lucky in as much as, um, I left school at 16 with, with virtually no qualifications at all. Um, in those days you could do that, you know, now you go to university. Um, so yeah, I left school and, and I got a job, um, working for a publishing company, basically as an office boy, I was making the tea, um, and made my way up from there.
• 0:05
  But I came into the, the HVAC industry in about 1979, uh, when I joined, uh, a company that was producing a heating and ventilating magazine. Um, and I worked there for a good few years, and then they had, uh, launched a refrigeration and air conditioning magazine when there was only one other title in the UK market at that time covering refrigeration air conditioning.
• 0:06
  And um, I eventually was appointed editor of, of that magazine. Um, and it's at the time when the CFCs were going out, it was that kind of era. It was, it was, the mid to late 80s, um, and CFCs were being got rid of and the whole environmental factor had come into it. And it had gone from being like people using three refrigerants to now, I don't know how many we've got now.
• 0:07
  We can't count it. There's so many, we can't count. And, uh, yeah, so, and, and it, it, over a period of time, it became, there's always something happening because of that. There was always something happening. Um, and it was. It was quite focused. If you deal with heating and ventilating, you're looking at burners and boilers and, and chimneys and ventilate.
• 0:08
  There's a lot of different aspects. Refrigeration and air conditioning is a lot more focused. So as a journalist, I think it's a lot more easy to cover in that respect. Um, and I did go back to the, the HMV magazine briefly, um, it was one of those positions where the editor at the time was retiring and they, they, I knew they would offer me the chance or because it was their main magazine that they want me to, to go for the editor's job on it, uh, which I did.
• 0:09
  But I was never truly happy doing it. I did it for about a year or so and then I went back to the refrigeration magazine because it was, it was something that I, um, I found a lot more interesting.
• 0:10
  I think refrigeration's more interesting myself, uh, too, because that's, that's my passion, uh, because it's so, like, I like what you, you said there, it's, it is more focused.
• 0:11
  Um, and there's a lot to it though. Like when you dive in deep, there's so many different bond . Yeah. Yeah. I, and so, so you did that. How, how was that like back in the, and we'll talk about it too. So you, you were back in the eighties, you were working, you were learning journalist, doing, being a journalist, an editor.
• 0:12
  And doing all this stuff. So that, that was a big change for the industry, right? How was that for, um, how, how do you see that for the manufacturers then? Uh, there was probably a lot of the similar things that are going on today, or is it different with the changes?
• 0:13
  It's, uh, it's different in many ways, but I'll tell you back, I remember when I joined the Heating Magazine in 1979.
• 0:14
  Um, the very first press event I went to was actually a York do in London, York International do in London. And, um, I forget what product they were launching, but I remember afterwards, I'd only been there for two or three days. And, um, the publicity manager at the time afterwards, he was chatting to me and he, um, he said, so nearly said, well, what do you see the future for heat pumps being?
• 0:15
  And of course, I'd never even heard of heat pumps. I kind of just. Touched it, but I'd never even heard a heat pump. So it's all about heat pumps, even then 1979. Um, I mean, things have changed journalistically, but in the industry, although the products have changed and, and, and obviously manufacturers have had to change in terms of product development, it's become a lot more difficult because, you know, we had CFCs, and then we had to come out of CFCs, and then we had the, we had R22 at least, and then we had to come out of R22.
• 0:16
  Then into HFCs. And now we're really, we're moving HFCs to HFOs. And then from HFOs, we're going to be going to naturals.
• 0:17
  And that's a process. That's a process. And you've seen this, you've seen this and you covered this because you must have so much knowledge of the things that you've seen over the years.
• 0:18
  Because. Being a, well, you're really an investigator too, you know what I mean, you got to dive in and find the source and talk to all the different source to get the right information out there. Um, and I can just imagine the amount of work you put into some of these, I can tell, because I do a lot of research and stuff for my training programs, it takes a lot of work, you know, so I can just imagine the work that you put into to find out the reliable sources of information.
• 0:19
  How's that process work for you?
• 0:20
  I just spend an enormous amount of time on the internet, basically, um. Just digging into places and, and, and just following links and threads and, uh, the internet, journalistic, I, I don't think a lot of magazines and publishers have really caught up with it, even now. But when I was still working on the Refrigeration Magazine, 15, 20, 15 or so years ago at least, um, the internet was becoming more important.
• 0:21
  I suddenly realized that the, uh, That the internet then was suddenly a great source of material. Previously, you relied on information being supplied by manufacturers. So they supplied you with the information that they wanted you to know. And you said it suddenly and it's developed over the years, but you suddenly had a situation where you could try and find stuff that perhaps they didn't want you to know.
• 0:22
  Yeah. And how's that changed? So, cause I know that's a big thing 15 years ago, you know, Google, you know, wasn't a household name as it is today, for an example, now we can do our research and really anyone who wants to learn and dive and find answers out, they can, if they, they're a good researcher, they can find almost anything out.
• 0:23
  Uh, and that's what it does take time and how, and since that evolution, is that where it sparked you like 13 years ago? You talked about 15 years ago, but 13 years ago, you're like, man, I need to start, start my own vision, my own track. How did you get into your, the running cooling posts from there? It
• 0:24
  was, um, I'm not, I'm not somebody who's entrepreneurial really.
