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One of the two cork trees

Window handle in Wivenhoe House

Elaine and Lynsey (Dawson) get an overview of today’s campus

Big Cat in library

George Bernard Shaw in the library

Asleep in library

Ivor Crewe conference centre

Robed

Just back from my first visit to the University of Essex in a very long time. I left in 1970, and went back at least once, to work with a German professor, but otherwise it’s been around 40 years. And what a joy it was.

Elaine, Gaia, Hania and I arrived last night and stayed in Wivenhoe House, basically the guts of  the university when Elaine first arrived in 1965, the university’s second year. But now the House has been converted into a four-star hotel and the Nissen huts that once ranged alongside (the SAS and the Tank Regiment were stationed there during WWII) have long been cleared away.

Today was the graduation ceremony for the School of Biological Sciences, where I had elected to receive my honorary doctorate. In front of an audience of around 1,000, we celebrated the 2014 crop of graduates – and it was wonderful to see their joy (and that of their families) as they emerged full-fledged.

For me it was a case of third time lucky. I had failed to show up for both previous graduation ceremonies, at Essex in 1970 and UCL in 1974, because I have never liked academic robing, and because I each time I did a degree I emerged feeling less qualified (because more aware of the complexity of the subject) than when I went in.

But a wonderful oration from Professor Graham Underwood set the scene, and I enjoyed addressing the audience, which was in great mood. Afterwards, we were guided around the campus by Lynsey Dawson and Gbolahan Faleye, who among other things showed us the new business school building, still emerging, which is apparently set to be the greenest B-school in the country.

What a huge privilege both to receive the honorary degree and to do so in a year when the other honorary ‘graduands’ were: Dr Jan Pinkava (who worked on some of Pixar’s biggest films, and sculpted the Big Cat that we encountered in the library), Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury (the youngest and first ever female speaker of Bangladesh’s supreme legislative body), Dr John Ashdown-Hill (leader of the ‘Looking for Richard’ project, which led to the discovery of the remains of Richard III, to whom I am genetically linked), Martha Lane Fox (co-founder of last minute.com and Chancellor of the Open University), Lord Currie (who served as Chairman of the University’s Council during a critical fund-raising period) and Professor Colin Riordan (who was Vice-Chancellor of the University for five years, before moving to Cardiff University).

I loved the sculpture of George Bernard Shaw in the library, but probably my favourite things of all were the two cork trees beside Wivenhoe House, which General Rebow brought back as cuttings from the Peninsula Wars a very long time ago.

Some years back, I had what I recall as a particularly stimulating 3-hour breakfast in New York with Niels Christiansen, the man who in 2005 had coined the term ‘Creating Shared Value’ (CSV) for Nestlé. We were both in the city for one of a series of Nestlé CSV Forums.

The company’s original mapping of the CSV agenda is shown below:
The CSV concept had been pushed into the mainstream by a 2011 article in the Harvard Business Review by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, but the former had triggered a fairly animated debate by insisting that Shared Value would replace both the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability agendas.

Though I enormously respect Porter and Kramer, I disagreed – see here and here. And now Niels has plunged back into the debate, concluding that CSV has been “lost in translation” and proposing 6 steps for those who want to create true shared value in their businesses. Recommended: well worth reading.

My new passport was stuffed into the letterbox of 2 Bloomsbury Place a day or two back. Have had to have two passports for many years, to help us cope with the challenge of getting multiple visas, while travelling all the while, but they were stuffed to the gills with official stamps. So time for a new one.

This time, though, the Passport Office had been a little stickier about giving me one, perhaps wondering whether I was using the spare to shuttle in and out of countries with malign regimes, or similar?

As it happens, I have been travelling somewhat less in recent months, for all sorts of reasons – including health issues. Indeed, BA downgraded me from Gold to Silver a week or so ago, which I should welcome as a sign that my carbon bubble has shrunk – though we have offset our emissions since the outset.

All of that said, I scarcely expected to be genuinely thrilled when opening the new passport. The first thing that caught my eye, immediately below an echo image of me on the official identity page, was the image of a tern, rendered in blue. And that struck me as topical, since I have been standing to watch the aerobatics of a tern over Barnes Pond in recent days. The first time I can remember seeing one there.

Other pages sport images of fountains, sundials, shadowed trout, a dragonfly, what is likely a snowy owl, beachside huts, a Cotswold village and the like. It truly is a wonder, a treasure, with an acorn floating over the page where you have to register the names of contacts in case of Emergencies. A sense of potential there, a great oak in prospect. In the same way, I sense that the coming decade 2015-2025, could be extraordinary. The Breakthrough Decade, possibly. So it’s interesting, serendipitous, that the new passport expires in 2025.

Moth, as I leave home – no idea what sort it is

Tapman, Old Street

Mother Earth spotted in Old Street

Front window of the new Innovation Arts HQ

Where you find fruit …

… you sometimes find monkeys

… and they sometimes find you: monkeyed

Marble Arch the next day

Gloriously interesting couple of days, involving a visit with Sam yesterday to the new office of Innovation Arts, just off Old Street, and then today, with Amanda and Amy, to see Ancora Management Consulting. Wonderful discussion with David Christie at Innovation Arts and Tom Pütter at AMC. Arrived early for the AMC meeting and wandered across to see the decapitated horse sculpture by Nic Fidian Green at nearby Marble Arch. (Not sure why the new image conversion is introducing the banding into images, but will try to sort it out.)

St Paul’s and the Millennium Eye as the sun sets

Across to St Paul’s this evening and the apparently-bankrupt-today Madison restaurant, overlooking the cathedral, for a Tesco reception. Had several great conversations, including with Barbara Young of Diabetes UK, who joined us for one of our Murray-Edmonds-directed-around-Australia speaking tours many moons ago, but forcefully reminded how tinnitus complicates social intercourse in such densely crowded spaces.

https://johnelkington.com/2014/06/8051/