30 November 2015
Today it is the Grand Launch of the IP Inclusive diversity task force. Da-da-da-DAAAA!!! Because the task force does not actually have any money, just a lot of really well-meaning volunteers, we are borrowing someone’s meeting room for the occasion, and also their staff, their cloakroom, their chairs and tables and their drinks. In addition we are borrowing their IT system, although they cannot find the part of it that turns electrical signals into sound waves, but in the grand scheme of things that is a minor detail. Let’s face it, the alternative would have been to borrow a church hall somewhere. Mr Alty, who is in charge at the IP Office, has taken some time off from being in charge in order to deliver a keynote speech for us. This avoids the need for me to put the pirate dressing-up clothes on again, about which everyone concerned is mightily relieved. All I have to do is add some bits of wittering in between other people’s talks about what the task force has been up to. I am a pro at wittering. At the end of Mr Alty’s speech, there is a Grand Ceremonial Signing of the EDI Charter, which Unlucky Gary has printed out for us on posh paper. The posh paper is absolutely not nicked from the Law Society down the road. If it had been absolutely nicked from the Law Society, it would be tied up with pink ribbon. Mr Davies’s job is to let off the Ceremonial Party Poppers during the Grand Ceremonial Charter Signing. Mr Davies is a pro at party poppers. The people we have borrowed the room from try not to look cross about having to pick up bits of coloured paper noodles from all over the floor. Next we have a seminar about unconscious bias. Unconscious bias is when your brain tricks you into believing things for which there is no rational explanation. Like when you support a football team that never wins anything, or when you agree to go for just one drink with Mr Davies. The seminar includes some optical illusions to show how easily our brains can be duped. Actually the main thing these illusions demonstrate is that the brain can be made to think virtually anything so long as you put it in a Powerpoint® slide. It turns out that the picture that looks like a face is really the word “Liar” written on its side. I realise with some discomfort that my name badge has also slipped 90⁰ and that is perhaps why no one is taking me seriously today. But there could be other reasons. We are all guilty, the speaker says, of confirmation bias. This means we go looking for evidence in support of the conclusion we have irrationally jumped to on the basis of one Powerpoint slide. We will look very hard for this evidence, even if there is little of it. We are also guilty of “groupthink”, which means that we prefer to think what the other people in the room are thinking. This sounds reasonable to me, as a survival strategy. We are also guilty of stereotyping, and selective filtering, and of course (although the speaker did not specifically mention it today) splitting infinitives. I have to say I have not met many patent attorneys who are interested in groupthink; quite the opposite, in fact. But I do know we are guilty of stereotyping (all EPO examiners are out of their minds; anything to do with regulation is the Devil’s work) and of selective filtering (before we do our strategic review, let’s get the commas in the right place) and of confirmation bias (my client sold three of his scarecrows last week, therefore they must be inventive). Apart from me, of course. I do not go looking for evidence of any kind. Evidence is over-rated. Overall it is a really grand Grand Launch Event and I am extremely dead proud of what’s been achieved over the last eleven months, despite having me supposedly in charge. We haven’t made the IP professions completely diverse yet, but on the basis of the law of increasing entropy we have every reason to believe we’re heading in the right direction. Afterwards, a few of us go for just one drink with Mr Davies to celebrate. Skilful multi-tasking allows us to manage several just one drinks at once. By the end of the evening, none of us are heading in the right direction and the entropy levels are doing my head in. But hey, it was a Great Day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
July 2019
Categories |