Creative Environments: Issues of Creativity Support for the Knowledge Civilization Age

Citation

Wolf, K.H. (2009), "Creative Environments: Issues of Creativity Support for the Knowledge Civilization Age", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 65 No. 3, pp. 523-527. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410910952474

Introduction

This book demonstrates the numerous types of reciprocal relationships between knowledge, creativity, and documentation (e.g. knowledge+creativity↔documentation) and many more cognitive/intellectual inter‐dependencies. The authors offer so much important information in the 18 chapters that a short review is unavoidably inadequate – the contents will provide a glimpse of the broad theoretical and applied knowledge domain, drawing in just about all disciplines/professions. A few preferentially selected aspects are merely highlighted below in telegram style.

The book continues the themes started in the 2006 book Creative Space: Models of Creative Processes for the Knowledge Civilization by the same authors, and inasmuch as the present book refers to it many times and offers concepts in support, the reader is advised to be familiar with the earlier publication. As we are now living in the “Age of Knowledge, of Information and Philosophy of Enlightenment” (phrase repeatedly used), this unique summary and overview is indeed of fundamental importance, also supplementing and supporting books exemplified by Meusburger et al. (2008) – see following review in this journal.

Contents

Suggestion: read first the Preface, Chapter 18 Summary and Conclusions, followed by Chapter 1. Preliminaries (with 1.6 Contents of the book) to gain a valuable overview. Then indulge in the following (much abbreviated, listed as they appear) parts:

1. 1.

   Basic models of creative processes:

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     descriptive and prescriptive models in knowledge creation (KC hereafter);

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     Ba model and creative environments;

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     creative holism, emergence of basic concepts, new epistemology in KC;

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     Triple Helix KC model and several other KC models in the context of science and technology; and

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     knowledge sciences and the Japanese Advanced Institute for Applied System Analysis Nanatsudaki model (objectivity, hermeneutics, socialization, brainstorming, debate, roadmapping, implementation: experiments).

2. 2.

   Tools for supporting basic creative processes:

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     tools for supporting KC: machine learning, data mining (in medical and telecommunication research);

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     tacit vs explicit knowledge importance;

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     experts vs generalist;

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     KC‐methodologies: brainstorming and problem solving (several approaches/models);

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     normal academic vs industrial differences;

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     debating and creativity;

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     road‐mapping and the I‐system (comprising intervention, intelligence, involvement, imagination, and integration); and

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     mind‐mapping and creativity, integrated support for scientific creativity (several models).

3. 3.

   Diverse tools supporting creative processes:

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     diverse tools for KC, statistics for creativity, virtual laboratories (again several models);

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     gaming and role playing as creative tools; and

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     knowledge representation and multiple criteria aggregation, distance and electronic learning.

4. 4.

   Knowledge management and philosophical issues of creativity support:

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     academic research's implicit and explicit knowledge (see differences between tacit, transferable, generic, enabling and job‐training contextual skills/abilities/experiences);

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     creative holism, static and dynamic processes;

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     tacit and dynamic KCs;

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     role of technology, big changes in last 50 years: era of knowledge civilization;

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     happenings at end of industrial civilization era;

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     hard vs soft system thinking, sciences vs humanities;

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     intuition, hermeneutical horizons;

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     emergence of new concepts in science (e.g. mathematics), hermeneutical horizons; and

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     intuition analysis of concepts.

To be highlighted is the presence of the numerous conceptual flow chart‐like and diagrammatic models supporting the above information.

Additional aspects of creative knowledge creation

Allow me to highlight several aspects related to the book's content: experts vs generalists, importance of asking questions, education/training, systems approaches, developments in knowledge research, facts vs techniques, and critical thinking and intellectual styles.

Experts vs generalists

Only very few published comments seem to be available on the failure of “experts/specialists” in solving problems without the guidance of a well‐qualified “generalist.” There are umpteen more‐recent cases of catastrophes and disasters owing to this situation. Details cannot be deliberated here – but see the online‐comments “Rating of experts vs generalists to distinguish them for various situations” by Karl H. Wolf on: www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idea.php?ideaId=2900 as well as in the Global Ideas' book 500 Ways to Change the World.