• 0:25
  I'm not somebody who takes chances on things. And I would have probably stayed within publishing magazines until I retired. Um, although I must admit at the time I was looking at it and I was looking at whether the publishing industry would actually see me out to retirement. But, um, I got very much involved on the internet.
• 0:26
  There, there's a football club that I follow. And it went through, well it's been through two administrations in fairness, but certainly the first administration was in, in the year 2000. And there was a guy at the time who had an email newsletter, where all the information, all the news stories he compiled, I forget how many times he sent it out, whether it was once a week or more often.
• 0:27
  But he would send out this email newsletter and it gave everybody the information they wanted. Um, stuff that you couldn't, you perhaps couldn't get yourself. He also had links to various people. So he was, he was getting information you couldn't really get anywhere else. And it was almost immediate. So if there's a big story, he sent it out in an email straight away.
• 0:28
  Um, and that I guess sparked it along the way, but then we came, the problem was that the publishing houses, and myself the same at the time, when the internet first came along, it was viewed a bit like yellow pages, in as much as, if you're a magazine, you need to have your magazine, a website for your magazine, but it was really their website.
• 0:29
  To promote it was seen as a way of promoting the magazine and you'd have your media pack up there Not as a source really of of information because they're too conflicted You were trying to put news in a monthly magazine, which is very difficult because it's monthly But you have the immediacy of the internet.
• 0:30
  So it was underused And I'll admit that I underused it as well at the time, but then in latter years Last couple of years on the magazine. I've spent a lot of time You And I built up quite a following on that magazine at the time, as I recall, but I also spent a lot of time within the analytics, looking at, What people were interested in reading about and because you never had that feedback before when you're writing a magazine You rarely get feedback from your readers Whereas you don't actually necessarily on the internet, but you can see what they're reading So you knew when there was a good story because suddenly the readers would go through the roof and now I found it was it was encouraging and it was, it was something that, that made you feel worthwhile in what you were doing.
• 0:31
  Um, and then basically what happened at the, there was a couple of sections within the publishing house that I worked for that were sold off. We were sold off to another publisher, which was about 30 miles away from where we lived. And I kind of decided then that it was time to move on. I had about, I don't know, seven or eight years to retirement age and I thought I'm going to start.
• 0:32
  So even before I, I joined there, I kind of thought I'm going to, I'm going to do my own website with, with news on it. And I kind of did it with the hope that I would just make enough money to see me through to retirement, basically.
• 0:33
  Yeah, yeah, I think it turned out really well for you because when you look at your website, you have lots of sponsors and lots of, lots of people wanting to be there because you're providing good information, but I bet it didn't start out that way.
• 0:34
  No, it staggers me, really. I kind of thought that people would want the immediacy of the news, but The popularity that it gained has surprised me. It still does. It's almost like it's something that has got a life of its own that's unconnected with me. But it's all the work
• 0:35
  that you put into it to get to that point, because not only you just started it, you, you already did 20 years of hard work, learning journalism, learning editing, finding stories, doing research, you know what I mean?
• 0:36
  It's not that it's just like it happened overnight, and then even when you start this new venture, like the Cooling Post, is that you started to put a lot of work in it. And to find those better stories to dive a little bit deeper, because I know the evolution from 20 when you started was a 2013, I believe, all the way to now, I'm sure there was multiple revisions and evolutions of cooling posts.
• 0:37
  How did it even start? So that's how it started out. What were you looking for? Um, what kind of stories were you looking for when you first started out? The biggest ones are the ones that were more subtractive. Did you go into the analytics from, from the previous years doing searches on Google trends? I don't even know if Google trends was working at that point.
• 0:38
  I'm not even aware of it now, actually. In fact, we've actually moved away from Google analytics. We don't use Google analytics at all now. Um, Because of that cookies policy. So we moved away from that. Yeah. Um, but, um, yeah, sorry. Um, we, um, the evolution of. Yeah, when it started, my idea was, because I kind of followed on from what the magazines were doing with their website.
• 0:39
  And some of them, I never liked it, but some of them used to offer the opportunity for people to pay for editorial content. And I never really adopted that, but I was looking at that. I was looking at doing a lot of video as well, and I bought a lot of video equipment. And that was good. And I did a few videos.
• 0:40
  And it was its early days, but the bottom line in the end was that on the website, you're looking for visitor numbers. So although it's great to put a video together, it takes up a lot of time. It takes up a lot of time and effort, and perhaps you don't get the number of viewers and readers that, that, that you might expect.
• 0:41
  And while you're doing that, of course, can be very enjoyable to do, you're not looking for other stories. You're taking yourself away from doing other things. I'm eating more stuff, that's what it is.
• 0:42
  Yeah. So that's the thing too, is when you started out, was it just you, is it still just you? You must have some people working on it because this is a, that's a, this is a big animal, a cooling post.
• 0:43
  So if it's just you, man, hands
• 0:44
  down, I like, I like, I mean, a lot of people know, of course, um, but I like some people to think that it's some sort of huge organization, but the reality is I'm the only one who's directly employed. I have accountants, a course, and I've got web guys, but they're all paid monthly retainers as it were, so there's nobody apart from myself directly employed.
