From Da Vinci to Ozone: The Art and Science of Water Storytelling
Did you know that water isn't just vital for life but also has its own story to tell—a story that could solve some of the world’s biggest challenges? Yet, this narrative often goes unheard, leaving opportunities for change untapped.
In this episode of Liquid Assets, host Ravi Kurani dives deep into the transformative potential of storytelling in the water industry with Jim Lauria, VP of Sales and Marketing at Mazzei and a passionate water advocate. Together, they explore the art of weaving data, emotion, and engagement to highlight water’s vital role across industries and everyday life. From unraveling Leonardo da Vinci’s ingenious water-inspired designs to modern technological innovations, this episode is a treasure trove of insights.
Jim shares how effective storytelling can bridge the gap between awareness and action, showcasing his success in integrating storytelling into Mazzei’s projects, from mining archives for compelling data to creating impactful presentations that resonate globally. He emphasizes the role of humor, emotion, and meticulous audience understanding to craft narratives that inspire. Whether it’s turning data into engaging stories or using clever analogies, Jim’s insights are a masterclass in connecting hearts and minds.
This episode is not just a conversation but a call to action—encouraging entrepreneurs, innovators, and water professionals to reimagine the power of narrative in creating solutions.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
- How Leonardo da Vinci’s fascination with water inspires modern innovation.
- The role of storytelling in solving water industry challenges.
- Why integrating data and emotion creates compelling narratives.
- Tips for entrepreneurs in the water sector to engage effectively with their audience.
- How Mazzei uses storytelling to transform global water projects.
- A surprising connection between steam engines, coal mining, and water.
Listen On:
Watch the interview:
Meet Jim
Jim Lauria is a passionate water industry professional with over 25 years of experience, currently serving as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Mazzei, a company specializing in mixing and contacting systems for water treatment. With a background in chemical engineering and a diverse career path that includes roles as a process engineer, environmental manager, and CEO, Jim brings a unique perspective to the water sector.
Jim is a storyteller and water strategist, and hosts the podcast "Water We Talking About" and maintains a blog titled "To Know Water is to Love Water." His work focuses on exploring the connections between water and various aspects of life, drawing inspiration from historical figures like Leonardo da Vinci to explain complex water concepts in relatable terms.
Jim's commitment to improving water management globally is evident in his advocacy for better storytelling and more effective communication about the importance of water. His multifaceted approach to the water industry, combining technical expertise with a passion for storytelling, makes him a prominent and influential voice in the sector.
The Book, Movie, or Show
Jim recommends "The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention" by William Rosen. The book explores the invention of the steam engine and its profound impact on industry and society. Jim finds it particularly fascinating as it ties into the water-energy nexus, highlighting how the first steam engines were developed to pump water out of coal mines.
It not only delves into the technical aspects of the invention but also discusses the development of the patent system and intellectual property protection. Jim appreciates how the book connects various themes, including water, energy, innovation, and industrial progress, making it a compelling read for those interested in the intersections of technology, history, and resource management.
Contains affiliate Amazon links.
Transcript
00:00
Ravi Kurani
Ever wonder what your body and a water system have in common? From pipes as arteries to pumps as the heart, water isn't just life. It's the lifeblood of everything we hold dear. Welcome to Liquid Assets, the podcast where water meets innovation. I'm your host, Ravi Khorani, and today I'm joined by Jim Lauria, a storyteller, water strategist, and VP of sales and marketing at Mazzei. What decades of experience, Jim has traveled the globe advocating for smarter water management and sharing the powerful stories behind this precious resource.
00:34
Jim Lauria
As someone that supplies products and services into the water space, if we don't tell water story, we're not going to get the full value of our products and services for those services.
00:47
Ravi Kurani
In this episode, we explore the art of storytelling in the water industry, dive into how Leonardo da Vinci's fascination with water informs modern solutions, and uncover why effective storytelling is the missing piece in solving global water challenges. Get ready to see water in a whole new light. Let's dive in.
