Wicked Problems. A wicked problem is a social or cultural problem that is difficult or impossible to solve for as many as four reasons: incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large economic burden, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems.
Surely you remember Iridium, Motorola Corporationâs $5 billion low-Earth-orbit debacle. Planned in the mid-1980s, the system was archaic by the time it was deployed in 1998, offering global communications from a brick-size, $3,000 phone at charges from $6 to $30 a minute.
Answer: IBM Simon. If you imagine the first smartphoneâlike its predecessor the regular cellular phoneâto be a monstrous and monochromatic block of plastic, youâd be correct. In 1992 IBM showcased the IBM Simon at the 1992 COMDEX (Computer Dealersâ Exhibition); in doing so they introduced the world to the first smartphone and it was just the kind of enormous brick one would expect from the first phone/computer mashup. How smart was the first smartphone? By comparison to modern smartphones such as the iPhone and Android devices it wasnât particularly clever. For the time, however, the Simon was revolutionary and introduced many of the modern features we take for granted in both smart and standard cellular phones.