09 September 2022
Mark Wharton, co-inventor at IOTICS
Who was your hero when you were growing up?
I was obsessed with big-band/jazz music as a teenager so Count Basie, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Glen Miller. There’s important life-lessons to be learned from improvisational music. Practise hard so that when you’re on the band-stand you can react to what happens. This has always helped me in business situations. Prepare for the big presentation so you can throw it away at the last minute and speak off the cuff
I was also tennis-mad as a kid, so Stan Smith - he of sneaker fame, Bjorn Borg and Ilie Nastase. Tennis is ultimately a game of split-second decisions built on top of technique and fitness. It’s taught me to deal with winning and losing and how to adjust your strategy to avoid the latter… You can play to win or you can play not-to-lose - they both work.
What was your big career break?
Being made redundant from a job I hated. It forced me to go out on my own, find my own work, set my own goals, etc. Working on your own is a great teacher as you have to do everything yourself, but it’s also a bit lonely. Working alone makes you appreciate the two meanings of the word “company”.
If you had to work in a different industry, which one would you choose?
No question these days, it would have to be sustainable engineering and environmental protection. In my spare time, I’m just starting a Repair Cafe as part of https://www.repaircafe.org/en/ to help people maintain the stuff they have and to reduce the amount of waste from consumer products that have built-in obsolescence.
What would you do with £1m?
I’d start to build a sustainable resource management system (energy, water and food) for my local community. I have solar panels and it’s quite windy where I live. I’d spend the money on small-scale generation projects such as wind turbines, water turbines in rivers and possibly ground-source heat pumps. There are ridiculous barriers to these small-scale projects. A friend was quoted a fee of £10,000 to licence a small water turbine in a mill-stream on his own property.
I’ve been a vegetarian for all of my adult life. I’d like to start projects to help people grow their own food and teach cookery skills to young people - as I think we’ve grown too far away from knowing what goes into the food we eat.
Where would you live if money was no object?
I love the west coast of Scotland and the Western Isles. Unspoilt wilderness, mountains and sea. If money was no object, I could have a helicopter to get there from places with good jazz clubs… (Oh, that’s not very sustainable is it? Maybe I’d have to sail from the Outer Hebrides to Ronny Scotts.)
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
My dad used to say “Don’t eat yellow snow” - but a better piece of advice from him that I’ve applied many times in my life was: If you can’t choose between two life choices, choose the path with the least regret. That’s helped me be brave about trying to do something new as I know I’d regret not trying more than trying - even if I failed.
On a similar theme, the early Zen philosopher Basho said: Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. There’s a lot of parallels between that and the advice of our chairman, Ian Orrock: “Don’t do things differently, do different things.”
The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?
Beatles, duh. Far more harmonically interesting and their Indian influences chime with some of my favourite jazz from the sixties. But, in reality, my answer would be neither. I’d rather listen to John Coltrane or Debussy.
If you could dine with any famous person, past or present, who would you choose?
I studied physics so obviously Albert Einstein. Or Basho - see above. I’d love to meet Jane Austen as “Pride and Prejudice” is my favourite book. Or perhaps a feminist campaigner like Simone de Beauvoir. (I wonder what she would make about the progress (or lack of it) since she wrote the Second Sex.).
Which law would you most like to change?
It’s not really a law, but I think the USA should pass the Equal Rights Amendment to absolutely codify women’s equality. That would set a beacon for the rest of the world to follow.
I’d also repeal all blasphemy laws across the world. No-one should be punished for disagreeing with an idea. In seven countries around the world it’s punishable by death. What constitutes blasphemy is also highly subjective - I’d like to have some more objective criteria if I’m going to be executed.
