Wicked Problems, Hybrid Solutions, and the Rhetoric of Civic

Article

Journal of Business and Technical Communication 2017, Vol. 31(3) 290-318 When Is a Solution ª The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Not a Solution? DOI: 10.1177/1050651917695538 Wicked Problems, journals.sagepub.com/home/jbt Hybrid Solutions, and the Rhetoric of Civic Entrepreneurship

Jeffrey M. Gerding1 and Kyle P. Vealey2

Abstract This article examines the ongoing development of +POOL, a recreational pool, filtration system, and floating laboratory, to better understand the rhetorical work involved in civic entrepreneurship. The authors consider how the overall development of +POOL as an entrepreneurial venture might help expand the inventive possibilities for civic entrepreneurs coming to grips with wicked problems today. The study offers a look into the rhetorical work of civic entrepreneurship by examining the way +POOL develops a hybrid solution, which recognizes and foregrounds the notion that wicked problems, such as the pollution of the East River, can never be fully understood or known at any one moment. Hybrid solutions, then, offer stable outcomes for civic entrepreneurial ventures that are dynamic enough

1Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA 2West Chester University, West Chester, PA, USA

Corresponding Author: Kyle P. Vealey, West Chester University, 720 S. High Street, West Chester, PA 19383, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Gerding and Vealey 291 to continually adapt to the shifting and evolving contours of a wicked problem.

Keywords civic entrepreneurship, wicked problems, rhetoric, technical communication

The studying of New York’s 6th borough—the rivers—is half the journey to swimming in it. ( POOL, n.d.b) þ For 6 months in 2014, Float Lab—a small platform installed in New York City’s Hudson River—collected water quality readings and posted them online in real time. Positioned adjacent to Pier 40 in Hudson River Park, this unassuming blue dock contained two large rectangular slots for water filtration systems as well as submerged sensors used to test the river water. During that 6-month period, sensors provided a live streaming of current river conditions and collected a range of data, including salinity, turbidity, chlorophyll and dissolved oxygen levels, rainfall, wind direction, wind temperature, and water temperature. Samples from the two filtration systems were also tested for enterococcus, a bacterium largely found in the human digestive tract. This last detail is particularly important because the primary contaminant of both the Hudson and East River is not industrial pollution, but human waste (Castle,2014).NewYorkCity,likemany municipalities, uses a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) system, which collects sewage, rainwater, and other wastewater and redirects all of it to water treatment facilities. During heavy rainstorms, “the capacity of the sewer system may be exceeded and the excess water will be discharged directly to a water body (rivers, streams, estuaries, and coastal waters)” (CSO, n.d., para. 2). As a result, on particularly rainy days, the level of harmful enterococcus bacteria in the water spikes significantly as untreated wastewater is pumped directly into the river. Float Lab is a key part of POOL, a civic entrepreneurial venture involving the collaboration of architects,þ designers, engineers, artists, and researchers. Over the course of the past few years, the creators of POOL—Dong-Ping Wong, Oana Stanescu, Archie Lee Coates IV, and Jeffreyþ Franklin—have publicly campaigned to develop the world’s first floating structure that would simultaneously serve as a community recreational pool, a large-scale water filtration system, and an independent laboratory for the collection of real-time data on water pollutants (see Figure 1). In 292 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3)

