Dilemma

Celebrate - my blog is back! Thanks to DarkUFO who responded to my query on the Google listserve, and followed up when I contacted him/her a second time. I still don't know why it was removed.

But now, what shall I do? Go back to my original blog, Jill (Re)Designed and leave this one as a memorial to the past month? But I've grown used to posting in this space of the bloggosphere.

Maybe I should write two bogs. Not!

I'll decide in time for the next post.

One Done!

EAM-2010 submission for a Symposium (due today)

Wicked problems: When strategies, models, and tools are not enough

This symposium explores the concept of wicked problems: what they are, examples from management and organizations, and implications for curriculum design and pedagogy. We discuss the distinguishing features of wicked problems, design thinking as an approach to dealing with them, resources available for managers, and related issues of cultural diversity. We challenge participants to “tame” an EAM-related wicked problem, and to use techniques inspired by design thinking to create prototypes of solutions. We close by reflecting with attendees on the implications for teaching students at our own institutions.

(If you want to know the details, you'll either need to volunteer to review manuscript ID # 130, or come to Maine in May to hear the real thing!)

On to the next thing to be done! For inspiration, see this...

Today's output

Key lime pie. Jack gave it a 4.5 pie rating (out of 5), I said 3.

Diversity Christmas people cookies (they will mingle on the plate)

Christmas pudding -still in process, has to steam for 4 hrs

Here are the ingredients Big bowl has a mixture of dried and candied fruit, flour, sugar, fresh breadcrumbs and minced suet

Little bowl has eggs, milk, molasses, rum

and the stirring ritual

-- everyone stirs and makes a wish.

Not shown: Famous mocha mousse by special request from David (forgot to take photo)

Three full dishwasher loads with cooking equipment.

Preparations

The season is finally catching up with me: Today I prepared for tomorrow's Big Christmas Bake.

1. I assembled recipes and made an ingredients list

2. I inventoried ingredients on hand

3. I shopped for "the gap" -- and in the process fell into the pie trap. Seeing Key limes I prepared to make the L pie tomorrow (Jack is out this evening), and I acquired enough ingredients for mincemeat to try three different recipes (if at least one of them is any good, I plan to take my mini-mince-pies to the Welch College of Business next week.)

4. I now have what it takes to make cookie dough (for diverse ginger/white people cookies), Christmas pudding, and my family's famous WWII mocha mouse.

Check back tomorrow for mouth-watering photos

In between I did work on both EAM wicked problems and EGOS Hype! And seeing in the Wall Street Journal that Obama has an "evolving worldview" I thought about that project too!

Ways of working

I drove to Providence today in search of wicked problems -- actually to meet Deb so we could work together on her section of the proposal. All Rhode Island public libraries are closed on Thursday mornings to compensate for the wicked problem of a limited budget, so we had lunch at the Cuban Revolution first. All fired up, we adjourned to the Central Library reading room and made good use of the free Wi-Fi while we worked. Only drawback was the library did not own a copy of Weick's 1979 Social Psychology of Organizing, so we had to make do by leafing through pages on Amazon!

Driving in Providence is definitely a "wicked problem" for me -- I took the wrong turn both going and coming and had to make a huge detour each time to get back going the right way on the right road. Thank heavens for my GPS -- but I have a suspicion that my wrong turns were due to GPS ambiguity in the first place! Next time I'll take an old fashioned map!

As for our symposium proposal -- it's at the stage of, "How do we know what we think until we see what we say," a quote often attributed to Weick, but claimed by others too.

Events back in the northeast

My new Mac Pro arrived -- just as I was about to attend a DMI Webinar.

I used Jack's laptop (easier for the conferencing connection) and set up my recording equipment: external microphone, not one but two tape recorders, in addition to the

old fashioned watching & listening & taking notes with pencil and paper. Brian Matt was talking about Innovation versus Design Thinking. He spend more than half the time on conceptualizing relevant innovation -

from the ideation process through three criteria of (1) alignment with the company, (2) differentiation as the source of competitive advantage, and (3) experience creating consumer relevance.

His comments on design thinking were brief: the word "design has been misused, even by designers. Design thinking is too vague, average marketing people don't know how to identify "design." For a trained person it is OK, an untrained person cannot talk about it. Design thinking is a process, relevant innovation is what you (as a designer) do with that process.

The presentation is supposed to be posted to the DMI web soon, so maybe I won't need any of my own traces!

Back to unpacking my new mac, following the instructions to set it up -- first power, second internet, third transfer files ... I haven't completed this part yet. Instead I admired my new purchase in its case (in front) and lamented the amount

of discarded materials.

Monday

I spent the day with adminsitrivia rather than challenging intellectual work. Between negotiating the fine points of my GU contract, detailing the size of dogs allowed in Woodfield Village, and appealing yet again to have my original blog reintstated, there seemed to be little time for anything else. We did enjoy a couple of beach walks and the weather was actually warm enough to have lunch outside. But the challenge of "sedimenting fads" will have to wait till tomorrow.

Finally ... does this count for the K (ey lime) Pie? (Dessert Clayton's Siesta Grille)

... I thought not!

But I'll be hard put to beat the taste!