01:07
Ravi Kurani
Today we have an exciting guest for you. We have Jim Lauria, who is the VP of sales and marketing at Mazzei, and he also has a podcast as well. So from podcast host to podcast host, the podcast is titled Water We Talking about. Get the pun there? Water. And so, Jim, I'm going to actually hand it over to you. Before we hit the record button, we started talking about storytelling in water. And I know that's a lot of what you talk about on the podcast. If you just want to jump in there, let's go ahead and open up right there.
01:35
Jim Lauria
Yeah, exactly. Ravi, hey, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Like you said, podcast the host to podcast host, what are We Talking About Is a podcast. I co host with Adam Tank of Transcend Water and it's sponsored by Water Online. And then I also have a blog post. To know water is to love water, the connection between water and everything we hold dear. And so I'm passionate about telling water story because really, as someone that supplies products and services into the water space, if we don't tell water story, we're not going to get the full value of our products and services for that, for those services. It's an important part of what I do as part of my job for Mazzei and also it's part of what I have a passion for.
02:23
Ravi Kurani
And you said that you guys have brought on over 50 guests and talk a little bit more about what do you talk about in the podcast. And you had a really interesting point. You mentioned before of you've Aggregated a few through lines of what these 50 guests have talked about. Can you shine some light on those two?
02:39
Jim Lauria
Yeah, sure. So one of the things we tried to do is be a little different than a lot of the other podcasts. There's some great ones. Yours is number one. But Adam and I, we really wanted to bring on the best storytellers in the water space. And so we wanted to learn from them about how they're doing the best job of telling water story. And also, not only learn for ourselves, but also for our audience and how we can look at those. We've had people like George Hawkins shot missions, who's been with DC Water. If you've ever seen George speaker, he's a fantastic speaker. We've had Paul O'Callaghan, who did brave Blue World and runs Blue Tech Research. We've had a number of people on that really have done a good job and we've learned quite a bit.
03:23
Jim Lauria
And we can talk a lot about that, how what we've picked up and how actually I've applied it to some of the things that Mazzei's doing in the space.
03:32
Ravi Kurani
Let's actually just go ahead and jump right into that. What have you learned and what are the elements of a good story?
03:36
Jim Lauria
Yeah, one of the things George talks about is you want to be engaging, you want to be entertaining, you really want to bring people in to the conversation. And so he's been the master. Another person that we learned quite a bit from was Megan Glover of 120 Water. And what's interesting about Megan is she came from outside the water space. And one of the things that Adam and I have tried to do is bring people on the show that come from outside the water space and how they've taken their skills, their skill sets to do a better job of showing us who have been in the water space for a while how to do a better job of telling the story.
04:16
Jim Lauria
So Megan, one of the things I learned from her, and I've really adopted it for Mazzei, was to do a deep dive into data to tell a better story. So to build case studies. And what we did at Mazzei was we basically went out and went into our. All our archives, went into our project folders, our customer database, our CFD modeling database, our archives there. And then we actually went into some of the trade association information externally and we captured that information and we built a really good story about some of our ozone technology and how it's applied in the municipal water space. And it's really lent credence to our technology. I've been asked to speak. I was in Milan in July to speak to Europeans about our technology. I was in Kansas City to speak about to the North American people.
05:11
Jim Lauria
And then next June, I've been invited to go tokyo to speak about the technology in Japan. So using all that information, doing this deep dive into data, we really found a great, compelling story about why we had benefits with our technology.
05:28
Ravi Kurani
I love that. And it's so interesting you say that because a lot of the guests on this podcast have mentioned that water in particular has a storytelling problem. It's such an important thing. It's what we need for life across the world. Right. Funnily enough, we had Adam on the podcast, and I was going to use the word transcend. It transcends all of the political issues, the global, the kind of geographic issues, because as humans, we just need water. But it's so funny. And that's one of the reasons I started Liquid Assets is people just don't understand, really, what is water, Right. They think about flushing the toilet. Where does that water go? I turn on the tap. How do I get clean water?
06:06
Ravi Kurani
And when you look at Silicon Valley, right, and a lot of the startups that come around, storytelling is a big part of how we build companies. And so those two examples that you said are so to the point, right? You want to be engaging from what George said, to summarize, and then Megan, on making sure that you're taking the data so you can actually be convincing in telling people what they need to hear, what you're trying to actually tell them. What are some of the other tips or learnings that you've gotten from the folks that you've interviewed?