Figure 1. Google Map showing the location of +POOL’s Float Lab. its current form, POOL offers a highly sophisticated approach to better understanding and,þ ultimately, developing a sustainable solution to the increasingly high levels of harmful bacteria and pollution in the East River. POOL’s development of Float Lab was not intended to provide definitive answersþ about the sources of pollution, nor was it meant to be a catchall solution for eradicating water pollutants. Rather it was intended to provide a way of understanding pollution in the East River as what Rittel and Webber (1973) called a wicked problem. Rittel and Webber developed their notion of wicked problems by first differentiating them from tame problems, which comprise “definable, Gerding and Vealey 293 understandable, and consensual” situations that can be remedied (p. 156). The moniker wicked,bycontrast,designatesproblemsthatareexceedingly complex, ill-defined, and rife with uncertainty. With such blurry boundaries, wicked problems cannot be definitively explained or defined, and thus resist being pinned down and ultimately solved. In attempting to grapple with the wicked problem of water pollution in the East River, the developers of POOL undoubtedly faced a deeply rhetorical dilemma: How do you persuadeþ or motivate people to be financially and socially invested in a problem that, by definition, cannot be solved? In this article, we examine the ongoing development of POOL to better understand the rhetorical work involved in civic entrepreneurship.þ We consider how the overall development of POOL—as a recreational pool, filtration system, and floating laboratory—mightþ help us expand the inventive possibilities for civic entrepreneurs coming to grips with wicked problems today. Traditional understandings of civic entrepreneurship often depict civic entrepreneurs as highly skilled in cultivating what Waddock and Post (1991) described as “the necessary vision, drive, and resources to galvanize the efforts of a large, complex network of individuals and organizational actors toward resolution of a complex problem [emphasis added]” (p. 394). In other words, as reflected in both scholarly and popular depictions, the work of civic entrepreneurs involves identifying complex social problems, reframing them as opportunities for intervention, and directly implementing a solution that provides closure to a particular matter of concern. Our study offers an alternative account of civic entrepreneurship by examining the way POOL develops what we call a hybrid solution,which recognizes andþ foregrounds the notion that wicked problems, such as the pollution of the East River, can never be fully understood or known at any one moment. Such problems, as Rittel and Webber (1973) suggested, cannot be definitively formulated because their boundaries are always shifting and evolving. As a result, the creators of POOL sought to design a hybrid solution that offers a stable outcome forþ the civic entrepreneurial venture (i.e., the construction of a self-filtering community pool in the East River) that is also dynamic enough to continually adapt to the shifting and evolving contours of a wicked problem (i.e., through the ongoing collection of water pollutant data for scientific research). Ultimately, we argue that civic entrepreneurship involves the deeply rhetorical work of designing hybrid solutions that may not necessarily resolve or provide closure to complex social problems but that instead continually adapt and evolve to keep pace with them. Our rhetorical analysis of POOL is not meant to be generalizable across all entrepreneurial ventures;þ rather, we situate crowdfunding as an 294 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) exemplary model of civic entrepreneurship, one that foregrounds the deeply rhetorical work involved in developing and soliciting financial and social support for a hybrid solution. That is, like others (Bracken Scott, 2016; Dorpenyo, 2015; Kedrowicz & Taylor, 2016; Rice, 2016; Salvo, Pflug- felder, & Prenosil, 2010), we ground our discussion in POOL as a rhetorical artifact, specifically examining how POOL providesþ a generative way of understanding the role that rhetoricþ plays in the day-to-day work of civic entrepreneurship. Moreover, by bringing to light the vast array of rhetorical activities involved in POOL, we further demonstrate the vital role that rhetoric and technical communicationþ play in civic entrepreneurship—beyond that of delivering a persuasive pitch to investors or a proposal to stakeholders. Ultimately, we suggest that the work of rhetoric and technical communication can be seen throughout the entire development of POOL as a hybrid solution, from the initial construction of water pollution asþ a wicked problem and the iterative process of testing filters to the design of public campaigns for raising financial and social support via crowdfunding and the development of relationships with members of the community, local government agencies, and environmental advocacy groups. First, we situate our analysis at the intersection of technical communication and entrepreneurial scholarship, focusing in particular on the core characteristics of social and civic models of entrepreneurship. Second, we examine POOL as an ongoing civic entrepreneurial venture to demonstrate howþ hybrid solutions function within large civic crowdfunding campaigns. We then unpack the notion of hybrid solutions and argue that they comprise both stable and dynamic components that help establish the credibility of a civic entrepreneurial venture while also allowing it to continually adapt to the ever-shifting contours of wicked problems. Third, we extend our findings from analyzing POOL to develop a flexible methodology for better understanding howþ hybrid solutions dynamically work to address problems that, by definition, resist being solved. Finally, we conclude our study by considering the implications of hybrid solutions for the fields of civic entrepreneurship and technical communication.

