Welcome to The Wicked Problems Podcast with Toby Corballis

Wicked Problems Podcast

My name is Toby Corballis and I’m going to be your host on this journey through some fascinating problems being worked on and thought about by some extremely clever people.

But first, why the term wicked? Well, it’s not meant in the Ali-G sense, nor in the Wizard of Oz sense. Here, the term Wicked is referring to the elusiveness of solutions. This doesn’t mean that such problems cannot be solved, just that a solution is not that easy to find or, when solved, it wasn’t done by any immediately obvious rationale at the time, though sometimes the explanation can seem obvious in hindsight.

Wicked Problems tend to be beyond experience. They may, in fact, be quite simple to define yet often the solution is fiendishly elusive, hence the term ‘wicked’. They may be in the moment, of a time, or perennial in nature, but there they are, as clear as a silted lake that’s host to an algae bloom.

Neither elegant or glib solutions can solve them – sometimes only the alchemy of experience can forge a solution.

I hope you enjoy this podcast and would love to hear any feedback in the comments below or via the contact page.

Toby Corballis

For full show notes visit: https://wickedproblems.fm/2019/09/17/episode1/