06:36
Jim Lauria
Yeah. So one of the things that we talked about was the being part of trade associations. I mentioned a little bit about how you can use data that you collect from trade associations. But one of. One of the things that I find is that a lot of times people don't put the effort into being a member, a contributing member, committee member. And sometimes you hear people say, all I'm doing is talking to my competitors, and they're, what do I get out of it? And I found that you get so much out of it when you participate. And some of that is really good information. And I always joke when I make my presentations that a rising tide lifts all boats. We've heard that old adage. And if we in the water industry don't understand that concept, there's no hope for us.
07:25
Jim Lauria
I mean, that's something that's really part and parcel to what I feel is important. And as you said, Ravi, that my part, my. My blog post is to know water is to love water. And I've written a number of posts about water is life, water is health, water is food, water is energy, water is money, water is technology. I've tried to get that through line that if you look at anything you're involved in, it's part and parcel to water is part and parcel to that particular subject.
07:56
Ravi Kurani
Let's actually pick apart maybe one or two of those blog posts because I think those titles are really interesting. Do you have a favorite or one that kind of resonates with you that we can unpack right now?
08:06
Jim Lauria
Yeah, my most recent one is Water is technology. Right. You don't think about that, but in a couple of different ways. So first of all, if you think about your cell phone, right, that's my. There's about 60 to 80 mined products, produced products, glass, gold, cadmium. When you talk about all those things, water is a very important part of all that manufacturing process from the wet beneficiation of minerals. In a former life, I was CEO of a mining company. So I know full well how much water plays in mining, not only from the processing side, but also when you do the mining, you have to regrow the trees that you take out. So dust control. A lot of mines are in very distant locations. So you have to get water there for the camps that for the people. It's. You go down there.
09:01
Jim Lauria
So that's the first one. Then you talk about just the fact that anytime you post something on Facebook or make a phone call or send an email, you're moving electrons. And moving electrons creates a lot of heat. And so those server farms, they need a lot of water to cool them down. And that's another part of it. And then if you look at the flip side that things that we're trying to do with water and technology, the whole digital space around managing water, about trying to control. If you. If I always look at a. A water system as a human body, right, You've got a pump, right? The heart, you've got pipes, the arteries, filters, kidneys. You've got disinfection, which is your immune system. But the weakest part right now of that system is the brain, right?
09:55
Jim Lauria
The control logic, the information flow, sensing all those different things. We're getting better with sensors, right? We've got visual, optical sensors that can see to turbidity. We've got acoustical sensors that can heal leaks. We've got PH sensors that kind of taste the water, its acidity, its basicness. We're getting much better at the control logic and the intelligence that we can do to tie all those systems together to make a fully functioning system.
10:30
Ravi Kurani
I love that analogy. And just resummarizing what you said, it's interesting how we don't think about how much technology does use in terms of water. Right from the mining to we. We totally don't think about how posting a picture on Facebook or ChatGPT OpenAI. There's a ton of rack space and amount of processing power that's needed. And also the cooling. There's a lot of water used in that entirely. And I do want to actually poke on this idea of this analogy of water as a body and tipping on the brain a little bit. I actually interviewed Sey from Varuna AI a while ago and he had this really interesting analogy of how telecom and electricity or the electrical grid are always decades ahead of water. And you can see how we have the brain built up in telecom and the brain built in electrical.
11:25
Ravi Kurani
But water still is very primitive in that standpoint. And interesting. Through lines between an interview that I had earlier to what you just said right now, if you were to pick your second favorite one, what would that be? That's. I love your blog post. Just for the audience.
11:38
Jim Lauria
There's a lot of good ones. Water is healthy, but water is food, right? If you really think about it's the. It's the basis of growing our food and being able to not only irrigate our crops, right? You can get. Sometimes you can have water coming from the sky. There's a lot of places that don't need irrigation, but pumping groundwater, right? And surface water. And from the other side, we got to be careful because we need the nutrients to fertilizers to fertilize the food. But if we put too much on, that becomes runoff goes into bodies of water. We had Lake Erie, you've got phosphorus and nitrogen going in and algae plants, they love that stuff, right? And they go wild.