Entrepreneurship and Technical Communication Entrepreneurialism and technical communication have significant but relatively unexplored similarities. As Weber and Spartz (2014) contended, with the increasing presence of entrepreneurial initiatives in institutions of higher education today, technical communication scholars must consider the rhetorical dimensions of entrepreneurship. For Weber and Spartz, the Gerding and Vealey 295 work of entrepreneurship is not limited to the establishment of a business or service for the purpose of acquiring profits. Rather, they base their work on an expansive sense of entrepreneurialism,whichtheyseeasa“holistic mindset and skill set allowing people to recognize opportunity, instigate change, and unite people in collaboration to create something new” (p. 54). This understanding of entrepreneurship is clearly grounded in rhetoric. As they argued, “technical communication can be a vital part of [entrepreneurial] curriculum; in fact ...entrepreneurship education is not complete without rhetorical, communication, and ethical abilities offered by our field” (p. 55). In that argument, Weber and Spartz (2014) acknowledged that entrepreneurship and technical communication have much to learn from one another; however, they also noted that the lack of attention given to entrepreneurial work in the field might stem from entrepreneurship’s “perceived emphasis on profit and corporate gain,” making it somewhat “incompatible with the ideology and theory of technical communication and service learning” (p. 61). They allayed these fears by framing entrepreneurship as presenting technical communication pedagogy with “strategically executed projects [that] could actually open opportunities for student agency and critical reflection about corporate discourse and social issues” (p. 66). For Weber and Spartz, entrepreneurialism aligns with technical communication’s own commitments to “active, experiential, student-driven, and real- world learning” (p. 53). Building on Weber and Spartz’s (2014) work, we foreground the ways entrepreneurship and technical communication overlap as forms of problem-solving work. Most understandings of entrepreneurship describe it as largely a process of identifying problems, reframing them as opportunities for intervention, and developing innovative solutions that enact change for the benefit of stakeholders (Johnson, 2013; Shane, 2003; Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990). Likewise, Johnson-Eilola and Selber (2013) characterized the technical communicator as one who finds and solves problems. With rapidly changing technologies and the need for a wide range of cross-disciplinary expertise in the workplace, they suggested,

technical communicators do not merely learn skills; they must also learn how to learn [emphasis added] new skills, upgrading and augmenting their abilities as they mature in careers, analyzing the matches and mismatches between what they currently know and what a communication situation demands. ...[They] must learn to become reflective problem solvers. (p. 3) 296 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3)

Problem-solving, in this sense, is a deeply rhetorical activity, one in which a technical communicator must survey all available solutions to a particular problem within its context. “Because there are always multiple ways to understand and solve problems in this field,” Johnson-Eilola and Selber noted, “technical communicators are constantly interpreting use situations and weighing possible responses. The solution to a problem in technical communication is never the only available solution, but one among several competing alternatives” (p. 3). Foregrounding the crucial role of adaptability to the continually shifting technological and rhetorical terrain of today’s work environments, Johnson- Eilola and Selber (2013) identified a number of vital characteristics that technical communicators must embody, “including the ability to sense a problem, diagnose what forces within a context are causing the problem, and develop and implement a change within the context that addresses the problem” (pp. 3–4). Technical communicators are well suited for this problem-solving work became they are sensitive to the rhetorical dimensions of problems, that is, they are attuned to how problems take shape in and across contexts, the impact of such problems on a variety of stakeholders, and the ways in which problems form exigencies for rhetorical action. In this article, we further explore and build on the relationship between rhetorical and problem-solving work found in both technical communication and entrepreneurship.

The Rhetorical Work of Social and Civic Entrepreneurship We recognize POOL here as a civic entrepreneurial venture that embodies the virtues of socialþ entrepreneurship but clearly works to enact change in the civic infrastructure of New York City. While civic entrepreneurs share many similarities with their social entrepreneurial equivalents in the private and public sectors, civic entrepreneurship emphasizes social ventures pre- dominantly in and across the civil sector (Henton, Melville, & Walesh, 1997; Leadbetter & Goss, 1998). Toward that end, we briefly examine three common qualities of both social and civic entrepreneurialism that together foreground the rhetorical work of civic entrepreneurship.

Driven by a Social Mission For most social entrepreneurs, an underlying mission or purpose serves as the exigency and objective that guides their actions and sustains large-scale, Gerding and Vealey 297 long-term projects. Indeed, as Dees (2007) defined it, social entrepreneurship “combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business- like discipline, innovation, and determination.” That is, “financial capital becomes the ‘means to a social end, not the end in itself’” (p. 1). Recog- nizing a potentially misleading binary, Martin and Osberg (2007) argued that social entrepreneurship is not entirely altruistic, and business entrepreneurship is not only concerned with financial gain; rather, both types of entrepreneurs are motivated by investment in a larger vision or mission. In other words, “social entrepreneurs design their revenue-generating strategies to directly serve their mission to deliver social value ...all through an entrepreneurially oriented entity that is financially independent, self- sufficient, or sustainable” (Abu-Saifan, 2012, p. 24). Thus, a social entrepreneur must not only have a clearly defined mission but also be skilled in communicating that mission and its significance to others. According to Leadbetter (1997), in communicating whatdrivestheirentrepreneurial venture, social entrepreneurs mustbecompellingstorytellerswhocan encourage others “to think imaginatively rather than analytically or procedurally” (pp. 54–55).