• 0:45
  Amazing.
• 0:46
  Well, it's a big, like, I want anyone who has listened to this go and check it out. Coolingpost. com and just go take a look at it because there is a lot to it, you know, uh, which is really good and very impressive that you're, you're putting your heart and soul in it and making it look like it's a massive organization because it is.
• 0:47
  Even though you're paying the retainers, they're still part of your team.
• 0:48
  Yeah, they are. Yeah, for sure. And, and, uh, you know, I really couldn't have done it without him. I mean, my web guy's been with me. Since the beginning in reality. Amazing. He's got lots of other interests as well, but yeah, there's no way I could have done it without him because I'm too old to learn all that, all the pro you need to know to, to deal with a website.
• 0:49
  I don't, I know no longer have the use or the patience to do it anymore. Years ago, I might've done. And
• 0:50
  that's totally fair. How is, first of all, I want to say, congratulations. I've seen a few posts where you hit the 2 million page view count. So that must've felt good. You know, cause you're putting a lot of work in it.
• 0:51
  Then the page views is, is where you're really tracking yourself. The more, more page views, the more people that are looking at your, the content that you're creating. Um, how has that process over, over the years? And then I'm assuming when you hit, came closer to the pandemic, did that work out really well for more page views?
• 0:52
  Or how did that work? Because it didn't,
• 0:53
  in fact, if anything. It's very difficult to track, you know, you can look at the analytics and you can draw your own conclusions, but you're never too sure that they're right, you know, was it because less people were actually working during that period. Was it because, because you, because you're relying on good stories, perhaps there were less good stories over that period.
• 0:54
  So you never know with any period of time. Yeah. But I saw a bit of a turndown in visitor numbers during COVID, certainly during the first part of COVID during the early parts of the lockdown. I think what surprised me, I've said this to other people, what surprised me more than anything else was when The lockdown came in around the world, various places.
• 0:55
  I thought now the other, now the publishing, the big publishing houses are really going to hit the internet big time now because they've got magazines that are being sent to offices where there's nobody working. And I thought, I thought, right, you know, well, I'd had a good run. I thought, well, you know, if they hit it big time, they do, but they never did.
• 0:56
  And that like really shocked me. I thought, I thought the other magazines, the other publishers would have really made a big effort with the internet and they just never did. It's changed.
• 0:57
  You're, you're, you're able to do the change, but I think, I think that's what it is. It's hard to, to, to, to make that change.
• 0:58
  And, uh, and it's still
• 0:59
  the benefits you, I think it's difficult for publishers as well, because he's not the kind of job that I used to have arguments at the publishing house at the time, because they always said, well, you know, our magazine is, is UK based. Therefore our website is for UK readers. And I used to argue, but this is.
• 1:00
  This is the internet. This is global. We're getting all sorts of people coming into this. You can't say, well, we're just UK, unless you actually put in blocks that stops anybody else from around the world coming in and using it. Otherwise, it's If you'd have asked a publisher in those days, you know, would you like your magazine to go around the world, they would have said yes, except they would have said, but we can't afford it because the publishing, you know, the shipment, you know The, the, the amount of, um, printing costs, et cetera, we can't do it.
• 1:01
  The, the internet provided them with that opportunity to do that. And so many of them had this attitude that it was, that it was somehow just regionalized. This is our part of the, this is all we're dealing with. And it's just nonsense. But the other side of that is the fact that if you're a UK company, you're working nine to five companies, the way they are now, even now, since COVID, you know, it's very much a case of, right.
• 1:02
  You're there at nine o'clock and you go at five. But of course with the internet, you guys in the U. S. for instance, you know, you start, from our point of view, you start waking up about 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon as far as we're concerned, you know, our day is half way gone, the Australians have gone the other way, so some of the big news stories can break at 7, o'clock at night, and if you're a journalist who's working 9 to 5, You go home at five.
• 1:03
  That's it. You don't, you know, they're not given the flexibility to, to, well, I say choose their own hours, but I don't think the general publishing arena allows people that flexibility.
• 1:04
  Yeah, and you have to be someone who's driven too, because a lot of people just want to work that nine to five and, you know, a story at 12 midnight my time, even though it's the middle of the day somewhere else.
• 1:05
  I do that all the time here in Canada. I do a training, I'm training someone in Australia or I go to the UK, I still have a training someone here in North America, you know what I mean? It's two o'clock in the morning. I still got to do it, but most people don't want to, you know, spend that time where I'm sure this is kind of the stuff that you've done and there's advantages to it too, that now, okay.
• 1:06
  I work from nine to midnight to release a story and while I take my morning off, I have my coffee, do my thing. You know what I mean? So it's all about adjusting to that. And I think different journalists potentially can do that, but not, not everyone. Some people need that structure, I guess.
• 1:07
  Yeah, or they're, you know, they're not allowed to, there's no incentive for them to do it.
• 1:08
  Yeah, I mean, I have to say, when we got transferred to the new company, perhaps because we were new and they were reading the Riot Act, it was a case of, you know, it's, it's a nine to five job and, and although it was 30 miles away from where we were, it was a case of if you can't get in one day, so in other words, if there's a load of snow or the car breaks down or there's been trouble on the motorway, if you can't get into work.