12:23
Jim Lauria
And then they create cyanotoxins that can cause real problems like they did at Lake Erie and almost shut down the drinking water plant in Toledo. And we really have to be careful about how we manage not only the output of water, but where does that runoff go? Goes into the ground, right? And then you've got blue baby syndrome from too high in nitrate concentration. So managing that water extraction and managing that water where the runoff goes and how it's managed, that's an important part of our food source. It's something that we don't always think about, but I think it's really important to realize that. And then the amount of wasted food. Right. Every amount of wasted food that goes into a landfill is something that water, we use that we used water to grow that food.
13:12
Jim Lauria
Okay, one, and number two, we're putting in a landfill that's going to contaminate some, potentially some other groundwater surface work. It's something that again, I try and make sure people understand that overall connection.
13:26
Ravi Kurani
I always like to dig deeper into the why. So what's the why behind Jim? Why do you write this blog post? Why do you. Are you interested in storytelling?
13:34
Jim Lauria
Yeah. I started my career as a chemical engineer and I got my degree there and I was started as a process engineer, production manager, environmental manager in the sugar industry. Start. So kind of food started there and was responsible for water and kind of followed it. And I just. It was something that I had a passion for. I have a passion for writing so I could combine the two. And the other thing too, Ravi, is that I had. I'm a big fan of Leonardo da Vinci. I grew up following him and he had a lot to say about water. And I wrote a blog post about the lessons we can learn from Leonardo about water. A lot of his paintings have water themes that people don't even recognize. If you look at the Mona Lisa in the background, there's a painting in the background.
14:24
Jim Lauria
Most people just wonder about her smile and who she is. But there's the Trebia river right behind her and people don't recognize that. But he had a lot to say about hydrological cycle, about putting his design of cities was that you put the people at the top and then you put the farms, the cattle, the textile mills, all those things below them so that water flows downwards and then the wastewater gets carried away so that people don't get the contaminated water that they might have if they live below. He's always experimenting with water. He designed a water driven alarm clock, a submarine before people could even think about it. Some military aspects of water. He designed some scuba gear. Early inventions around scuba breathing underwater. He was my hero and so I followed him quite a bit.
15:19
Jim Lauria
And I guess part of that is why I become so interested in water.
15:24
Ravi Kurani
Wow, that's really interesting. I didn't know da Vinci was so connected to water. We'll have to. I feel like that in itself is a deep dive. I'll have to pick your brain after this so we can add another.
15:36
Jim Lauria
I'll send you the post. I wrote a couple of posts about it and I've given some presentations just on that. Showing the photos, showing some things around his whole concepts of why he did so much work around it. He also came up with the idea that the earth, the human body, is a microcosm, the earth is the macrocosm. And he's always compared the two. So part of my philosophy around water systems compared to the human body comes a lot from what he wrote about and how he looked at things.
16:09
Ravi Kurani
Alongside your kind of writing career, I see you also wrote a book, how to get your money back from big companies. We're going to talk about that for a little bit.
16:17
Jim Lauria
That's funny you said that. I'm just about to release the second edition in the next week or so. Yeah, my wife, she just. She just couldn't believe how I could go out there and just get tens of thousands of dollars back from when I was aggrieved and I had defective products or poor service. And so she said, no, you should teach people how to do that. And so it was a fun project and I did it. And I. I've kept doing it. In fact, I've got so many more letters and people have written some great reviews about it that they followed it, and airlines, hotels, all different things. And one of the things, Robert, that I talk about in writing about water is use humor, right. To engage people. And so I used humor.
17:06
Jim Lauria
I use a lot of humor in my letters to the CEOs when I write the letters about why I deserve to be compensated for my troubles. And so it's funny you brought that up, but yeah, that's interesting. I'm just about to release the latest edition of it in the next week or so.
17:25
Ravi Kurani
Awesome. Yeah, we'll need to add those to the show notes, definitely. And then another note that I have here on writing is you were also asked to peer review for the World Health Organization on their publication of drinking water. Talk a little bit about that. What's that report?