Accumulates Social Capital Most social ventures, Leadbetter (1997) noted, cannot make progress toward their overarching mission using their own limited resources and must therefore seek out support bybuildingalliances. This process— described as the accumulation of social capital—occurs through developing and continuing “relationships, networks, trust and co-operation” (p. 10). These primarily social assets are needed to produce other forms of capital that, in turn, lead to sustainable, long-term growth. The primary dividend of this process is a continuation of the cycle of accumulating social capital, resulting in “a stronger community, more able to look after itself, with stronger bonds of trust and cooperation” (p. 25). This quality illustrates that social entrepreneurship must not be defined solely in terms of the accom- plishments of a single person but that the leadership of such ventures is multidirectional, collaborative, and emergent. As social entrepreneurs leverage their skills as change agents and catalysts, they seek “to develop the capability, skills and knowledge of the people around them” (Leadbetter & Goss, 1998, p. 64). Indeed, as Light (2006) argued, “the most effective social entrepreneur might be one who simply ties the streams together and stands aside” (pp. 48–49). Producing social capital, then, allows the various networks and communities that emerge from entrepreneurial ventures to 298 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) access the “physical and financial capital” for supporting more complex and sustained civic initiatives (Leadbetter, 1997, p. 10).

Enacts Social Change If the short-term goal of both social and civic entrepreneurs is to create social value, then the long-term goal is to enact lasting social change. While the accumulation of social capital sustains the activities necessary to produce new social value within communities, this value is inherently difficult to measure (Dees, 2007). Although the outcomes of business entrepreneurship are often measured in terms of profit, social ventures largely reinvest financial capital to support further initiatives; as such, to assess the impact of social ventures, we must think about how they enact change rather than look for direct evidence of the change they produce. Indeed, Waddock and Post (1991) understood social entrepreneurs as agents of “catalytic social change” who do not enact social change so much as contribute to the conditions from which the possibilities for change are created (p. 393). Social entrepreneurs, they noted, possess “the necessary vision, drive, and resources to galvanize the efforts of a large, complex network of individual and organizational actors toward resolution of a complex problem through a relatively complex process of agenda building” (p. 394). As catalysts, social entrepreneurs influence others to contribute to social causes and ultimately encourage the efforts of their fellow social entrepreneurs. As these three qualities demonstrate, social or civic entrepreneurs’ ability to enact change—or in Waddock and Post’s (1991) view, create the conditions of possibility for change—is rooted in their rhetorical ability to identify and reframe apressingsocialproblem as an opportunity for intervention. In doing so, they can persuade others to become financially or socially invested in a particular problem and a solution designed to address it.

Civic Entrepreneurship and Its Wicked Problems One subtle but important difference between civic and social entrepreneurs is their respective ways of understanding their relationship with city, state, and federal bodies of government. This difference is evident in Dees’s (2007) account of social entrepreneurship and its future in solving our world’s most pressing and wicked problems, including the treatment of curable diseases in third-world countries, the provision of equitable access to education both locally and globally, and the lasting environmental harm Gerding and Vealey 299 caused by climate change. “After studying this for over a decade,” Dees proposed, “I am convinced that social entrepreneurs, operating outside of the constraints of government [emphasis added], significantly enhance our ability to find and implement effectivesolutionstosocialproblems” (pp. 24–25). Dees contended that governmental agencies are substantially limited in their ability to address large-scale social issues, criticizing such agencies as being “bureaucratic, ineffective, wasteful, too political, and antithetical to innovation” (p. 25). Social entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are well suited to approach complex and ill-defined social problems because they

have greater freedom of action and can usually move more quickly than public officials. ...[and] they can explore a wider range of alternatives, largely because they are not as constrained by bureaucratic rules, legislative mandates, political considerations, and a fixed budget. (p. 26)