• 1:09
  Then you've either got to take it as a day's holiday or, or, um, or you take it unpaid. Well, if you're in that situation, then come home. So I'm sitting at home having decided, well, I can't get into work. It's so six foot deep. I haven't got the holiday. And then some big story breaks. What am I going to do?
• 1:10
  You either, you either go, well, you either ignore the the story 'cause I'm not getting paid for this. 'cause the company's sitting. You can't do, you've gotta have flexibility. And I don't think they'll allow that.
• 1:11
  And I think that's, I think that's how the world is continue starting to change. And people see it like, 'cause I, I work really good from 8:00 PM m to 10 or 11 really good.
• 1:12
  Like I'm smashing out great work at that time. So you know what I mean? It's like how do you do a nine to five if I'm smashing great workout at eight to 11? I know, I know what you mean.
• 1:13
  I mean, I think my, my windows from nine o'clock in the morning till about 20 past, I think that's about it. You know, providing I hit that switch while everything else is fine.
• 1:14
  I'm still having my
• 1:15
  coffee at that time. Still having my coffee. So what are some of the, um, the great refrigeration stories that you feel like you've covered over the last few decades that really moved the mark in the refrigeration industry that excited you good or bad, whatever it was, but what were some of the stories?
• 1:16
  I, some of them are the obvious ones. It's great when you find an easy, what I, what you pray for is, is an easy story, a big story that's going to take you five minutes to put together. And he's going to bring in thousands of visitors. That's what you aim for. And of course there's been the various kind of announcements of company buyouts that, that bring in large numbers.
• 1:17
  So, so those are great, but then there are others that you pursue, which can take time, but at the same time. Because they inspire me, you think these are going to inspire other people as well. These are going to be of interest. I remember on the magazine, um, I, I think I was probably one of the first to write about HFOs at the time.
• 1:18
  They were, you know, the fourth generation refrigerant coming in. And I did a lengthy ish article on HFOs. HFOs, um, and information was still on the ground because you talk to some of the manufacturers and they deny any knowledge of, of what these gases were. So that was very interesting. And I love putting that together.
• 1:19
  And it was, that was great. And there's been others, some of the Some of the, um, the illegal imports, um, but also some of the other great things. I feel like perhaps I'm getting my own back in as much as when I first came into the publishing industry. In the UK, and it was much the same, I think, in the US and around other parts of the world.
• 1:20
  Initially, the magazines had all been subscription based. Um, so the idea was to produce a magazine that people were prepared to pay for. And then the whole issue of free magazines came in, where it was the adverts that paid for the, the magazine came in. And when I, as I say, when I first came into subscription, the editor was the main person in the company.
• 1:21
  On a particular magazine, even more so than the publisher and people above them. Uh, what the editor said went, basically the editor would decide he'd look after his readers and what his readers perhaps wanted to see, or what he perceived they wanted to see and to know. And over a period of time that changed because of the, the advertising based model, the, the emphasis turned around in a lot of the companies to the advertising departments then had the.
• 1:22
  upper hand. They were the ones who made the decisions. So suddenly there were things that were being, there were decisions being made that weren't necessarily for the good of the magazines. But they made money, and that was the be all and end all. And I was part of that. I was part of that process in reality.
• 1:23
  Um, but because of that, that's how a lot of companies still perceive it. I've had, I've had comments along the lines of, but you're supposed to use our press release exactly as we send it to you, you know. Because it's gone that far that, that, that some companies actually believe that we're just supposed to publish what we tell them.
• 1:24
  There are still, and I'm still anti it, there are still websites that enable companies to actually publish their own material. We used to have to go on, um, a libel course annually, or at least every other year, maybe annually. Um, I think probably to keep the insurance company happy at the publishers, but But then they enabled a situation where somebody or a company could publish a press release without anybody looking at it.
• 1:25
  They could just put it out. They could actually publish it on your own website themselves. That could be potentially libelous. And I had a case with one where it actually was libelous. Um, so I love now the, I feel I'm getting my own back against companies who go, This is what you're supposed to do. I'm going, no, not, you know,
• 1:26
  but
• 1:27
  yeah.
• 1:28
  Yeah. No, and that's fair. You know what I mean? Because you want to make sure that it's, it's the correct information to your readers and subscribers, um, and make sure it's the right stuff, right? It has to be accurate. It has to be true. It has to be valid. Um, yeah,
• 1:29
  my policy on it really is, is the fact that.
• 1:30
  The most important part of the website to me is, is the visitors coming onto it. They're the most important, um, the advertiser secondary to that. And I, I argue it on the basis that the more people who come onto the website, the better it is for the advertiser. For sure. So
• 1:31
  hands out.
• 1:32
  Well, I've, I've had advertisers who like want to insist that I publish stuff and it just won't work.
• 1:33
  Do it. The advertising is one thing, the editorial is another completely, and we won't, or refuse to get roped into allowing people to pay for, for advertorials or whatever you want to call them.
• 1:34
  Yeah, because you, you know, your reader base, you know, you understand them. You see, you see the numbers on who reads more, but well, no, but you have a good idea, you know, and you don't want to do, you don't want to put stuff that's going to, you don't believe in.