17:40
Jim Lauria
That's another funny story, Ravi. I'm glad you brought that up. So I was CEO of this mining company and we had designed a system for water purification. And I read in one of the newspapers that the World Health Organization was looking for ways to improve their efforts on drinking water. So I wrote a letter to the person and they said, look, if you're ever in Geneva, visit us at the World Health Organization and we'd like to hear from you. So I was going to be in Geneva. This is scheduled. So they said, please come By. So here I was, I prepared, I had this PowerPoint presentation. And in my mind I'm thinking that I'm going to get in front of all these people. You've seen the UN where they have the people with the translators.
18:31
Jim Lauria
I figure I'm going to be in like the General Assembly. If I prepare, like, I'm going to be in the General Assembly. And I get there and I get to the headquarters there and I walk in and there's people in, people from the Middle east in their turbans and the headdresses and African women in their colorful robes. And I'm getting excited, right? So I go to the front desk and they say, oh, your meeting is at this location. And they send me like. And it. I'm walking in this neighborhood, right? And I get to. And it's an old elementary school.
19:05
Jim Lauria
And I get in there and the person I meet with, it's just him and me, he's in a small office and he's got his desk there and he's got like these elementary school desks that I have to try and squeeze my six foot one frame into. And I take out my laptop and I was undeterred. I gave him the presentation and he said, oh, this is really interesting stuff. Thanks so much for coming in. And then I don't know, a couple of like a year later they came back to me and I guess it resonated. And they asked me to do the peer review on their drinking water book. And I was proud because I was the only American and the only businessman. There was some people from India, an academic from India.
19:52
Jim Lauria
There was somebody from a water utility in Australia, there was somebody from the Netherlands. So I was pretty proud of the fact that they chose me to do the peer review on the drinking water system.
20:08
Ravi Kurani
What's the, what's the headline on the report?
20:11
Jim Lauria
It's. It's basically Pathogen Removal. Pathogen Removal. I forget the exact title, but it's Drinking Water, Pathogen removal and Drinking Water. So something like that.
20:22
Ravi Kurani
Got it. Okay. Okay. I want to take a little bit of a left turn into kind of your day job. As I mentioned at the beginning of the pod, you're the VP of sales and marketing at Mazzei. Can you tell the audience on what is Mazzei. What do you guys do?
20:35
Jim Lauria
Yeah. So Mazzei is a company that designs and manufactures mixing and contacting systems for a wide range of water treatment systems. We're very involved in putting an oxygen species into drinking water and wastewater. Pure air. Oxygen. Pure oxygen. Ozone for disinfection. For color removal, for taste and odor treatment. A wide range. And then as were talking before about agriculture. So the company started. It was started by Angelo Mazi out of his garage back in the late 70s. He had some ideas about how you could use venturi injectors to pull in nutrients and fertilizers into irrigation water. And then the company grew. He found out you could pull in not only liquids, but also mixing gases and oxygen species. Pretty difficult to get in. You really need to do some work. And he found that these venturi injectors did really good jobs.
21:40
Jim Lauria
Almost every hot tub out there in the market has a Mazzei injector in it to pull in the ozone pools. Hot tubs is a good market for US irrigation. And then more and more, we're really recognized as the way to put in ozone into municipal drinking water, municipal wastewater. A lot of applications around industrial waste treatment, food and beverage oil and gas, pulp and paper, A lot of industrial ones with strong industrial contaminants.
22:12
Ravi Kurani
And just for the audience out there that may not know what is the benefit of putting in oxygen or ozone into. Into water.
22:19
Jim Lauria
Yeah. So a lot of it is. So ozone's a very strong oxidizer, one of the strongest, strong in chlorine. Plus the. There's some real benefits to it. So number one, it breaks down into oxygen. So you're not getting any real byproducts unless there's some bromate in the water. And then you can mitigate it in certain ways. But it's a lot of times people look at it as a better solution than chlorine. The one detriment for ozone is it has a very short shelf life. It breaks down really quickly. So you don't get the residual disinfection that you get for chlorine. Chlorine stays around. It goes in the distribution system, which is good and bad, because if chlorine mixes in with some organic materials, you get trichloromethanes, tri halacetic acids, things like that are detrimental.
