The View from England: Time for iMINE

The mining industry could learn something from the late Steve Jobs, and introduce iMINE. No, not a chemical compound containing a carbon-nitrogen bond, nor a cryptocurrency miner, rather a computer game or, at the least, a personalisation of the extractive sector.

Quite apart from being a co-founder of Apple Inc., Jobs (1955-2011) was a pioneer of making technology personal.

Apple introduced the Macintosh personal computer in January 1984, and in 1998 consolidated the company’s multiple consumer-level desktop models into the iMac. At this stage, the ‘i’ was reported to designate ‘internet’ because the computer facilitated access to this exciting new world (a technical review the following year acclaimed the iMac as the first computer to bring ease of use to the rather arcane world of the internet).

Just three years later, in 2001, Apple launched the iPod (a portable media player), and followed it up with the remarkable iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010 (the device being hailed as a new category between smart phones and laptops). By now, the designation ‘i’ had mysteriously morphed into meaning ‘I’, as in the personal pronoun, because it symbolised Apple’s line of consumer-orientated products.

The mining industry can learn from the computer-age masters. We need a new message; one that will explain our importance to consumers. The delivery must be straightforward. Step forward Samuel Morse, who was the best historical exponent of simple messages; when designing his electronic code during the early 1840s, Morse needed to ascribe the simplest codes to the most frequently-used letters.

By counting letters in a printer’s typesetting, Morse deduced the frequency of their usage in common English (the highest scores went to ‘E’ with 11.3%, ‘T’ with 8.5%, and ‘A’, ‘I’ and ‘O’ with 7.5% each). As a result, for much of the 20th century, these five letters (four of which are vowels) were among the easiest to signal. Unfortunately, Morse’s code is no longer of importance as the variable length of its characters made it hard to adapt to automated circuits.

By the end of the 20th century, ‘e’ had also become the most important letter — mainly due to its popularity as a prefix to designate ‘electronic’. Now, perhaps, it is the turn of ‘i’. Leaving aside the worry that we are simply moving down the vowels (‘o’ next, anyone?), perhaps the mining industry can learn something from this lower-case love affair.

At about the time iMac was being launched, some 25 years ago, two software developers from New Zealand approached me (as editor of Mining Journal) with a computer game they wanted to develop about the mining industry. The concept was marvellous, they explained how the game would involve deciding on what metal to seek (and where), and that the scenarios would include funding exploration, the vagaries of geology, mine development and metals price cycles.

I thought the game would help educate a swathe of emerging computer-literate teenagers into better understanding the uncertainties and excitement of our sector. We could have incorporated safety requirements and environmental management. The software developers were introduced to several major mining companies for the seed capital that they sought, but no, not a dollar was forthcoming. It was an absurd wasted opportunity.

Of course, as an industry, we need to inform users of iPod, iPhone and iPad etcetera, of just how crucial metals are in the devices into which they are plugged. More than that, however, we need to be rebranded, and this new brand needs to have resonance with the public. Something simple, yet modern. Strong, yet caring. That’s the easy bit, of course. What we need now are some leaders with the foresight and determination of a Steve Jobs, or the invention of a Samuel Morse.

— Dr. Chris Hinde is a mining engineer and the director of Pick and Pen Ltd., a U.K.-based consulting firm he set up in 2018 specializing in mining industry trends. He previously worked for S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Metals and Mining division.