Sarah Wong

Transition Design attempts to reveal and map power relations among stakeholder groups in order to: 1) understand which groups have what types of power in the system (sometimes a group has the power/reason to keep the problem unresolved); 2) identify which groups have little power/are disenfranchised (the work is to help build their capacity and giv... See more

Fund and Encourage Local Leadership and Initiative

An imbalance in power relations among stakeholders affected by wicked problems is a barrier to problem resolution. Power dynamics permeate societal systems; its structures, cultural norms, material artifacts and technologies etc;

Ingredient 1: The problem is important to people

There need to be a lot of people willing to spend a lot of money to solve the problem. Most startups fail not because the idea isn’t good but because the market for the solution is just too small. If you want to build a venture-scale business, a rule of thumb is that there needs to be a clear path to... See more

The components are:

Competitive alternatives

Differentiated “features” or “capabilities”

Value for customers

Target customer segmentation

Market category

Civic Health is a measurement of how well we participate in our community as citizens. Are we engaged in the decision making processes? When it comes to our environment, our education, our government, our work/life balance, our health, our systems of justice, etc, do we have power? Do we know how to affect change? Are our needs and hopes being met?

Reliability is what makes a community

According to Putnam, the more we prioritize our private bubbles over public life, the more we disconnect from our local surroundings. This has weakened American democracy. Fewer people are engaged in politics, and those who do are often at the political poles. With less social capital, our neighborhoods are connected by fewer informal, reciprocal t... See more