Sam and Patrin

One of the saddest monuments in London is the memorial fountain to Diana, Princess of Wales, which I pass on my cycling journeys to and from SustainAbility. Stripped of the people - particularly the children - who used to paddle in its rivulets, it now seems a desperate waste of space. But today I spotted a crow playing there, which in the dark light of the Ted Hughes plaque I saw at Highgrove a few days back made me think there must be a dark, feathery thread running through all of this somewhere.... more >

WWF at the Institute of Directors

After a day in the office, I made my way across to the Institute of Directors, to celebrate Christopher Ward's last day as Chairman of WWF UK. Quite humid, but good to see people like Christopher, David Nussbaum, Tessa Tennant, Camilla Toulmin and Bob Worcester. Then, as I walked home by Barnes Pond, I snapped this - which rather caught the slightly Bocklin-like 'Isle of the Dead atmosphere. Somewhere a woodpecker was calling.... more >

Hughes plaque at Highgrove

Elaine and I drove across to Tetbury this morning, albeit with difficulty - there was a long tailback before we got on to the M4, because truck had hit a car, or vice versa, the ensemble blocking two lanes out of three.  We ended up having to drive significantly faster than I would have liked to get to the Calcot Manor Hotel in time for me to begin my speech at 11.00 at an event organised by executive coaching firm Praesta.  After an excellent lunch at the hotel, we were all coached across to Highgrove to see what Prince Charles and his gardeners have achieved there.  ... more >

Blank canvas

Yesterday was my fifty-ninth birthday, which Demon chose to celebrate by cutting off my Internet connection, so I had to spend much of the morning calling various points in India.  In the afternoon, Elaine and I went across to the Medici Gallery in Cork Street, where my sister Caroline has exhibited - and where today we bumped into one of my favourite artists, Paul Slater - and his wife Sophie.  They were in the process of helping to hang a new exhibition there, including a number of Paul's paintings.  Oddly, I had emailed him a couple of days earlier, to see if a painting he had done for the Financial Times colour supplement was available for sale, but it had already gone.  Showed a woman in a diver's suit, with a giant octopus behind, and she was drinking a glass of champagne, underwater.... more >

Away Day 2

Day 2 of our Volans team retreat continued in the spirit - and at the pace - of Day 1. The sense of team and organisational identity, purpose and action priorities is building apace. Another example of serenedipity today when we met someone else in the building who had come across our work from a very different angle, had decided to get in touch, but had no idea we were now neighbours. Rather more pictures of me today than is normal - or perhaps desirable - because Sam got hold of my camera. In the evening, we invited Will Rosenzweig of Physic Ventures to join us for dinner.... more >

Our Magic Garden

A dozen of us (Charmian Love, Sam Gray, Martin Hartigan, Pamela Hartigan, Sam Lakha, Mark Lee, Geoff Lye, Astrid Sandoval, Kevin Teo, Sophia Tickell, Elaine and I) spent the day at 2 Bloomsbury Place, our new Volans office, the first of two Away Days. Part way through, Elaine spoke to someone from the Prospect office on the floor below - and discovered that, in addition to the building's own garden, we have access to a quite extraordinary magic garden at the back, which - among many other delights - contains two elephant sculptures, presumably left by the people who were in our space before us, The Elephant Family.... more >

Decoding Bucky
How R. Buckminster Fuller conjured his own myth

Ian Keay forwarded me a fascinating New York Times article a couple of days back on R. Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller.  Fascinating to see how Fuller wove his own myth, consciously or not.  Ian had introduced me to Fuller's work in the early 1960s, building geodesic domes out of matchsticks in his bedroom in Icomb.  Given my enthusiasm for these structures, our home in Barnes was lucky not to sprout a truly geodesic extension, since experience shows that they often leaked when put up by non-experts.  ... more >

