I do think that tunneling is a particularly hot idea nowadays. Ron Burt calls them structural holes, and looks for them in organizations, as the wellspring of creativity. Interdisciplinary research is the new new thing it seems in the academic world.

In fact the last winner of the Clark Medal (more prestigious than the Nobel Prize in economics) is Steven Levitt, an economist known for his friendliness toward ideas from sociology. His most famous recent work has been about Crime, Abortion and Swimming Pools.

It is still difficult though. Surprisingly, so many faculty at Stanford studying the same topics just in differnet deparmtnets, never talk to each other. I bugged Stanford’s president Hennessey about this, who is spearheading many interdisciplinary programs, but he admittled the onus is on the grad students to build the links.

Actually, my biggest fear is not the difficulty of my work being accepted, but really, i’m worried about the biggest pitfall of “tunneling” and a very legitimate concern: quality control. It really is hard to say whether I am in fact being creative and clever, or just unorthodox and useless.

However, I intend to have fun along the way.

How did you come upon my column btw?

ben