• 1:35
  And you don't, you know what I mean? Like the stuff that you, um, you don't want to get out there, you know, at the end of the day, it's, it's your, it's your brand. This is your brand, you know, and you built this and you, you want to make sure that you're bringing the highest value to those readers. It's like anybody in even social media, in websites, companies, it's all about branding.
• 1:36
  And that's what Cooling Post is. It's a, it's a brand, uh, for the industry.
• 1:37
  And I think you have to be very careful. And I think I have a responsibility as well. Um, I remember a few years ago. Well, it's happened a couple of times, but certainly a couple of years or a few years ago, somebody said to me, what's your agenda?
• 1:38
  Um, and I guess with a lot of newspapers that you look at now, they're, they're either left wing or they're right wing or they're, you know, they're, and my feeling is that I may have my own personal thoughts. But I don't want that to come across on the website, so I don't think it should have an agenda. I think it should point out things, anomalies, it should point out things that are wrong, things that I feel are right, um, and you can, you can post other people's comments, but you have a responsibility, I think, um, to give a balanced view, um, and also the other thing is, is because it's.
• 1:39
  Worldwide, you have to remember that there, there are people in countries are still using R22, some are probably still using CFCs as well. Um, even now we have, I've had a few contacts from American businesses who, because Europe has been that far ahead, we've been using A2L refrigerants for some while. I have American companies want to provide me with articles about A2L or would you like to interview our product manager about you know the problems with A2L or whatever and I go well this is difficult for me to do because we've really already covered this.
• 1:40
  In the UK, we can't really go backwards, um, and cover it all again for the US, it's difficult, um, but you have to, and we used to, like a lot of websites, we used to allow, in the early days, we used to allow comments on the, on the bottoms of articles. But we used to moderate them, so we had, we allowed certain things.
• 1:41
  If they used any kind of bad language or anything in it, we didn't, we didn't put them up. And the whole idea was that if it was okay to be published, it had to be published in its entirety. So there may have been some, there may have been some good point that I thought somebody was making, but then they used a few bad words in it or something.
• 1:42
  So you go, suddenly you can't use this anymore. But also there's a responsibility that some people have got an agenda. And you start putting comments on the bottom of articles about things. You've got other people in developing countries taking some of this on board. And, and, uh, it's, you have to, I think you have to be very sensible.
• 1:43
  You have to try, I mean, we don't always get it right, but you have to try your best to keep everything on a, on a stable footing. I think you just, I think the readership deserves that really.
• 1:44
  Yeah, and that's fair with social media today and things like that. It's there's lots of people that everyone's going to have their own point of view and different points of view and uh, keep in on a neutral base is probably the best bet for the Viewers because they're they're looking at at options and they want to see what you know what they're doing Idea could be from it or what they think of it and come up with their own decisions.
• 1:45
  A lot of the times at the end of the day, right? Because that they want to, I think, and that's what a lot of my people that follow me, they, I want them to be able to think on their own and come up with their own conclusions and, you know, what they think about certain content I put out there. Same with yours, you're, you're giving them the information and hopefully they can come up with the realization of what that means to them.
• 1:46
  And you try to ensure that it's not biased in any, in any way. Of course. Sometimes you'll get comments from, from people that others might consider to be biased. And sometimes you can balance that with, with, you know, a further comment. Um, but I think you, you owe it to the industry to, to at least give a balanced report.
• 1:47
  This is all I really do is tell people, this is what's going on, or this is what's being said.
• 1:48
  And that's the thing. And then they can, and then they can do a deeper dive if they need to. Right in, in that hopefully. Yeah. Yeah, that's the big thing. So, so where do you see, so you, so you hit 2 million page views.
• 1:49
  How, how'd that feel? I know we talked about when you were looking at your numbers and you got, oh, it hit 2 million. Like, I can
• 1:50
  remember the, the great is, I can remember when, when we had the newsletter going out and about 24 hours after it had gone out. 100 people had opened it and that was a big, that was a big day.
• 1:51
  And then I think, I think the day that when we've, when we had a thousand visitors on the website, that was also, that was a big milestone. But the thing is, the reality is that there's also a lot of spam traffic as well. So although you can quote these numbers, sometimes you look at the figures and you go, I'm not sure I really believe all of these.
• 1:52
  At the end of the day, really, although you can quote figures and we wait, we. We openly quote our figures and our, our impression is people either think they're good or they don't think they're good. It's up to them to decide. We don't wish to inflate them in any way or But I think the big decider eventually is what the industry thinks of it and what people reading it, think of it.
• 1:53
  And, and advertisers come along because they, their clients are all talking about your particular media platform. That's why they're interested in advertising. So, so numbers are important and they're good for us. And when it's big, but then even when it's big, you look at it, sometimes you think, I wonder how many of these are actually real or how many of these are people who.
• 1:54
  Who have been sucked in and have taken a very brief look and then gone away again. Um,
• 1:55
  Yeah, I see that too. I get emails from, I'm sure you get emails too all the time, bots, you know, it's just, it's just some sort of AI program sending me an email or trying to sell me something that has nothing to do with refrigeration.
• 1:56
  I'm just like, what?
