Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Redefinitions that I'm fond of

Two terms I've fallen in love with:

  • Awesome - as in "Are you for Awesome?" (Of or relating to human rights, social entrepreneurship, sustainability, or general saving the world as defined by Olin students.) When you're describing (for instance) your new social entrepreneurship project with great gusto, someone will inevitably say - without thinking - "oh man, that's awesome!" and then you both catch the double meaning and laugh. It's a choice of words that can only be described as... well, awesome.
  • Wicked - as in "wicked problems." I didn't know there was such a term, but the engineering equivalent is probably Systems. "Wicked problems have incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements; and solutions to them are often difficult to recognize as such because of complex interdependencies." These are the problems I love to work on.

Isn't it great how we can reinvent semantics by just talking and thinking acting as if the definitions we want things to have already exist?

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