First published in Voice, Journal of the Communication Workers Union, May 1997

Lurking just beneath the surface of Peter Cochrane there is a strong sense of irony and fun. Which is just as well. Because without an undercurrent of humour, a meeting with the Head of Advanced Applications and Technologies at the BT Laboratories at Martlesham Heath in Suffolk would be a pretty intimidating business.

It's not that Professor Cochrane is deliberately awesome. On the contrary, he works hard at making his ideas intelligible to the lay person, both in conversation and through the countless lectures and newspaper columns he produces.

But Peter Cochrane fires out so many ideas, so much information, that there's a danger CWU president Donald MacDonald or I could blow a fuse while trying to keep up.

So, knowing that the good doctor is an enthusiastic skateboarder and a Star Trek fan is reassuring. Like remembering that he has observed that the difference between a laptop computer and a newspaper is that "no-one takes a laptop into the toilet."

We meet Peter Cochrane on a typically busy day at the Martlesham complex, workplace of some six and a half thousand people and what BT's publicity material calls with some justification its "hot-house of invention, where we've brought together world-class engineers and scientists to create the future of human communication."

Today, the company has brought together executives and line managers from across BT to look at, and touch, Innovation 97. Not a mail order catalogue, but a showcase for the latest ideas being developed at Martlesham.

For the head of advanced applications and technologies, it is an opportunity to meet lots of people. Peter Cochrane clearly likes meeting people. "I experiment with going physically to places, and not going to places," he tells us almost as soon as we are seated in his office. "I go to places for a purpose, to make friends and form relationships. If I know the people well, I try to avoid travelling.

"Meeting people involves building trust. Things like eye contact are important, for instance. But once you've formed that trust, then you can do a lot more electronically."

Much of his life is lived 'on-line', connected through the Internet and technology to a whole community of people who take an interest in his ideas. And in whose ideas he, too, takes an interest.

Many of those people are in BT. But they would be. Aged 50, Peter Cochrane joined the GPO in 1962 and was employed as a linesman and maintenance technician until 1966. "When I came into this business, I used to dig holes. I was very good at digging holes, putting up poles and all that," he recalls.

The reminiscence is not aimed at establishing credibility, just included as part of the detail of who he is.

"I got to the point where I needed to know more. I was learning nothing and things were becoming repetitive.

"I could see a future which was just going to be the same. I had a desire to get educated. So I resigned and went off for five years."

Those five years began an odyssey which has earned him a seemingly endless list of awards, including four doctorates (two of those honorary). He also has a single 'O' level. This, too, appeals to his sense of fun.

It's not really possible to interview Peter Cochrane. Not that he won't answer questions, but he's so busy firing out ideas and opinions unprompted that it is hard to get the questions in.

So what follows for the next several hours is largely a series of mini-manifestos, punctuated by us with the occasional prompting as he glides from consideration of passports - " a sixteenth century document, and someone actually has to sit and look through four hundred of these every time a jumbo jet lands" - to politicians - " their level of understanding of technology is zilch, and these are the people who are going to make the decisions about education and the future of the UK on the basis of no knowledge about anything."

In between, he reminisces with Donald about shared acquaintances. Indeed, we discover that a leading member of Peter Cochrane's team, Mick Robson, was a member of Donald's (former) union branch in Newcastle. The atmosphere soon takes on some of the character of a lunchbreak at a CWU conference.

And, passing around the Martlesham complex the former linesman exchanges warm greetings and anecdotes with a wide cross-section of BT staff. "I want to come to work every day and work with interesting people on exciting projects and change the world," he tells me without pomp. "With the least amount of hassle and angst, and have fun generally. That's my work."

So, is he a man with a mission? "Yes, I want to change the world in a positive direction. I do not want to waste my time or energy. I would like to have made a real contribution to progress by the time I expire."

His future vision of the workworld under 'new technology' might seem a little optimistic. To those who fear the information revolution is simply taking their jobs away to no good purpose, Peter Cochrane says: "Get on board. There are plenty of new jobs with the new technology. Industry cannot find enough people with the right skills in the UK, we are having to import them from abroad."

While not everyone will be comfortable with Cochrane's future world view - " do we want a nation of basketweavers where everybody is employed doing low-level jobs, or do we want a nation where we have people doing high-level jobs?" - there can be no doubting his sincerity and concern in tackling the problems of our planet and its people.

"Yes, technology is, of itself, morally neutral. It is our inability as a species to organise the technology and ourselves that causes the real problems. We should be modelling the society, predicting the future, helping and guiding the decision makers in advance of technological change introducing unnecessary tension into the workplace."

Perhaps the nearest he comes to indignation during our peripatetic conversation is when he almost intones the statistics of world energy consumption: "In the US, they use 8.5 kikowatts per person, in Europe it's 2.5 KW, and in Africa it is 60 watts. If we all consumed 8.5KW, we would all die," his voice rises slightly. "I mean, come on guys, there's something wrong here."

He doesn't get indignant, but he is quite firm, about paper. In BT, he doesn't use it. For writing on, that is. Anybody in the company who wants to write to Peter Cochrane must do so by e-mail if they want a reply.

He says they'll get a reply within twelve hours. And it's probably true. I e-mailed Peter Cochrane at 7.52 the other morning. (Get a life, you sad git --ed.) His reply was on its way to me 32 minutes later.

Gathering information about Peter Cochrane is unreasonably easy. His site on the world wide web - http://www.labs.bt.com/people/cochrap/ - contains more information about one individual than most people could possibly want. Egotism? Unlikely.

If you provide on your site a 'brief biography', a 'very brief biography' and a 'very, very brief biography' to be accessed by anybody who wants to know about you, and particularly for those chairing seminars who may need to introduce you to an audience, then you're probably simply helping to make things easier, trying out a different approach.

Peter Cochrane says that he and his team are engaged in finding out what goes on, and what works. And, it slowly dawns just what Peter Cochrane really is: an experiment.

"I've done a lot of studies on myself. I have had a psychologist live with me for six weeks. We went through my life, what I do, my attitudes, the way I manage, the way I frighten people, the way I encourage them, how I should modify my behaviour.

"When he'd done, I got him to present the entire report to all my people without me there. I learnt a lot from it. This is truly an experiment. I am just trying to find out what works, and what doesn't."

It's life, Jim ... but as we know it? He's certainly a lot more than a skateboarding doc.

Eddie Barrett