HBR on Wicked Problems

Decent article in HBR on "Wicked Problems":

"Wickedness isn’t a degree of difficulty. Wicked issues are different because traditional processes can’t resolve them, according to Horst W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, professors of design and urban planning at the University of California at Berkeley, who described them in a 1973 article in Policy Sciences magazine. A wicked problem has innumerable causes, is tough to describe, and doesn’t have a right answer...Wicked problems often crop up when organizations have to face constant change or unprecedented challenges. They occur in a social context; the greater the disagreement among stakeholders, the more wicked the problem. In fact, it’s the social complexity of wicked problems as much as their technical difficulties that make them tough to manage. Not all problems are wicked; confusion, discord, and lack of progress are telltale signs that an issue might be wicked."

Better than "Free"

On his blog, Kevin Kelley wrote about something interesting - but I'm not sure what to do with yet. His argument:

"The previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?

"I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus:

"When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable."

He then list the following qualities that can't be copied:

1. Immediacy
   
2. Personalization
   
3. Interpretation
   
4. Authenticity
   
5. Accessibility
   
6. Embodiment
   
7. Patronage
8. Findability
   

He then writes:

"Success in the free-copy world is not derived from the skills of distribution since the Great Copy Machine in the Sky takes care of that. Nor are legal skills surrounding Intellectual Property and Copyright very useful anymore. Nor are the skills of hoarding and scarcity. Rather, these new eight [qualities] demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with a click of the mouse."

This feels like it fits with my support thinking.  

The Glasgow School of Art's definition of Transformation Design

The Glasgow School of Art is offering an interesting course on design innovation:

"Rather than taking a perspective on design which works from the materials to the contexts of production, the M.Des in Design Innovation will profile an approach to the field of design from the other direction, working from users and social contexts back to the materials. The curriculum and content of the M.Des in Dsign Innovation is built around three specialist pathways - in Transformation Design, Environmental Design, and Service Design. "

They provide nice descriptions of each discipline, but I'm particularly interested in how they describe Transformation Design:

"With Transformation Design, the role of the designer moves from that of communicating function, controlling form and determining the experience of design objects, to that of inspiring participation, enabling possibilities and supporting on-going system-wide design and redesign. The facilitation of innovative, productive and creative design processes, that is, are prioritized over the delivery of end products; skills, methods and possibilities are communicated to users in order to enhance social and cultural modes of interaction with design."

I find this interesting for a few reasons: 

1. It speaks to the one of my principles that "everyone is a designer" - we are all creating solutions and experiences in this world. 
   
2. It speaks to the idea of creating generative, evolutionary systems. Something I've long loved talking about and think important to future company/customer/culture relations and innovation. 
3. But most interestingly, the description mentions nothing about uplifting society or transforming people's lives for the better. Instead it uses transformation to describe a system people step into that is self-evolving: "...inspiring participation, enabling possibilities and supporting on-going system-wide design and redesign." This happens to be a line of thought that aligns with one of my favorite thinkers:
   

   “The only acceptable finality for human activity is the production of a subjectivity that is auto-enriching its relation to the world in a continuous fashion.” 

   Felix Guattari, Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm

Looking for an Article/Paper/Interview

A few years ago, I remember someone mentioning to me a paper by/interview with a researcher who claimed the concept of brands has been a red herring. Basically, he said that brands don't work and never have.

That is as much as I remember.

Do any of you know of a paper/interview on such a topic? 

(Even if you don't know the specific one I so vaguely described, do you know any like it?)

The Story of Stuff

Amazing Stuff

Continued Thoughts on Bruce...

Over the past week, I’ve eagerly followed the comments section in Bruce’s post on Transformation. Here are some loose thoughts that have bubbled up:

1.  Early in the post Bruce wrote that “in the end, ‘Innovation’ proved to be weak as both a tactic and strategy in the face of economic and social turmoil. It couldn’t get us safely through the troubles of 08.” Some readers felt this was a thin - even “silly” - argument. Can’t say I disagree.

As far as creative activities go, innovation leads to the least amount of change. As I see it:

• Innovation is the activity focused on adjusting an existing “thing” so that its “kinks” are removed rendering the “thing” is more delightful and useful. Think Apple’s iPod and P&G’s disposable toilet bowl brushes.
  
• Invention is the activity focused on creating a wholly new “thing” that eliminates a specific problem for a specific group of people. Think of vulcanized rubber, the birth control pill (any medicine really) or the printing press.
  
• Transformation is the activity focused on creating systemic change that results in the elimination of many problems (often complex problems) for different groups of people. Think paved roads, the New Deal, the Civil Right Amendment or pasteurization.
  

Innovation is not meant to solve economic and social troubles.

2. While Bruce felt “’Innovation” died in 2008 [due to] overuse, misuse, narrowness, incrementalism and failure to evolve,” Toby Coop, in the comments section, offered a different culprit: “The real issue is not Innovation but learned incapacity or skilled ignorance. Organizations and their teams are basically really good at avoiding how to do new things, at avoiding real creativity at avoiding real change."

While both opinions have their strengths, I tend to agree more with the commenter. Whether you like change or not, one thing is for sure: it is a bitch to go through it. Therefore, it’s human nature to not want to mess with a good thing. Pushing creative change through the resistance of human nature is tougher than pushing it through the resistance of buzzword boredom.

3. I was surprised only one commenter (Patrick McGowan) chose to, albeit loosely, address Bruce’s comment about how “[design is a] philosophy to deal with life in constant beta.” “Life in constant beta” is one of the most critical concepts for creative and business minds to wrap their heads around since both mindsets tend to demand control and perfection.

The pace of communal and cultural change is swift. The frequency is constant. IMHO, the creative acts of innovation and invention are far too narrow and shortsighted to keep pace with and address desires in such a context. The “learned incapacity” inside companies, which often brings these processes to a slow crawl, doesn’t help either.

Bruce rightly recognizes transformation’s talents such a world:

“The concept of ‘Transformation’ implies radical transformation of our systems. It puts the focus on people, designing networks and systems off their wants and needs. It approaches uncertainties with a methodology that creates options for new situations and sorts through them for the best quickly.” And that one of the ways it does this is recognizing “we are in a post-consumer society, defined by two groups of economic players: manufacturers and consumers. ‘Transformation’ deals with a new Creativity Society, in which we are all both producers and consumers of value.”

This thinking parallels the principles of transformation design I outlined many months ago.

4. Another place I think Bruce really has it right is when he writes:

“My good friend Frank Comes, ex-Business Week and now at McKinsey, puts it this way: In the past, economic value was generated by transaction. Increasingly, economic value is generated through interactions. The key is monetizing those interactions.”

It’s increasingly becoming a reality that companies no longer make and/or deliver value. They FACILITATE it. This is a huge leap in business models, customer relationships, marketing and the generally accepted concepts there-in. And only one person wrote a comment (more of a question seeking clarity really) about it!