Importance of asking questions

Many researchers and educators, including the authors of the books being reviewed here, emphasize that in the search for knowledge one basic cognitive/intellectual ingredient is “to be able to ask the right question at the right time about the right problem.” This leads to the next point.

Education/training

Students and all employees should be encouraged to “learn to ask questions”! Again, only a very few books are available on this human phenomenon. See for a short online comment: “Teaching children early confidence to ask questions, orally present, etc.” by Karl H. Wolf on: www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idead.php?ideald=2901

Inasmuch as the two authors refer on numerous occasions to tacit (generic, transferable, enabling, […]) in contrast to explicit (job‐training‐related) knowledge and skills, this fundamentally important distinction has recently been increasingly emphasized. See, for instance, Hager and Holland (2007).

System analysis, cybernetics and related methodologies […]

The two authors of Creative Environments mention the need for integration of the sciences and the humanities (the “Two Cultures”) as advocated by C.P. Snow. Although they refer repeatedly to systems, expert systems, system approaches, even cybernetics, and related methodologies, I think that these problem solving and research philosophies ought to have been more emphasized.

A recent article by Grayling (2008) deals with the important differences between “knowledge of facts” and “knowledge of techniques” – the latter referring to:

[…] need of knowing how to find things out, how to evaluate information discovered and how to apply it fruitfully […], i.e. these skills (both tacit and explicit) are to have knowledge of how to become knowledgeable […] the need for critical thinking and evaluation (theory of knowledge) […].

This is akin to the often published continuum‐cum‐spectrum of data→information→knowledge→wisdom (truth and fact?).

Related to the rather fundamental importance of “critical thinking,” see the book review Wolf (2008). Relevance: they describe and model 32 individual thinking styles, matched by key characteristics with practical applications in the “creative search for knowledge.”

Presentation

The style of presentation (layout and format) is superb because of the many diagrams/graphics and various types, tables and models; the use of many sub‐headed shorter and numbered sections; the flawless English (by the Japanese and Polish authors – well edited as acknowledged); excellent Preface, Preliminaries, and Summary/Conclusion chapters to permit quick overview; and good list of References (however, many familiar ones are missing). All chapters and sections are well‐connected by logical transitional statements: one always knows “where the authors come from and going to in their technical discussions!” The index is well‐supplemented by the numerous text's subheadings being part of the nine‐page contents – always a welcome approach! The few mathematical treatments of data should not be a cognitive hindrance to anyone. Congratulations to everyone involved (authors, editors, publishers, […]) in creating this excellent publication! (This is not an “overpraise” of this book despite warnings against such highly positive evaluations by Pool (2007)).

The book's basic importance lies in the uniqueness of summarizing the newer “Knowledge Civilization Age,” “Creative Environments” and describing/discussing the numerous theoretical models and practical applications of the “Creative Philosophical and Technical Supports” of our modern “Information Technology.” Absolutely get a copy.

Inasmuch as any “Creative Environment” in a “Knowledge Civilization” inevitably has its differences of opinions and cognitive/intellectual battles, the following book review of “Clashes of Knowledge” is dealing with that human phenomenon.

Readership

Insofar as all professions deal with knowledge, creativity, innovation, data bases, documentation, […] there is in reality no limit to the book's appeal: all theoretical/abstract and pragmatic/applied data are fundamentally highly relevant. However, here are some general and specific disciplines mentioned: academic teaching, learning and research; the whole spectrum of information technology, artificial intelligence, automated knowledge acquisition, blogging‐style and other types of communication, computer‐human interaction; control engineering, data mining; economics and business and work‐related situations; education/training, expert systems, grid technology, management, mathematics/statistics, medicine/health research; and various aspects of linguistics, management, philosophy, psychology, sociology, science and technology.