• 1:57
  We've had a number, they've gone away again. There was a number, there's a couple of three that were American. Well. I'm not sure. I think they were American based, but they were basically scraping content, not just from the cooling posts, but from others as well. Unattributed, um, and scraping content off some of the news websites, air conditioning, refrigeration, heating, um, and then they went away again.
• 1:58
  And then there was one recently, very briefly, that was up that was obviously using AI. And it was, so it was scraping content. And it was using AI to rewrite the content, basically. And it made the reading very weird. It was very odd. You could see what they were doing. So, I think they're all out there. They want to get to a situation where they can just sit there and press a button.
• 1:59
  And their machines can just scrape content off of other people's websites. Use it on their own. Mix it around so they don't get done for um, for copyright. And
• 2:00
  the problem with that though, it's a refrigeration. There's not a lot of, and even HVAC, there's only so much information out there and I've, I use lots of AI.
• 2:01
  The thing is though, it cannot write what I write. They can't even, you know, and I go through it and it's like, that doesn't make sense, or this doesn't line up. It doesn't, this is not accurate. So you can scrape whatever you want at some point, maybe it'll get there. It's definitely not there at this point, right?
• 2:02
  Like that's for sure.
• 2:03
  I think like a lot of these things, I think it will be of great use in certain areas, but the people who are saying that it will. That it will replace journalists, because you'll be able to create your own stories. I, I think, I don't think that's the case, to be honest. I don't think it will happen.
• 2:04
  We, we tried it on, on a couple of stories that we had, just as a, a bit of fun. Um, a year or so ago, me and the website guys, and we tried it, uh, on a particular story. And it made it sound quite weird, but it also dragged in some information from somewhere else. Um, that, that wasn't in the original story. And we couldn't find any link that enabled it to link the original story.
• 2:05
  So you were left with a situation where at the moment we might find a bit of news, we can then expand on it. We go to various places and we can expand on the story, get a few quotes, maybe. Um, so AI would do that for us, supposedly. The problem is you've then got to check it. You've then got to go back and check that actually is this.
• 2:06
  Real, where you've got this from, is this actually accurate? So you've got to then spend a lot of time checking it. And then you think, well, if I'm going to do that anyway, why do it in the first place?
• 2:07
  So, yeah, there's going to be lots of benefits for it, but at the end of the day, you're still going to have to re edit it, review it.
• 2:08
  And I've seen it, anybody who was just using it and just shooting stuff out there is, it's not working. It sounds weird. It looks weird. It doesn't make sense. Like some of the spam you probably get. Yeah, for, for sure. For sure. So where do you see the cool? What, what do you want to happen next for the cooling post?
• 2:09
  Because your numbers continue to grow. You got great stories always coming up and you know, you're on top of it too. Like I go through the website, you're on top of the, the main stories, either in the world news or your UK news. But where do you want to see cooling posts go from here?
• 2:10
  Um, the problem with me is I've never really planned for anything really.
• 2:11
  So, let's be fair. I'm, I'm reaching, well, I've, I've passed retirement age in actual fact, but, um, I don't know how much longer I will continue. Um, I'd like, I'd like to think that, that there might be somebody who might want to take it over, who might want to, I'd be quite prepared to take on a sort of a younger journalist who was keen.
• 2:12
  for listening. Um, to take it over from us, basically. Um, but then, not many of those around. They're all working for, for content companies. They're all, um, I think the, the journalism route has gone from, from a lot of them now. I don't know how they would react. Um, so no, it's just really to keep on doing what we're doing, um, for as long as we can.
• 2:13
  I mean, the great thing is, of course, over the last few years, last, over the last 20 years or more, you know, the, the interest in the stories. Has kept everything moving, um, and now it's heat pumps. Heat pumps are the big story now. I thought you said in 1979 the big story was heat pumps. Well, yeah, I mean, exactly.
• 2:14
  Well, it isn't a while, I love it. There's one, I must admit, there's a story that I tell that I still find amusing. Is, um, back in, when I, when I first moved on to the air conditioning refrigeration magazine, Um, I went to, uh, a Danfoss event, uh, in the UK and it was the launch of their first little, uh, R134A semi o matic compressor.
• 2:15
  Um, and it was running on our 134A, and it was promoted as, this is, this is the answer to, to all our problems, you know, there is no ozone depletion potential with this refrigerant at all. This is the answer to all our problems. And in those days, the environmental group who were looking after, if you, if you call it looking after, who were involved with the refrigeration sector was friends of the earth.
• 2:16
  And there was a girl there at the time, Fiona Weir, I think her name was, Fiona Weir. And she used to get invited, I'm sure, to some of these do's, and she was at this Danfoss do. And, um, so they'd done their presentations, the time for, for, um, questions at the end. And, um, she stood up and she said, because they talked about R134A, The answer to all our problems.
• 2:17
  She stood up and she said, we don't like our 134A either because of its global warming potential. And as journalists, we all, we all turn around and go, what the hell is she talking about? Yeah, this is. We'd been dealing with ozone depletion and suddenly there were people talking about global warming and that was the next thing along the line.
• 2:18
  But at the time, it was funny. I remember us standing up and saying that it was just, wow. Yeah.