Dees’s (2007) characterization of the social entrepreneur as a lone innovator and pioneer working outside of governmental constraints is not as prevalent in civic entrepreneurship. Rather, civic entrepreneurs are most often characterized by their commitment to forging relationships and building communities across disciplinary, institutional, and cultural contexts. Indeed, Leadbetter and Goss (1998) saw civic entrepreneurs as operating from within the public (or governmental) sector rather than within traditional businesses. In contrast to entrepreneurial ventures in private or voluntary sectors, those in public or civic sectors function within much larger and more complex organizations. Furthermore, they receive and are accounta- ble for public funding and answer to elected officials or departments at the municipal, state, or federal levels (p. 17). Like Leadbetter and Goss’s (1998) understanding of civic entrepreneurship, Henton, Melville, and Walesh (1997) also located the work of civic entrepreneurs primarily within the public sector; however, they placed more emphasis on the in-betweenness of such work, noting that the public sector “is not business and not government but is between the market and politics” (p. 149). By virtue of existing at the intersection of these boundaries, civic entrepreneurs can “forge new, powerful productive linkages at the intersection of business, government, education, and community. They have much to teach us about building vital, resilient economic communities in turbulent times and, in the process, restoring civil society from the grassroots” (p. 149). Civic entrepreneurship, in this view, is primarily concerned with community building whereby “civic entrepreneurs help communities 300 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) collaborate to develop and organize their economic assets and to build productive, resilient relationships across the public, private, and civil sectors” and, in so doing, “work toward a long-term positive interconnec- tedness between business vitality, schools and universities, physical infrastructure, natural environment, and tax base” (pp. 152–153). Civic entrepreneurs’ long-term investment in community building, particularly at the intersection of business, government, and the public, clearly shapes their approach to addressing complex problems. In many ways, their work here reflects Rittel and Webber’s (1973) notion that wicked problems cannot be solved by one discipline, profession, or organization alone due to their far-reaching impact across public, private, and governmental sectors. For example, wicked problems with multiple and often competing dimensions—such as climate change—cannot be adequately addressed by environmental scientists if policy makers, government officials, oil companies, automotive manufacturers, and citizens are left out of the discussion. Civic entrepreneurs, then, must work to embody what Waddock and Post (1991) viewed as the ability to enact catalytic change, in which the goal is “to spur other efforts at problem-solving by increasing awareness of the problem and beginning to make linkages among organizations that did not previously exist, rather than to directly solve the problems themselves” (p. 400). Such change results from

catalytic social alliances [that] deal with issues that are characterized by ...action by multiple actors on multiple levels and by multiple means and over a very long period of time. Because of this ...the social initiatives generated by these entrepreneurs are necessarily viewed as the first of one of many steps needed to actually resolve the problem. (p. 395)

This understanding of civic entrepreneurship resonates in many ways with the work of building and sustaining community around a particular issue or problem. Such work, Grabill (2010) argued, is precisely the work of rhetoric. He developed this argument by describing his participation in supporting a particular community’s response to the dredging of an industrial canal, causing significant water pollution in the area. Grabill situated his involvement as supporting the work of the community as they sought to “open up a matter of concern and resist the closure of fact, of a decision, of silence” (p. 203). Rhetoric, then, is what helps support and further the work of others in the process of assembling people around a matter of concern; in other words, rhetoric is what takes place when “we teach or otherwise build capacity with others to act effectively” (p. 204). Procter (2005) likewise suggested that Gerding and Vealey 301 rhetoric functions as a way of assembling community around common beliefs, motivations, and values. His notion of “civic communions,” in particular, encompasses

the rhetorical processes and cultural performances that function to build community. ... They are fundamentally a rhetorical and performative civic sacrament functioning to bond citizenry around the social and political struc- tures—local ways of life, community goals, and political operations—of a specific people. (p. 10)

In a similar way, civic entrepreneurs function as agents of change (Dees, 2007), developing solutions that mobilize “a diverse network of people and private sector companies to jointly attack social problems” (Leadbetter, 1997, p. 23). The solutions offered by civic entrepreneurship, then, seem to confound, or at least run counter to, our expectation that such solutions should in some way explain, alleviate, or provide closure to a particular problem. We further unpack this idea in the next section as we take a closer look at the rhetorical work civic entrepreneurs engage in as they grapple with exceedingly complex and wicked problems that call for a different kind of solution. We situate this argument in an analysis of POOL’s public campaign to construct what we call a hybrid solution, oneþ composed of a recreational swimming pool, a large-scale filtration system, and a floating laboratory for collecting data on water pollutants in both the Hudson and East Rivers. Specifically, our analysis suggests that POOL helps foreground the rhetorical work involved in civic entrepreneurship,þ particularly in developing hybrid solutions that are, on the one hand, stable, tangible, and feasible enough to establish credibility and motivate investors to seriously engage the project and, on the other hand, capable of dynamically adapting and responding to the continually shifting boundaries of the problem it ultimately seeks to address.