23:11
Jim Lauria
But the other thing is ozone is generated on site using a ozone generator that basically it creates an electric arc that breaks the oxygen molecule and then recombines it into O3, which is what ozone is. And so you don't have to store any hazardous chemicals on site. You generate it right there. So there's advantages to ozone. It has some really good applications around. It does a good job of destroying crypto and giardia, which chlorine. A lot of times, the crypto and the giardia are resistant to chlorine to destroy them. So, yeah, there's quite a number of things. And then as far as oxygen, anytime you want to create a aerobic activity for waste digestion lagoons, sludge digesters, oxygen is a really good way to do that. And so a lot of times they're using fine bubble diffusers.
24:12
Jim Lauria
And we think we've got a better mousetrap using our Venturi injector with some secondary mixing and contacting nozzles and devices. Wow.
24:22
Ravi Kurani
Really interesting. So if I was to just summarize that for the audience, your Venturi system is better than the fine bubble technologies out there, because one just from a needs perspective, having oxygen and ozone in the water is better than chlorine. Even though the shelf stuff is a little bit lower, you guys are able to have a better kill rate, basically, of killing the bacteria. Crypto giardia. And the water.
24:46
Jim Lauria
Yeah. And by putting ozone and oxygen through fine bubble diffusers, you've got this. The time that it takes for the bubbles to rise up through the column. And so the contact time can create more of an opportunity to form disinfection byproducts than with the Venturi systems, which it's almost instantaneous. And so you don't have that amount of time where you're actually causing some of these disinfection byproducts to form like Bromate. Bromate's the one that you really have to look at when you're using ozone. And so we found that using the Venturi systems decide what we call side stream injection is less problematic in terms of forming Bromate than the fine bubble diffusers.
25:35
Ravi Kurani
I want to take a quick circle back to what we first started the podcast with. We have a lot of entrepreneurs and folks in the water industry, and the question here is, if you take a meta view at the entire water industry, what are a handful of tips that you can provide from a storytelling perspective to entrepreneurs, folks in the water industry?
25:58
Jim Lauria
Yeah, so we talked about the data. Right? So. So data is important. One of the good things that 120Water does, Megan Glover's company, she not only decides that we need the data, but also you. You talk. When you're talking to somebody about a subject, you want to get their head involved, but also their heart. And so she's done a good job of that emotional connection. She's hired a marketing guy, Isaac Pelerin, who we've had on our show, and they come up with all kinds of nice gimmicks. They. They came up with the idea to build a Lego set that shows a water treatment plant. And people love them. And they came up with some playing cards with some people in the industry that the joker, the jack, the queen, all those things that they're collectible. Right. People have them on their desk. It keep.
26:52
Jim Lauria
Keeps them in front of mind. She came up with stickers. The badass women of water. They play both sides, right? They play the emotional side and they play the intelligence side. So that's one thing we talked about trade associations. We had Joe Zubak on Good Friend of Mine, and he said, never give the same presentation twice. Know your audience, do a thorough analysis of your audience. And we practice that. Adam and I practice that on our podcast. And as you have, you've done a really thorough job of knowing who I am and asking questions around that same thing with your audience. Understand who you're speaking with and tailor your presentation to who you're actually presenting to. Don't have a canned presentation. And we talked about use humor. It's always a good thing to get people to chuckle and laugh.
27:45
Jim Lauria
It brings more humanity into the. Into the presentation. So those are a lot of the things that we've learned to really use in our. In our pot, in our podcasts, in amazing presentations. And then one of the things, as I mentioned before, if hire people outside of our industry, look at people. There's people out there. Kelly Deering Smith, she was a former anchor woman for a news channel. She's with Louisville Water. She's one of the. She's their chief marketing person. So she uses that talent that she had back then. Andrea Hay of Green Bay Water, she's a former newspaper reporter. And using her skills around that's some of the things that we've learned through interviews. And those are the tips I can give to water startups and to the people that run water companies in general.
28:41
Ravi Kurani
Jim, that's really interesting you say that because your story in itself too came. You were a CEO of a mining company and you were from outside the industry. What made you make that jump to come into the water industry for folks that are not in water and are considering it?