• 2:19
  And that's 3 1 1 1 34 A came out give, or Wow. Yeah. And so, so that's decades ago.
• 2:20
  That would've been early nineties. Very early 1990s, I think.
• 2:21
  Yeah. Oh, good on her for recognizing that that early. And I
• 2:22
  know you look like it now and you can laugh, but you know, it was, it was, yeah.
• 2:23
  Yeah, and then I think that's just the, the, the progress as we continue to progress and learn about how different, uh, innovations will go. Right. Because at that point, you know, that one, if there was more people like Fiona, they're talking about, it probably would have been a different story, but at that point it wasn't regulated regulators policies on none of this stuff was even thinking about it because no one was thinking that, okay, well, this is going to cause our planet to heat up as much.
• 2:24
  It wasn't as. As big as the planet is, it's small now. We can get information very quick from the other side of the world, where in the 1990s, it wasn't that easy. I think, you know what, so you had to send a letter, you know what I mean, a fax or something like that, where Now, at least there's phones and stuff you could call and tell someone, but the internet now, like right now we can go and look something up and try to dive in and spend an hour and researching something.
• 2:25
  This goes for anyone you go and spend an hour, a good two hours researching something, you're going to learn a lot. You spend 10 to 20 hours, you're going to be on, you know, becoming on an expert on that specific say word or subject, right? Because if you dive into that specific thing, you'll learn a lot.
• 2:26
  Exactly. But there's always kind of conflicting opinions and, and people have got their own agendas and Obviously, you've got the, the HFC lobby, they've got their own agenda, in all fairness, you know, the environmental groups have got their own agendas as well, and you have to recognize that they're there.
• 2:27
  I mean, my, I mean, it's obviously for political reasons, but perhaps why my one criticism of the environmental groups was the fact that I think along the way for very good reasons, they were prepared for, um, companies to come out of R22 and the CFCs and get into HFCs. They perhaps didn't have all the, uh, information they needed at that time, but although they were global warming, And although they had global warming potential, they were quite happy for the industry to move out of that because that was better than the fact that they were ozone depleted.
• 2:28
  So get rid of them. And certainly it came around when it came to HFOs. The environmental groups never liked HFOs in the first place. But I think their attitude was, if it means that people get out of using high GWP HFCs, We, we won't agree with them using HFOs, but we won't make a big noise about it. Then of course, when HFOs come in more, now they make a big noise about it.
• 2:29
  So it's created big problems for manufacturers. It'd been a lot easier in the first place. If we'd have gone from, from, uh, R22 to natural refrigerants, probably that would have been, you know, or a certain amount of HFO and natural refrigerants, that would have been the. The best step. But in fairness, the HFOs weren't around then anyway.
• 2:30
  But,
• 2:31
  and that's the thing. It's like learning who, you know, it's trying, it's a big industry. How do you move some of these big manufacturers that spend millions and millions and millions of dollars in research? And then all of a sudden now that millions of dollars goes out the door. You can't just throw all that away, right?
• 2:32
  So that's why a lot, I can see people fighting different sides. And I try, I look at it from my point of view. What, what is, what is the best for, for the people that I trying to help, you know, cause people like, cause I do so many CO2 trains, I train people all around the world on natural refrigerants, but there are some people like, well, why do you train people on HFOs or HFC?
• 2:33
  Well, those people still have to deal with it in the field. They have to go out and work with it. So I have to help them too, cause they're going to struggle. You know what I mean? So it's, you can't just say, you know, well, we can't, we can't go one way or the other. There's still people that need help. And of course, years ago,
• 2:34
  you know, going back to the early nineties and, and getting rid of, uh, R22, um, no one would have accepted any sort of flammability in those days.
• 2:35
  We tend to accept more of that now, but in those days, nobody would have accepted any kind of flammability. And that's the thing, there's pushback everywhere, there's pushback on both sides. Well, I was told, I didn't know it at the time, but I was told that, um, more recently, that after R22, they looked at R32 as being the replacement, but they only went for 410A and they mixed it with R125 to make it non flammable.
• 2:36
  Otherwise, they would have gone with R32 in the first place, but the market, the industry, the buyers, the customer, the consumers, the installers, Weren't ready at that time to deal with any kind of, it wasn't acceptable to deal with any kind of flammability.
• 2:37
  It was hard for them to deal with the higher pressures alone, let alone, uh, flammability.
• 2:38
  It took them years to realize that. And that's the same thing happened with CO2. I hear it all. Oh, the pressures are higher. It's just this refrigeration. You gotta learn how to work on it safely. Just like R 12. You had to work on that safely or ammonia a hundred years ago. It's the, it's the learning, the evolution of it, and I think there's still a long way to go.
• 2:39
  But it's I think you've got a lot of work still to do. That's for sure. Yeah But it's fun, you know, it's helping people, you know, really bringing value to others and helping people just like you do You're trying to help your readers I'm trying to help all the people that come into my community and that I train because people are It's really helping them get to their next level.
• 2:40
  That's what I do. You know, when I'm, when I'm training someone, I want them to be able to learn from me, but grow as well, right? Make those decisions, be able to, you know, think on their own feet in the field. And that's what you do. I'm not sure with your articles, you want someone to read it, get inspired and go from there, take a little bit more action on that, on what they read.
