Michael Willmott joins Volterra
We are delighted to welcome Michael Willmott as an Associate of Volterra. We have known Michael for many years, through his time as Deputy Chairman of the Henley Centre for Forecasting and as co-founder of The Future Foundation, now part of FTSE 50 company Experian. Michael is one of the worlds' leading authorities on the interpretation and forecasting of social and consumer behaviour - his widely acclaimed books Citizen Brands and Complicated Lives demonstrate his skills in blending academic thinking with commercial realities. Having left the Future Foundation Michael will be helping Volterra to develop its work on consumer markets including understanding how social networks affect consumer decisions.

The May 1968 events
Remember these? If so, you show your age! The monthly liberal magazine Prospect revealed the median age of its readership by running a big feature in its May issue on the topic of '1968: liberty or illusion?'. Paul contributed a piece critical of the 1960s and their legacy. It reads even better when translated into French, as a leading French blogger has done here.

North East’s economic problems are network ones’
The North East is England’s poorest region, and decades of conventional regional policies have failed to solve its problems. Paul and Bridget led an invitation-only seminar, sponsored by One North East, the region’s development agency, at the Institute of Advanced Study in Durham. They argued that the problems were basically network ones. The links in the labour market network are too sparse, leading to large numbers of workless people, detached from the economy. The regional and cultural links between firms are too strong which actually discourages innovation – a seeming paradox which network theory shows to be true.

Networks, Individuals and history
Volterra has been working this year with Glasgow University’s medieval history expert Andrew Roach, on a Knowledge Transfer Fellowship. Paul gave a public lecture in Glasgow on 'Networks, Individuals and History'. The fashion in history is to discount the importance of individuals, putting it all down to broad social and economic movements. Paul argued that the new science of networks restores the crucial importance of individuals and their actions. He discussed, amongst other things, Thomas Nagel’s important 1974 essay 'What is it like to be a bat?' One illustration he gave was the conversion of England to Protestantism in the 1550s and the role of the martyrs burned by the Catholic Queen Mary. Read the full article or download the presentation slides.