May 30, 2014 “Sour grapes” you say as you discuss with a friend the recent behavior of a mutual friend. When you say “sour grapes,” you both understand that you are not commenting upon the way the grapes taste, but about your friend’s actions. With this pithy remark – one of a class of words… Read More »
May 14, 2014 At the center of all literature, theatre, cinema, and much of the graphic arts, can be found one or more intractable, complex, unmanageable “wicked” problems for which the characters in the play or the novel are neither ready nor prepared. Their problems often appear suddenly, with little warning, overturning, even destroying,… Read More »
April 29, 2014 (The three central ideas of this website are Taming, Wicked, and Problems. This entry – Problems – completes an exploration of these foundational concepts, and is the first of several entries which will examine in more detail a number of issues and complications that arise when we say “Problem.” ) Pope… Read More »
April 14, 2014 General Motors, the largest car company in the world, is face-to-face with what may be its most serious problem ever: a wicked problem so huge, so complex and so potentially damaging that it deserves to be called a Super Wicked Problem!. In fact, this problem could serve as a poster child for… Read More »
“We campaign in poetry, govern in prose.” Mario Cuomo What is “wicked” about wicked problems? Here are some ways: – We never seem to agree on what the problems are or what should be done about them; – They keep us up at night; – We… Read More »
Wicked problems are never solved. At best, they are only re-solved, over and over again. Horst Rittle and Melvin Webber “Solving” is for tame problems; “Taming” is for wicked ones. Joseph Bentley Among the most challenging (and frustrating) aspects of wicked problems is that they do not get solved. Here is how Horst… Read More »
“Anything you can do I can do meta…” Many will recognize this as a take-off of the song Anything you can do I can do better, from the 1946 Irving Berlin musical Annie Get Your Gun. The quote appears in a recent book by philosopher Daniel Dennett titled Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (2013) Dennett… Read More »