• 2:41
  I think it's also the fact of my character that I'm a nosy person, really, and I'd have been I'd have been the kid in the playground who wanted to hear all the news first, so you could go around everyone else and go, here, you'll never guess what I've just heard. I was that person. So that enables me to do that now.
• 2:42
  So if somebody brings out, you know, a new range of product with a new refrigerant, that's, I want to tell everybody about that immediately. I don't, you know, I want to be the first to tell them about it. Hey, so and so's done
• 2:43
  this. And then, then that's good. And then it's like the evolution of that is like, then you find out more, people ask questions and you can dive in a little bit deeper and so they can dive in deeper too.
• 2:44
  I love, I love that. I love that. Neil, I want to thank you for taking the time. This is, I learned a ton about what you do, ton about the cooling posts. Um, You have any final thoughts for any of the listeners out there that, that are either technicians in the field, manufacturers, end users, uh, cause a lot, all that range of, um, people listen to, uh, to the podcast.
• 2:45
  No, I'm, I'm not sure whether I would have any kind of, of message for them. Um, I mean, Obviously, I'd like to, to gain even easier and, and greater access to information because some people will try and positively keep you away from it. But then, if it was so easily available, it wouldn't be so much fun either in, in all fairness.
• 2:46
  So, so, no, that's another thing. I'd, I'd, I look at the, they talked about greenwashing coming in and again, going back a few years, I was remembering when R22 first came in. We used to run a lot of adverts in the magazine, and editorial would come in as well, where a few, where it referred to R22 as being environmentally friendly.
• 2:47
  And, they The environmental groups quite rightly kicked up and said well no, it's not environmentally friendly, you shouldn't be saying that. And they, I think through the Advertising Standards Authority, certainly in the UK, they came to an agreement where the adverse would change, so they read environmentally friendlier.
• 2:48
  R20. And now I see it, now I see it, there's now, and this will be controversial, but there's a lot of references now to clean cooling. And it kind of annoys me because I can see why they do it. It makes it feel like this is nice and cuddly and friendly. But if you, if you accept that. Clean cooling is anything that's using CO2 or ammonia or, or, or the flammables, propane, etc.
• 2:49
  What happens when they, they sort out electromagnetics or we move away from direct expansion into something else that is more environmentally friendly? What are we going to call that clean cooling then? Is that going to become slightly grubby cooling? Or is this going to become even, even cooler? even cleaner cooling.
• 2:50
  To say it's clean isn't. If you're digging minerals out of the earth, it's not clean anyway, it's clean earth. It's clean earth, perhaps. But it's not clean cooling. But that backs you into an avenue. Where do you go? Hopefully we'll get something even better in the future that will be better than direct expansion that will be far more environmentally friendly.
• 2:51
  Yeah, no, and I totally agree with you because I, I hear it now and I've seen it and I've even said it when I work for a manufacturer, Oh, CO2, it's one GW, you just blow it off. It's still bad for the environment. One GWP is still one GWP. And then, you know, all the, the work you have to put in, and there's still, you got to use power, whatever that power source is to run refrigeration.
• 2:52
  It's, it's still, it's still. I'm not
• 2:53
  sure recently, but I have been. I have had information supplied where they refer to, um, CO2 as being zero GWP. Okay, well that's it. We've salted climate change altogether then , CO2, we've s something zero. Laughing.
• 2:54
  Oh, man, I love it. I love Neil. I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with me.
• 2:55
  Nice. We'll definitely get the meetup at some point. I go to the UK once in a while. Um, how can people get ahold of you and, uh, and find out more and subscribe to your, uh, your newsletter in your.
• 2:56
  Well, look, all the information's on, on the website, so, um, they can, they can find it easily through that, and, uh, I'm always open to phone calls, that's not a problem, I don't, there, there is that kind of thing at the moment where people want to schedule phone calls, I'm, I'm, I'm not a great, I'm too old for it, I'm not a great lover of scheduled phone calls, because, because I find it a bit counterproductive, so, if somebody decides, well, Yeah, well, I'll phone you at 10 o'clock tomorrow.
• 2:57
  Go, okay. Um, and then it comes to like, call it a 10 and there's something that you need to do. And then you suddenly think, Oh, I can't do that because this bloke's going to phone me. And, and, and so if he, I always say to him, look, just phone me. If I'm, if I'm not there, if I can't take the call, I'll phone you back, you know, but just phone me.
• 2:58
  It doesn't matter. You know, anytime. Don't, don't try and schedule a call. It's like, because then I'll allow so much time for it as well. So I go, no, I can't do anything until four o'clock. Look, cause I've got this. And then the phone call only lasts five minutes. You know, it just, no, I mean, yeah,
• 2:59
  well, that's good.
• 3:00
  That's, uh, that's, that's the evolution of, of you, right? So just call me. Well, let's get it done. I love it. Head to the cool and post. com. Subscribe to newsletter. Check it out. Head to the, you know, there's lots of stuff on there. I like that. And so, Neil, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to do this and we'll see you at the next Refrigeration Mentor podcast.
• 3:01
  That's good. Thanks very much for the opportunity. Thanks for that.