I apologize for dropping out of my blog. As I remember, my last entry was my 2018 Christmas card. There are several reasons I disappeared. I guess after writing some 330 posts, I was a bit burnt out. I also was talked into doing a 5th edition of a book (Conceptual Blockbusting — Basic Books—first published in 1972 by the Stanford Alumni Association). And I became involved in new interests and new projects. I have been an emeritus professor (retired) from Stanford for 20 years, and have definitely found out what retirement means —so many fun things to do you get further and further behind !!
I am glad to say the book is finished and on the shelf. The cover is designed for Halloween (see banner above)
I wrote a short message to the people I worked with at Stanford, who are faithful users of the book, and it is below.
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Hi: A new edition of Conceptual Blockbusting (the 5th) is now in print. It continues to sell, be used in classes and executive programs,appear in different languages, and so on. The publisher talked me into doing it by agreeing to do the marketing and giving me examples of what I considered to be worthy usages (parents giving it to a kid in college, etc). I upgraded book references, since a ton of books have appeared since the last edition, and changed the text to reflect my own opinions of what is now happening in understanding and managing creativity and change. I spent a long time on the book because I became hooked on the impressive present advances in the fields now calling themselves cognitive science, in particular groups calling themselves things like cognitive creativity. After reading a gazillion books and papers, renewing a friendship with Robert Sapolski ,my favorite cognitive scientist, reading his sensational latest book labeled “Behave”” sitting through his famous spring course (Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology which everyone should take), I concluded that there is a large amount of really interesting stuff being discovered that bares on creativity and change, so the slip into “neurodesign”, at Stanford is well timed. But the bad news is that there are some long standing gaps on our understanding of areas that are vital in our attempt to understand the details of functions in the brain and nervous systems as far as creativity and change are concerned (consciousness, curiosity, the emotions that guide our problems solving, etc.). I will continue to drink coffee with Sapolsky and try to convince him to tackle creativity, and to read what the cognitive scientists are up to, but hey, I am 85, have been retired for 20 years, and have a continually growing and interesting bunch of projects and interests to work on, especially rescuing unloved antique machinery. In a book written way back in 1992 by Finke, Ward, and Smith, entitled Creative Cognition ( MIT press), I am classified as having a “pragmatic” approach to creativity. Guess so. but as you can see in this new edition of Creative Blockbusting.,I am becoming lured a bit more toward the “scientific” approach. Have fun looking through the book, Jim |
I will continue to discuss the areas I have in past posts, as in my mind they all interact. And I will hopefully give you new things to think about and use to manage your own or other people's creativity and adaptability to change. I will initialy be writing a couple of posts a week in hopes of reaching people who have given up on me, and then revert to once a week. The next post will explain how the various books I have written fit together, and the following one will bring up the topic of creativity and change in large groups, for instance nations and religions. Now is a good time to witness its nature and problems.
It’s good to be back.
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