+POOL as Hybrid Solution Civic entrepreneurs, we suggest, are particularly well equipped to develop hybrid solutions as they constantly work to forge networks and alliances, seize opportunities, and keep pace with continually shifting and evolving problems. Moreover, the idea that civic entrepreneurs create hybrid forms of solutions has a long history in entrepreneurial literature. Indeed, Schumpeter’s (1911/2011) early work on entrepreneurs as agents 302 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) of economic change pivots on the notion that entrepreneurial activity is, at its core, about carrying out new combinations, or hybrids, of ideas that drive economic development. Olsson and Frey (2002) described this activity as follows:

Ametaphorforthisprocessisanagriculturalresearchstationthatdevelops improved plant varieties by cross-pollinating existing plant varieties. The growth of knowledge depends on the number of “hybrid ideas”—combinations of ideas not previously combined—and on the amount of resources devoted to developing the hybrid ideas into usable form. (p. 70)

The inventive work involved in creating hybrid solutions along with the rhetorical awareness needed to maintain and promote such solutions require civic entrepreneurs to be innovative thinkers, community-based leaders, and risk takers. We believe that by examining the hybridity of ideas and solutions crafted by civic entrepreneurs, we canbetterunder- stand how their approach to problem-solving calls for and is sustained by a wealth of rhetorical work. This section returns to the example of POOL from our introduction and more closely examines the ways in whichþ a complex, ongoing civic entrepreneurial venture embodies the qualities of hybrid solutions that we argue are valued by both technical communicators and civic entrepreneurs. To better understand how POOL acts as a model hybrid solution, we examine various documents fromþ the multiyear project, including social media accounts, two Kickstarter campaigns, an official Web site, press releases, blog posts, magazine and newspaper articles, interviews, and videos published between 2010 and 2016. POOL is a civic entrepreneurial venture in New York City that aims to constructþ a floating community pool in New York City’s East River. Cofounded in 2010 by Dong-Ping Wong and Oana Stanescu, of Family New York, and Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeffrey Franklin, of PlayLab, Inc., POOL aims to transform a polluted urban waterway into a public recreationalþ space by developing a submersible pool with a built-in filtration system that extracts harmful contaminants from over 500,000 gallons of river water per day. More specifically, the pool functions as “a giant water filter that draws river water through the pool walls and uses a succes- sion of geotextile layers to sift increasingly minute contaminants out of the water,” resulting in cleaner water both inside and outside of the pool (Szewczyk, 2015, para. 3). POOL has attracted significant attention as a result of two successful Kickstarterþ campaigns, in 2011 and in 2013; Gerding and Vealey 303 combined, these campaigns raised almost $315,000 to develop and test different filtration systems for the final pool design. The first practical test of the filtration system, the Float Lab, occurred in summer 2014 and tested different material types and setups for the filtration system (McGrath, 2014). This initial testing was followed by site-specific feasibility testing for potential locations in summer 2015 (Nonko, 2015). That same year, the project took another important step closer to reality when the team established itself as Friends of Plus Pool, a 501(c)(3) tax- exempt nonprofit organization. As of spring 2016, POOL is pending permit approval from the city, a process that is predictedþ to take between 1 and 2 years (Nonko, 2015). This process, as cofounder Wong explained in an interview in 2015, has taken longer than expected because POOL “doesn’t exactly fit into anything .... [It’s] an ongoing conversationþ to figure out how we modify our project to fit into codes” (Szewczyk, 2015). With a predicted final budget north of $20 million and a targeted date to finish construction by summer 2020, POOL is currently at a pivotal transition from design and iterative testingþ to construction and implementation (Swanson, 2015). As a complex civic infrastructural project, POOL is an ideal model of what we call a hybrid solution (see Figure 2). Byþ hybrid,wemeanaventure or enterprise that offers simultaneously a stable and tangible entrepreneurial outcome designed to dynamically adapt to the shifting and evolving contours of wicked problems. We develop this notion of hybrid solutions in order to foreground the rhetorical work of social entrepreneurship, which we suggest involves maintaining a consistent perception of the overarching vision even when the dynamism of iterative solutions undermines this perceived stability. That is, the stable component of a hybrid solution is performative in that a civic entrepreneurial venture always unfolds as an iterative process whereby the overall solution being developed is subject to revision, reinterpretation, or even failure. In the early phases of a new venture, for instance, nothing is certain or guaranteed. Moreover, when dealing with a wicked problem, a civic entrepreneur’s proposed solution (in the form of a venture) cannot be entirely set in stone because the para- meters of the wicked problem are always shifting and being redefined over time. To establish a sense of credibility and generate both financial and social capital for a new venture, then, civic entrepreneurs must persuasively communicate a well-developed, singular vision for their initiative. Without components that are more or less fixed and unlikely to deviate significantly, an idea can be perceived as unwieldy, underdeveloped, or too much of a risk for investors. 304 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3)

