Academia

I signed myself up for an Academia.edu account yesterday. It seems like an interesting hybrid of an academic homepage and social networking site. Has the potential for being a useful place to network if more people sign up for it (currently there are 5 people who have signed up from York–seriously under-represented).

Regardless, I came across the page that Richard Tabor Greene had set-up and–wow–what an interesting guy he appears to be. A man of 113 research interests (by comparison, I thought I was pushing the envelope with my seven), Greene has an interesting breadth of academic interests ranging from writing books, to designing fashions, to composing J-rapp songs (I just googled J-rapp and apparently the whole Internet is as much in the dark as I am about this musical style) to planning to launch a new kind of university. What Dr Greene “does” in his own words:

1. I write large books on results of the Science of Excellence Research Project
2. I design fashions, products, interfaces, events for clients and my own work for global distribution
3. I teach research seminars at Japan’s 8th ranked (by employers) private university and send students to the world’s top ten grad schools
4. I research 16 areas including fractal interfaces, social automata, mass workshop event designs, cognitive and social psych of designs and interfaces.
5. I prepare for launch in 6 years time of a new kind of university (or add-on to existing universities) that I call Knowledge Epitome–I have a book laying it all out.
6. I compose J-rapp songs and run bi-monthly workshops wherein students compose songs
7. I write two comedy and 1 detective fiction novels
8. I daily create videos on 1 of the 8000 chapters I have already written–a one hour, 17 minute, and 7 minute video version of each chapter is done each day.

Ambitious. But is Greene for real? I mean listen to this stuff:

I have developed the most comprehensive, practical curriculum in creativity applied to invention, discovery, design, and business venturing in the world–92 courses, all tested on my Chinese and Japanese undergrads. I can transform passive East Asians into innovative Americans.

and stuff that goes beyond my understanding:

I have invented certain regularized fractal interfaces, one to replace all prose writing, another to replace web 2.0 browsers, another to replace current workgroup electronic cooperation topologies

Personal interests, you wonder? Dr. Greene has that outlined as well, ranging from “long distance cycling” to “inventing new forms of sex and eroticism.”

Dr. Greene, who can be contacted at richwows@gmail.com, has also listed his areas of expertise. My personal favourite:

KIMONO SportFormal FASHIONS–the fit and comfort of modern sports fabrics combined with Japan’s rare traditional weaves–catch everyone’s attention anywhere without effort–I did these fashion designs for years just for my own wearing and amusement and one day an inebriated newly rich Chinese gentlemen, in our Osaka Ritz Carlton, begged to buy what I was wearing–so without planning to I ended up eventually selling a few designs, though that was never my intent and is not now yet my interest;

If I have an academic career half as interesting as Dr. Greene’s, then I’ll be a happy man.