I have been enjoying myself! Our awards ceremony with the AARP last night was a great success and it was nice to see so many TAEN friends sharing a glass of wine. Our ceremony was in the Institute for Materials, Minerals and Mining which has the good fortune to inhabit the stately grandeur of Nash architecture in 1 Carlton House Terrace.

I gave a little talk about the history of the building (as well as the value of innovation) before introducing our speakers Angela Eagle, the Minister of State for Pensions and the Ageing Society and Tom Nelson, Chief Operating Officer of the AARP, who had flown over from Washington DC together with Josh Collett, AARP Vice President for International Affairs.

Speaking as a frustrated tour guide, it was interesting to discover that the building had been the home of one William H Choate, the US ambassador to London in 1899, no doubt hosting various balls and gatherings for socialites and politicians alike.

Various other serendipitous connections made it just the place for an Anglo-American alliance to grow and prosper. At least, that was the essence of my contribution

I am afraid I could not restrain a whimsical aside at the behaviour of some of the neighbours in later years, including a certain Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Ambassador from 1936 to 38, who apparently annoyed King George VI with (what shall we say?) a somewhat inappropriate form of salutation!

All this of course has been water long since passed under the bridge of history and mixed with the muddy pool of facts now seen as the ebb and flow of international relations.

Perhaps, now we are more conscious of the shared values and needs of our civilisations around the world. It had to happen of course - we could hardly ignore the global threats and opportunities we now face.

Global warming is one of them. World population ageing is another – or will be if we can’t deal with it imaginatively. Actually, to talk of the ageing society as a problem however, is a misnomer, as Angela Eagle pointed out.

But, if we can’t learn from one another and work together, what have we got to look forward to? The ageing society may be a success story rather than a problem, but it is still certainly a challenge.

Enabling people to stay in work longer is overlaid with all the social and economic consequences of failure, increasing dependency ratios, shortages of people to do the jobs and so on.

The stories may seem doom laden but the issues raised are real enough and common to many countries of the world. Countries that don’t have to face them now, will certainly do so in future.

This is where innovation comes in. Most of our problems around population ageing are socially created but they can be resolved by social solutions too. Social innovation around how and where we work is vital if people are to work longer and remain happy.

This is not to deny technology a place at the table either, but changing work to fit the workers, doesn’t require genius inventors.

Don’t misunderstand me – I don’t take an iota of credit from our winners. But arranging work so that it is flexible, healthy, satisfying and enriching enough to make people want and be able to sustain and meet their own economic needs, seems small beer compared with say, the invention of the micro-chip.

Actually, it may be a sensational thing to say, but rearranging work in new ways could have implications on a par with such technological innovations too, so let’s not down play the change implied.

But any employer who understands the threats and opportunities of workforce ageing is capable of devising methods appropriate to their organisation, for keeping people in work. They don’t really need prime inventors and vast investment to do it.

I won’t wax on – but do look at the winners and what they did .