Figure 2. Illustration of +POOL as a hybrid solution. Hybrid solutions to wicked civic problems must have a stable component in order to be viewed as viable and feasible by the public, potential investors or collaborators, and governmental organizations that regulate and creden- tial civic projects. At the same time, the stable component must be com- plemented (or counteracted) by a dynamic component that affords flexibility and is often both deliberately and unintentionally in flux. That is, the dynamic components of hybrid solutions, in contrast, are inherently unstable, which makes them functional yet difficult to market to potential investors and stakeholders. As a result, they are sometimes de-emphasized to increase clarity or avoid admitting challenges and obstacles at critical moments when potential investors or stakeholders make decisions. While iteration is necessary and inevitable for complex design initiatives, the core of the project needs to be consistent from beginning to end for supporters to feel that their investment has been respected. The challenge is not to deter- mine which component to include or prioritize but rather to achieve balance between them. In what follows we identify first the stable and then the dynamic components of POOL in order to illustrate how civic entrepreneurs negotiate the competingþ interests of stable vision and dynamic iteration. Gerding and Vealey 305

Stable Components of +POOL While solutions need to reflect the complexity of the wicked problems they address, in civic entrepreneurship, such solutions also must provide potential investors and stakeholders with a stable vision around which to build and mobilize activity. Grappling with wicked problems as civic entrepreneurs, then, involves grounding ventures in stable outcomes that are, in some form, feasible and tangible. Providing such stability works rhetorically to establish credibility as well as to offer a concrete goal for addressing apressingmatterofconcern.Suchstabilitywasparticularlyimportantfor the creators of POOL, as they raised much of their initial financial and social capital throughþ the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter. To achieve and communicate this sense of stability for their civic venture, they strategically framed the goal of their campaign as not only to solicit funds for constructing a recreational pool but also to continue existing environmental activism and be a vital part of New York City’s enduring legacy of providing citizens with iconic public spaces in which to gather as a community.

Architectural Renderings At the core of POOL’s campaign is the provocative image of a cross- shaped pool floatingþ in the East River. Like other conceptual renderings common to architectural and infrastructural projects, this image blurs the line between what is and what could be,invitingtheviewertoimaginea better version of an existing space. For POOL to succeed, this image of a pool floating in the river had to be bothþ iconic and familiar, simple yet improbable. In a single image, the designers and architects of Family New York and PlayLab present a hybrid solution that at once seems to be both impossible and better than real; it is acalltoaction,avisionofthefuture that can only become possible with public support. The stability afforded by this rendering allows the POOL team to refer back to this artifact to anchor their vision for the ventureþ and provides the project with a sturdy, common ground on which potential investors and stakeholders can become invested.

