Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World

Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World PDF Author: Guru Madhavan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393651479
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
An ode to systems engineers—whose invisible work undergirds our life—and an exploration of the wicked problems they tackle. Our world is filled with pernicious problems. How, for example, did novice pilots learn to fly without taking to the air and risking their lives? How should cities process mountains of waste without polluting the environment? Challenges that tangle personal, public, and planetary aspects—often occurring in health care, infrastructure, business, and policy—are known as wicked problems, and they are not going away anytime soon. In linked chapters focusing on key facets of systems engineering—efficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilience—engineer Guru Madhavan illuminates how wicked problems have emerged throughout history and how best to address them in the future. He examines best-known tragedies and lesser-known tales, from the efficient design of battleships to a volcano eruption that curtailed global commerce, and how maintenance of our sanitation systems constitutes tikkun olam, or repair of our world. Braided throughout is the uplifting tale of Edwin Link, an unsung hero who revolutionized aviation with his flight trainer. In Link’s story, Madhavan uncovers a model mindset to engage with wickedness. An homage to society’s innovators and maintainers, Wicked Problems offers a refreshing vision for readers of all backgrounds to build a better future and demonstrates how engineering is a cultural choice—one that requires us to restlessly find ways to transform society, but perhaps more critically, to care for the creations that already exist.

Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World

Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World PDF Author: Guru Madhavan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393651479
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 421

Get Book Here

Book Description
An ode to systems engineers—whose invisible work undergirds our life—and an exploration of the wicked problems they tackle. Our world is filled with pernicious problems. How, for example, did novice pilots learn to fly without taking to the air and risking their lives? How should cities process mountains of waste without polluting the environment? Challenges that tangle personal, public, and planetary aspects—often occurring in health care, infrastructure, business, and policy—are known as wicked problems, and they are not going away anytime soon. In linked chapters focusing on key facets of systems engineering—efficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilience—engineer Guru Madhavan illuminates how wicked problems have emerged throughout history and how best to address them in the future. He examines best-known tragedies and lesser-known tales, from the efficient design of battleships to a volcano eruption that curtailed global commerce, and how maintenance of our sanitation systems constitutes tikkun olam, or repair of our world. Braided throughout is the uplifting tale of Edwin Link, an unsung hero who revolutionized aviation with his flight trainer. In Link’s story, Madhavan uncovers a model mindset to engage with wickedness. An homage to society’s innovators and maintainers, Wicked Problems offers a refreshing vision for readers of all backgrounds to build a better future and demonstrates how engineering is a cultural choice—one that requires us to restlessly find ways to transform society, but perhaps more critically, to care for the creations that already exist.

Exploring Wicked Problems

Exploring Wicked Problems PDF Author: Joseph Bentley PhD
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480889458
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Former Secretary of State George Shultz once drew a distinction between “problems you can solve and problems you can only work at.” These two types of problems have names: They are tame or wicked. Many people believe that their problems are “wicked,” yet few seem to understand what should be done with them. Wicked problems are messy, confusing, unstable, ill-structured, and ambiguous. This book explores the timely issue of wicked problems – what they are and why they are important. The authors open the door to a greater understanding of wicked problems and an appreciation for their complexity, sharing insights and recommendations on how to tackle them to make positive and productive changes in relationships, at home, and at work. Making one’s way successfully through the mess of obstacles and impediments that wicked problems present puts maximum pressure on our capabilities and stretches our tolerance for confusion, conflict, controversy, and chaos. Get guidance on grappling with the wicked problems in your life by increasing your knowledge about what they are and why they are so important to keep working at – even if they can’t be completely resolved.

Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions

Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions PDF Author: Peter DeGrace
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
M->CREATED

Better Business Better Future

Better Business Better Future PDF Author: Elisabet Lagerstedt
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN: 9152707954
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
An excellent read for entrepreneurs, corporate business leaders, board members, and strategists aiming to future-proof their business by integrating sustainability into the very core. This book offers a way forward, helps you understand the Sustainability Revolution, and provides valuable insights into the journeys and strategic choices of sustainability trailblazers such as Patagonia, Interface, Ørsted, Unilever, IKEA, Oatly, and others. Because you are not the first company to discover the potential in doing well by doing good, or as William Gibson said: "The future is already here - it's just not very evenly distributed". Still, many wicked problems urgently need innovative solutions. Solutions that the world of business is particularly well equipped to address through the ingenuity, creativity, collaboration, and resources that it can so often call forth more effectively and efficiently than other human organizations. Here and now, this requires a move beyond business as usual and a transformation into Better Business.

Applied Minds: How Engineers Think

Applied Minds: How Engineers Think PDF Author: Guru Madhavan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393248003
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
“Engineers are titans of real-world problem-solving. . . . In this riveting study of how they think, [Guru Madhavan] puts behind-the-scenes geniuses . . . center stage.”—Nature In this engaging account of innovative triumphs, Guru Madhavan examines the ways in which engineers throughout history created world-changing tools, from ATMs and ZIP codes to the digital camera and the disposable diaper. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we borrow strategies from engineering to find inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

The Wicked Company

The Wicked Company PDF Author: Marcus Kirsch
Publisher: Wicked Company
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
WE LIVE IN AN ERA OF WICKED PROBLEMS. Can your company keep up? Technology and the evolution of the experience economy have created a reality that most companies can't just buy or work their way into. These are wicked problems: issues that continue to evolve and morph beyond your solutions even as you form them. The days of tame problems-mass production, building bridges, solving for x-are behind us, but we're still designing companies to solve those tame problems. Marcus Kirsch is here to change all that. Anyone can create a wicked company, but not without implementing ways of working and thinking that are as comprehensive and complex as the problems you're trying to solve. The Wicked Company provides a roadmap to developing a mindset about operations, corporate capability, governance, and the people your organization is made up of that will help you identify, evaluate, and solve wicked problems before they slow you down-and before the other guys have a chance to catch up.

