Presented at the SOAP conference in Krakow, Poland, 8 October 2015: www.soapconf.com
"Wicked Problems” are problems that are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. In addition, complex interdependencies make it so that the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. Content managers must face these sorts of problems flexibly.
Nemetics is a methodology developed by a process engineer in India, working with an international team, based on NEME, a play on the term MEME, and an acronym for Notice, Engage, Mull, Exchange. It is also an attitude, a way of seeing, and a way of collaborating.
Nemetics is a kind of complexity science, based on studying interactions between the events that take place around us,
the behaviours of human beings and of systems that initiate any event, and the intentions and beliefs that lead to particular behaviours.
In this presentation, we look at a simple way to apply Nemetics to the wicked problems we find in technical communication.