Concluding Remarks

The final step in the interdisciplinary process involves communicating to multiple audiences the insights obtained through interdisciplinary analysis. If this step is not performed successfully, all previous steps will have been wasted. And this step requires a quite different skill set from most of the previous ones. The preceding analysis has largely proceeded through calm, careful, and introverted analysis; the last step requires a bit of flare and an extroverted disposition. One of the sad facts of academic life is that some who excel at analysis are miserable at communication, and their insights thus receive less attention than they deserve. Others are natural communicators. Interdisciplinarians, whatever their psychological profile, likely have to be more self-conscious about communication than disciplinarians: the latter can simply absorb their disciplinary perspective subconsciously and continue to do what seems to have worked for them in the past, while the former must think about how to speak to the language and interests of distinct audiences. Often, different modes of communication are necessary for different audiences. The author of this book has in the past published across some dozen disciplines or interdisciplinary fields. He has also written pieces for a variety of more popular publications. In general, books are more likely than articles to be aimed at, and hopefully reach, multiple audiences. This book has been largely jargon-free, and should thus prove accessible to scholars across a wide range of disciplines as well as to those outside the academy interested in economic growth and/or interdisciplinary analysis.