Solving Wicked Problems

The e-book is called Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving. It can be read online for free or you can order a solid copy. Jon Kolko talks about the idea behind this book in the video below:

Designers can change culture, change behavior, and advance a system of values, and social entrepreneurship provides the economic vehicle in which designers can tackle wicked problems. For example, looking at a problem such as obesity, let’s compare a scientific approach with a designerly one.

One quickly learns that wicked problems such as obesity demand both a scientific approach and a designerly approach. Because “every wicked problem is a symptom of another problem,” any wicked problem is too big for a single-tiered approach. Poor people in the targeted communities don’t have fresh vegetables because their neighborhoods don’t have stores that sell them. That’s an economic problem.

View the book at the Wicked Problems website.