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!

Sunday

Catching up on work

It rained -- heavily - between about 3 PM yesterday and 10 AM today. And when the rain stopped it was still cold and windy. Not like the image of Florida at all! So the day was an opportunity to catch up on work projects:

I finished (well, for now) my paragraph about my individual presentation on "wickedness as a metaphor for indeterminacy" for the EAM-2010 symposium proposal, and in the process started my Endnote bibliography on the topic.

Ulla and I decided we would write on "Fads as a good thing: An ironic perspective on design thinking " (working title) for Subtheme 32 of the EGOS Colloquium in 2010. We've created 200+ words (of the 3000 needed by January 10) and plan to talk tomorrow on the topic.

Both these research projects are interesting because they give me the opportunity to expand on work I have done before. It's been a while since I've worked on my ironic perspective, and even longer since I've been passionate about fads. Need I say that "wicked problems" are right up my alley!

I edited the draft copy on my contract as a Visiting Professor with the University of Gothenburg to reflect "what I want to do" (and by inference to refuse to do what I don't want to do). Ulla and I will discuss it tomorrow, then I'll send it back to Professor Per-Olf Larsson. It will be good to have my appointment finalized.

I even found time to walk on the beach to survey the (natural) debris left by the tide after the storm

(there'll be even more tomorrow) and swim in the pool.

All in all, quite a busy day. But no sign of my earlier blog being reinstated.

Morning ritual

Mornings on Siesta Key begin with a walk on the beach.

Were is everyone?

At least the seagulls are "on station".

The first beach walk of the visit always includes picking up one shell or stone to add to my collection. Today I couldn't resist three -- they will "nest" to meet my limit of one!

People are still fishing at Point O' Rocks

and the enormous "Newport Mansion-like" edifice at the south end of the beach still isn't finished

(see Sabbatical Bog)

The "snake palm" is flourishing,

and there are new "funky flowers" to admire.

Last stop on the walk is Crescent Market to purchase the day's groceries.

Changing beaches, continuing topics

After what seemed like a whole day traveling we arrived at The Anchorage.

First task was to get our internet access up and running

(we were partially successful, as evidenced by this posting ("using the wire").

Then out to Capt'n Curts for our ritual first meal of grouper - one of us always has broiled, the other grilled, and we still can't tell which one is best!

While on the plane I unravelled wicked problems -- but I imagine they will return to being even more wicked when I try to write about them tomorrow. Time will tell .. and so will I!

Thinking wicked

I've been collecting my thoughts -- and citations -- for the symposium proposal that's due on Monday. At first it felt strange to be working on a design-based concept for a management conference, but there's more to "wickedness" than design can solve by itself. I purchased a copy of the two-page editorial by C. West Churchill in a 1967 Management Science that (together with work by Horst Rittel in policy planning) is frequently citied as the source of discussions on wicked problems. I discovered that the citation is vol. 14 issue 4, and not vol. 4 issue 14 that is cited just about everywhere so I wonder how many people have actually read Churchill's piece. Few, judging by the fact that his ideas about the moral context of problem solving don't seem to be discussed. I've been creating mind-maps of various schemes rattling around in my head, trying to make connections that will be an interesting story for the EAM folks. More work to do tomorrow on the plane.

My "skin" for my new laptop arrived by FedEx. The computer is somewhere en route from Shanghai, so I won't have it till next week. And the pouch doesn't fit my current laptop, so it sits idle.

Why this new blog?

The robots of cyberspace decided my blog was spam -- was the content THAT bad? I've requested AND petitioned to have my blog restored, but this process requires humans, and I'm not sure how many of those are still lurking on the net. So, for now, point your browser here to see what's happening in my life.

And please sign up as an official blog follower -- my hunch is that I was targeted as spam because I had no followers. Maybe I don't

AND I'VE JUST NOTICED THE SPELLO IN THE TITLE!