Lots of interesting discussion.

• About the need for the infrastructure to serve all.
• About the problems of paying higher bills if you are not on line.

Then there was fascinating post talk discussion.

• About getting wi-fi free on council estates
• About finding the app which fits old people and drives them on line in huge numbers (and not looking to institutions to develop it).

Then there was depressing discussion

• About how having an older population means we have a greater proportion of people waiting for death. (I know what the audience member meant – that we should talk about death more openly – but surely we should accelerate to the end).
• About wanting courses to get older people on line and forlornly saying that was unlikely with the budget cuts (when are we as a generation going to cotton on that real learning does not have to be done to you in a class room, that to learn IT you have to learn to play, and not just with the technology but with your ability to make your point in 140 characters and not five pages of A4)

But the lasting overnight thought is that we as a generation have somewhat messed up and handed on a pretty huge challenge to our successors and there we were demanding more. More inclusion, more courses, more apps, more and more and more. Had I been a young person in the audience last night I might have been a little tired of us.

It’s all about how you ensure that the boards of the future protect us from the disasters over the last couple of years.

I too believe that diversity is one of the keys. Homogeneous boards are complacent and risky. Complacent because it means that the organisations are careless about understanding the modern world and don’t care enough about their brands to adapt and stop hiding behind the old excuses like: “oh but we try so hard but there just aren’t enough people out there”. Risky because homogenous boards develop group think and don’t see some things coming.

But there are two forms of diversity that always seem to be forgotten: age and language.

If all your board is of one generation it will miss things that are intuitive to other generations. And on language: how may British international boards speak enough languages to really claim to be international?

-    Julia Middleton was recently interviewed by Knowledge Peers on managing and sustaining effective boards for not-for profit organisations. You can sign up for Knowledge Peers membership here.

-    About Time is a multi-faceted campaign supported by the Government Equalities Office, Anchor Trust and Common Purpose in the UK. The campaign will increase the number of people involved in public life across the UK, by overcoming barriers that get in the way of participation. At the core of the About Time campaign is the notion that diversity is critical to a board’s ability to spot issues and trends.

When I was 23 and in my first job (utterly loving it) at the Industrial Society, I was told that some old admiral was coming to join the team and his desk was going to face mine. He was wonderful. And his desk was totally beautiful – utterly and deeply tidy. The pencils were all pointed and in rows. He used to gaze across at my desk -  a tip! He has a very lovely mouth that formed into half smiles. And that was the look he used to give me about my desk.

It must have been a nightmare for him being around me. This was a man who had been there to witness the atrocities of the Japanese invasion in Shanghai, who had been at the sinking of the Bismarck and the Scharnhorst,  been at the Dunkirk evacuation, who had liberated POW’s in Japanese camps and was one of the first into Nagasaki. None of this did I know or bother to find out. And never, ever, not once in the two years that we sat opposite each other did he ever once make me feel like the silly child that I must have been. He did though repeatedly and unsuccessfully tell me to tidy my desk. He also used to say to me – when I was off to do something that he knew I was worried about – “stomach in,  chest out”. He was a deeply affectionate man and I knew he cared for me too.

May I care for young people as he did. And may I remember as I get older that young people aren’t really much interested in past glories.