5 years time.....

[kevin wooldridge]

Thanks Vulpes...I'd have joined in earlier but have had internet meltdown this week ('Talk Talk' you are so misnamed!!).......Catching up by reading through the mails has been interesting and I don't think has moved too far from the intention of the thread.

I remember a couple years back talking to a colleague working as a project manager who was privately worried that she didn't possess the technical or scientific skills to cope with 'modern-day' archaeological practice. She was terrified having gone to the cost of funding her own PhD studies that one day soon the 'profession' would force her back to University to be 'retrained', at additional cost and with a loss of position and status. I suggested that all she need do was make sure employed staff who covered the areas where she felt she lacked expertise (surely what every sensible business does), but this only seemed to further undermine her opinion of her own abilities, because although she was very good at her job, she was 'unqualified' in the sense that she had arrived there (in her words) 'by accident' and not through a structured career path.

So I wonder if what the archaeologist in 5 years time requires is not necessarily every skill, but the chance to work and contribute to a team that collectively is capable of doing everything that the job requires. I like the suggestion that loose co-operatives might achieve this, but suspect it would require the complete meltdown of the current 'hex-ocracy' of large units to allow this to happen (if 'hex-ocracy' is what you call governance by a group of 6)