Getting excited about diversity

2 December 2014

I am so excited!  The Baroness IP Minister Lady is coming to my meeting about diversity.  She is going to make a speech.  And she is going to bring IPO people with her.

Lots of other IP folk are coming too, as well as the man from Generating Genius who turns ragamuffins into scientists.  So now we know that CIPA is important and influential and we can do Big Things.

There are some who say that diversity isn’t a problem in the IP professions.  We already have enough of it, they say, and if we don’t it is not our fault it is down to the universities and the schools and the careers advisers.  And I say, ok then, how come the CIPA President still gets given cufflinks?  And how come our celebration dinners have three sets of cutlery, and we say grace in Latin and toast The Queen even though many of us believe more in the Biscuit Pixies than we do in the monarchy?  If this is diversity, then it strikes me it is the kind of diversity on which the British Empire was built: like, everyone is welcome; in fact joining is positively encouraged, so long as you drink tea in the afternoons and hunt foxes in the mornings and always pass the port in the right direction. 

I'm willing to bet we can improve things, anyway.  Let's leave it at that for now.