28:55
Jim Lauria
Yeah. So as I said, I was always a process guy and I had a long career in really a lot of the things that water uses. So in the sugar industry, I was very lucky. As a young process engineer, we had activated carbon ion exchange evaporation, wide range of filtration technologies. And then I went from process engineer, environmental manager into sales and marketing, selling filtration products. I had the enviable job of traveling around the world and visiting all the breweries throughout the world to make sure they were filtering their beer properly. So that gave me a lot of experience in sales, marketing, and then just moved up into my career in corporate world. But I always wanted to feel that I was doing something more than just, you know, a corporate job.
29:46
Jim Lauria
And when I got to the CEO level, I decided that, okay, I'm going to make this switch to dedicate myself, my process knowledge to the water space. And that's what I did. And I'm really glad that goes back, you know, over 20 years ago, 25 years ago, that I made that change and haven't looked back. And I'm really glad I did it.
30:10
Ravi Kurani
And if you forecast from today, for the next 25 years and you had a magic wand to wave, what would you want to happen in the water industry looking forward 25 years?
30:20
Jim Lauria
Yeah. So both sides, right? So from a general public space to people recognizing the value of water and what it means to their daily lives. So that's important for us in the water space to do that. And then the other things, looking forward, obviously we talked a little bit about it. The digital space, how do we tie the hardware? We've got really good filtration systems, we've got really good disinfection systems. How do we tie them all together with the sensors? Real time monitoring, right? Real time. Hey, it's happening now. It's not like we're testing it and then we have to make some adjustments. It's. The adjustments are made on the fly right now. So that's the important one, the design work. Right.
31:05
Jim Lauria
Digitalizing that so that it doesn't take a long time to design systems decentralization, how do we make these smaller and more decentralized rather than taking all our water and collecting it and sending it one place to treat. How do we treat it on site at the various locations I like to look at. From industrial aspect, I like to look at industrial plants as their own watersheds. So if you look at, let's say a brewery, so you've got a brewery sited, you bring it in water, you're using it to produce the beer, right? You've got some wastewater that's coming out, you've got water to process internally, you've got rain that comes onto the site as runoff. How do you put that all together as its individual watershed and be able to manage that water so that it's.
31:59
Jim Lauria
And I don't know if we're going to get there. Zero liquid discharge. How do you do that. That's some of the things I'm seeing going forward. And I think it's important. I'm very optimistic about where it's going. It's fun to be part of that space.
32:13
Ravi Kurani
I have one last question that I ask every guest on the podcast, and that is, do you have a book, a show or a TV show or a movie that has changed your outlook on the way that you look at life either entirely or the world of water?
32:27
Jim Lauria
Yeah. So I read a lot of books. I've got on my pod, on my blog, I've got the list of my top 15 water books. And on my website, I've got the 50 water books that I talk about. But the one I'm reading right now is really an interesting one. I got it on my desk. It's called the Most Powerful Idea in the World. And the subtitles, A story of steam industry and invention, and it's about the invention of the steam engine. And we talk about the water energy nexus. That's where it is. And people don't know the reason that. And it was. There was a lot of people working on it over time. And the place that really is credited is in Great Britain. And the first steam engine was really.
33:13
Jim Lauria
They tried to invent it to pump water out of the coal mines. So if you think about that, you're pumping, you're using steam to pump water out of the coal mine so you can get more coal, so you can produce more steam to produce more, to pump more water. It's a vicious cycle. Right. But it's a very fascinating book. It's not only about the invention, it's also. It was one of the reasons they started the patent concept of invention protecting intellectual property. So it's got that backstory behind it. It's quite an interesting book. I'm really enjoying it. So that's one of the books I'm reading now. Yeah, I'm a big fan of books. Avid reader. And you can't be a writer unless you're an avid reader, right?
34:00
Ravi Kurani
A hundred percent. Jim, thank you so much for coming on Liquid Assets. And for the guests out there, you can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts. That's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, which is now turning into YouTube. And. Or you can find us on Instagram, TikTok or @liquidassets cc. Jim, thanks a ton.
34:20
Jim Lauria
It's my pleasure, Ravi. I really appreciate it. And it was very enjoyable conversation.
34:25
Ravi Kurani
If you want to listen to Liquid Assets, you can find us at Liquidassets CC or anywhere else you get your podcasts or on YouTube today.