Practicing Sustainability

Practicing Sustainability PDF Author: Guru Madhavan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461443490
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Sustainability applies to everybody. But everybody applies it differently, by defining and shaping it differently—much as water is edged and shaped by its container. It is conceived in absolute terms but underpinned by a great diversity of relatively “green”—and sometimes contradictory—practices that can each make society only more or less sustainable. In Practicing Sustainability, chefs, poets, music directors, evangelical pastors, skyscraper architects, artists, filmmakers, as well as scientific leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, business executives, policy makers, and the contrarians, shed light on our understanding of sustainability and the role that each of us can play. Each contributor addresses what sustainability means, what is most appealing about the concept, and what they would like to change to improve the perception and practice of sustainability. What emerges from their essays is a wide spectrum of views that confirm an important insight: Sustainability is pursued in different ways not only due to different interpretations, but also because of varying incentives, trade-offs, and altruistic motives. Practicing and achieving sustainability starts with a willingness to look critically at the concept. It also means enabling rich and vigorous discussion based on pragmatism and common sense to determine a framework for best ideas and practices. With time and the much needed critical thinking, sustainable development will become a more integral part of our culture. By sharing experiences and crisp insights from today’s savants, Practicing Sustainability serves as a stepping stone to the future.

Engineering and Philosophy

Engineering and Philosophy PDF Author: Zachary Pirtle
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030700992
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
​Engineers love to build “things” and have an innate sense of wanting to help society. However, these desires are often not connected or developed through reflections on the complexities of philosophy, biology, economics, politics, environment, and culture. To guide future efforts and to best bring about human flourishment and a just world, Engineering and Philosophy: Reimagining Technology and Progress brings together practitioners and scholars to inspire deeper conversations on the nature and varieties of engineering. The perspectives in this book are an act of reimagination: how does engineering serve society, and in a vital sense, how should it.

The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything

The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything PDF Author: Matthew Ball
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1324092041
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER — United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and China (Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Nielsen Bookscan, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, BookNet Canada, Bookseller.com, Bookdao/Nielsen, JD, DangDang) Tim Sweeney (CEO of Fortnite-maker Epic Games): “Matthew Ball’s essays have defined, analyzed, and inspired the Metaverse for years. His book is an approachable and essential guide to the strategic, technical, and philosophical foundations of this new medium.” Derek Thompson (Atlantic staff writer and national best-selling author of Hit Makers): “This book feels like a rare achievement: a definitive statement about an emerging phenomenon that could shape the digital world, the global economy, and the very experience of human consciousness.” From the leading theorist of the Metaverse comes the definitive account of the next internet: what the Metaverse is, what it will take to build it, and what it means for all of us. The term “Metaverse” is suddenly everywhere, from the front pages of national newspapers and the latest fashion trends to the plans of the most powerful companies in history. It is already shaping the policy platforms of the US government, the European Union, and the Chinese Communist Party. But what, exactly, is the Metaverse? As pioneering theorist and venture capitalist Matthew Ball explains, it is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences, and also underpin much of the physical world. For decades, these ideas have been limited to science fiction and video games, but they are now poised to revolutionize every industry and function, from finance and healthcare to education, consumer products, city planning, dating, and well beyond. Taking us on an expansive tour of the “next internet,” Ball demonstrates that many proto-Metaverses are already here, such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox. Yet these offer only a glimpse of what is to come. Ball presents a comprehensive definition of the Metaverse before explaining the technologies that will power it—and the breakthroughs that will be necessary to fully realize it. He addresses the governance challenges the Metaverse entails; investigates the role of Web3, blockchains, and NFTs; and predicts Metaverse winners and losers. Most importantly, he examines many of the Metaverse’s almost unlimited applications. The internet will no longer be at arm’s length; instead, it will surround us, with much of our lives, labor, and leisure taking place inside the Metaverse. Bringing clarity and authority to a frequently misunderstood concept, Ball foresees trillions of dollars in new value—and the radical reshaping of society.

Making Better Choices

Making Better Choices PDF Author: Charles E. Phelps
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190871164
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Systems engineering offers a set of capabilities and competencies to design and manage complex systems as they evolve. Drawing from social choice research and systems engineering practice, Making Better Choices examines how we make decisions together and the tools we use to arrive at those decisions. It takes a critical look at the rules and methods we apply to important decisions--from how we run meetings to how we elect presidents--with an interest in how we can improve these mechanisms. By reviewing different voting systems, their original intents, and their deficits, the authors outline a systems engineering approach to making collective choices in society. Written by an economist and an engineer, this groundbreaking work draws from insights in sociology, linguistics, law, political science, philosophy, psychology, economics, and systems design. In an era of relentless rating, this book offers a fresh vision for engineering better democracies by enabling diverse and inclusive choices