PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

The concept of independent portfolio working was Professor Charles Handy’s big idea back in the 1980s in his book "The Age of Unreason" . According to Handy, this new approach to working meant that an individual, rather than having a linear career, has a collection of careers or occupations, linked by a “golden thread of transferable competence”. There are various advantages in portfolio working. For example, employers are able to reduce their overhead costs for full-time employees and still retain a flexible resource pool of talent, whilst individuals are able to seek employment from more than one source, develop a wide range of transferable skills, and gain greater responsibility for managing their work-life balance. Unfortunately, Handy’s predictions have not turned out as he had expected but he still believes that they will appeal to large numbers of 21st century workers, with jobs continually becoming “shorter in years and smaller in hours”. As a result, more people will...

In the media industry, they say that when Rupert Murdoch speaks, everyone stops to listen, mainly because he hardly ever speaks to journalists himself, despite employing thousands across the TV and newspaper industries. That’s why his interview last month for BBC Five Live was so fascinating, not only in terms of his current political views, which both main parties in the UK have been analysing in detail ever since but, more importantly, for his outlook on the future of the newspaper industry globally. In particular, he enthused about the potential of broadband and how it will be a vast market for successful creators of popular content, especially in terms of what exactly papers will look like. Whilst conjuring up a visionary future for newspaper and news consumption, he maintained that newspapers would continue to be available in both print and electronic form. Like the paperless toilet or paperless office, the ‘paperless’ newspaper is unlikely in the near future. Indeed, the printed ...

During the past few years, one of the major concerns of citizens and businesses in North Wales is their distance from the centre of political decision-making in Cardiff Bay. Despite this, there have been, paradoxically, considerable successes in the past six years, and it could be argued that these successes have been achieved because of the lack of governance from Cardiff. In this respect, distance from the Assembly and the headquarters of its sponsored bodies have allowed the region to "get on with it" and to develop its own economic identity. Whether this will continue under the new regime following the merger of Assembly Sponsored Public Bodies in April of this year remains to be seen, as many critics of the current Government would argue that there is creeping politicisation and centralisation of public life within Wales, as we have seen recently regarding the different rows involving the Arts Council for Wales and the Welsh Language Board. With the demise of the WDA, WT...