Keys to our future

Wonderfully, Sam was finally able to pick up the keys for the new Volans office this morning, at 2 Bloomsbury Place. Estate agent has been typical of the breed, one of the rare life-forms one would gladly see nudged into extinction.  Has taken quite a while getting to this point - given that our initial visit with Elaine featured in an 18 March blog entry - but my sense is that having our own platform will make a significant difference for the wider Volans team.  ... more >

Human Smoke

One of the books I bought in San Francisco recently was Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker, subtitled 'The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization.'  When one of the venture capitalists I was working with in Palo Alto asked me what the heap of books I was carrying included (I had turned down a bag) and heard this title and the book's theme, he asked why on earth I would want to read another book on WWII?  Because, I said, it's healthy to explore different perspectives on a period of history you think you know quite well.  ... more >

Kurzweil, Wolf and Stern surf Wave 4

Ahead of a Volans team session at the end of this coming week, I have been trying to clarify my thinking on how I want to spend the next couple of years.  Yesterday, in ongoing conversation with the wider Volans team, I concluded that central to my mission and vision is the notion of mapping, connecting with and supporting the innovators and entrepreneurs who are at - or who are moving towards - the leading edge of the fourth wave in the model of change I began to map out in 1994 (see below for latest, summary version).... more >

Towering visions

Wonderful day spent at Ernst & Young's South Bank offices, cheek-by-jowl with the GLA head-shaped haunt of London's new Mayor, Boris Johnson, and overlooking both HMS Belfast, the forbiddingTraitor's Gate entrance to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Could watch the changing moods of the water and skies all day, alongside the constant shuttle of vessels of all sizes and purposes, but we were intensively involved in the World Energy Council project as the ongoing story of the inner London Thames unfurled around us. ... more >

ENDS & beginings

Deep, vexing irony today in that I was meant to attend (as a co-founder) a 30th anniversary celebration at the House of Lords this evening for Environmental Data Services (ENDS), hosted by Michael Heseltine, whose company bought ENDS a while back. But because we are in the midst of setting up a new venture, Volans, we have been hugely distracted - and found late today that we have been running parallel calendars, so I was double-booked.... more >

Sarah Dodds

A heavenly cycle ride in to the office this morning, with open blue skies and the traffic moderately well behaved, but then heard the news about Sarah Dodds, Director of UnLtd Ventures, who has died after falling into a coma following a cycle accident in northern France. A wonderful tribute by Rod Schwartz can be found on the Catalyst Social Business Blog. I last saw Sarah at the Skoll World Forum, then later on the day the Forum closed at an Ashoka event in London, where she went out of her way to introduce me to an American she felt could help us with Volans. She and I were due to meet in the next couple of weeks, something I looked forward to hugely. Her energy and generosity of spirit were remarkable. A truism to say she will be sorely missed, but true nonetheless.... more >

Skyscapes

There's no question that contrails are implicated in climate change, in various ways, but sometimes the skyscapes they create are wondrous things. Watched the male contrails unfurl across female clouds this weekend - and felt at peace with the world.... more >

Homo volans 1

Now that I'm once again thinking of things taking flight, thanks to the derivation of the first part of our still-evolving Volans Ventures, I am tending to see flight-linkages everywhere I go. Today, as I cycled alongside the Serpentine, I came across the preparations for the second Red Bull Flugtag. Chatted to a couple of the teams, including those sticking a load of white feathers onto their swanmobile.... more >

People, Planet, Profit

I still find it strange to see terms I have coined out there in the wider world, living their own lives. Green consumer and triple bottom line still pop fairly regularly, whereas today it was the People, Planet, Profit formulation I came up with in 1995 as a more populist version of the TBL. It pops up again as the refrain of the Financial Times Sustainable Banking Awards. The awards are a joint initiative between the FT and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the latter of which we have worked with on several occasions, most recently on SustainAbility's Market Movers study.... more >

Hania's fish

Hania, who came back from Greece just before I arrived back from Brazil, took this picture for me while there - in the spirit of my CounterCurrent symbolism. Wish I had taken it!... more >