Environmental Activism POOL’s stability as a civic entrepreneurial venture stems not only from providingþ a recreational pool for the local community but also from its construction as a large-scale filtration system. POOL is explicitly þ 306 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) designed to be a form of environmental activism, one that ideally will foster and sustain local residents’ further interest in water quality issues. Thus, at a time when awareness to pollution in public waterways is increasing, the stability offered by taking an explicitly activist approach makes POOL more than a unique amenity for New Yorkers. The creators of POOL,þ in other words, developed a vision for their venture that is at onceþ both a community space and a large-scale system for actively filtering one of the most heavily polluted rivers in the country—a vision around which investors both within and outside of New York City are confidently able to support with financial and social capital. POOL’s environmentalist leanings have been foregrounded since the launchþ of its first Kickstarter campaign. But between its first and second campaigns, we see a shift in the language its creators use to frame POOL’s filtration system and its immediate and long-term environmen- talþ benefits, particularly in the shiftfromthefirstcampaign’sfocuson keeping the pool water itself clean and swimmable to the second campaign’s goal of extending these benefits beyond the walls of the pool to encompass the entire East River:

POOL is designed to filter the very river that it floats in through the walls of þ the pool, making it possible for New Yorkers to swim in clean river water for the first time in 100 years. The layered filtration system incrementally removes bacteria and contaminants to ensure nothing but clean, swimmable water that meets both city and state standards. No chemicals, no additives, just natural river water. The pool will clean up to half a million gallons of river water every single day. In doing so, POOL will make a measurable þ contribution to the rivers of New York City. The rivers are big, and this will be a great place to start cleaning them [emphasis added]. ( POOL, n.d.a) þ In addition, the public advocacy work that the POOL Twitter account (pluspoolny) engages in places the project amongþ other initiatives, both within New York City and across the world, that seek to raise awareness of issues of water quality, urban water-treatment infrastructure, and access to clean water for consumption, recreation, and conservation or preserva- tion of the local environment.

History of Public Pools in New York City Part of POOL’s appeal is its decidedly romantic notion to reclaim a pollutedþ major waterway for public recreational use. This idea has proven Gerding and Vealey 307 popular online in part because polluted rivers and lakes are a common occurrence worldwide. A stable component of the public campaign for POOL, then, involves reminding New Yorkers that public swimming is anþ important part of their city’s history. A series of posts to the Friends of POOL Facebook group appeal to the history of both public swimming and alternativeþ pools in New York City, including a photograph depicting a pool attached to a semitruck from the 1960s (Friends of Pool, 2015). Further- more, as Dailey (2012) noted in a piece for Curbedþ New York, POOL is not even the first floating pool in New York City: þ

When the POOL guys unveiled their idea for a floating pool in the East þ River that used the river’s water, people thought they were nuts, if not totally gross for wanting to swim in the river. But they weren’t the first people to have this idea. In fact, the first floating pool debuted in New York City more than 140 years ago. Called “floating baths,” the pools came into existence after the Civil War when public health advocates called for more public bath houses. (para. 1)

In addition to alternative pools like the floating baths, New York City has a long history of traditional publicpools,liketherecentlyrenovated McCarren Park Pool, which became popular in the 20th century when pollution first made swimming in the city’s rivers and harbor unpleasant and dangerous (Swanson, 2015). Again, connecting POOL to this longer history provides stability by reassuring investors thatþ this project is not only feasible and possible but also a continuation of the enduring legacy of public recreational spaces in New York City.

Dynamic Components of +POOL The dynamic components of POOL help civic entrepreneurs keep pace with wicked problems under conditionsþ of constant change. For POOL, this dynamic component was designed not only to adapt to the continuallyþ shifting and evolving problem of pollution in the East River but also to approach the rhetorical work of civic entrepreneurship as a distinctly wicked problem. Indeed, part of Rittel and Webber’s (1973) characterization of wicked problems is that they are often irrevocably intertwined in a vast web of equally complex and ill-defined problems. This characteristic is most evident if we think about the manifold of ongoing causes that perpet- uate the river’s pollution. That is, the problem of pollution is composed of and sustained by not only the city’s process for disposing of excess 308 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) wastewater but also problems with adequately coordinating and ensuring that all municipal and corporate policies, state and city legislation, and technical modifications to the city’s infrastructure align to reduce the pollution level in the East River at any given time. Civic entrepreneurs thus grapple not only with visible wicked problems but also with invisible and emergent ones. If wicked problems are also characterized by a lack of common understanding of their causes, impact, and significance, then something as simple as applying for construction permits to build a floating pool in the middle of the East River becomes an exceedingly wicked problem. Thus, dynamic components of a hybrid solution are built not only to keep pace with a continually shifting wicked problem but also to ensure that entrepreneurial ventures are not derailed by encounters with the unexpected. Moreover, these dynamic components of hybrid solutions are flexible to change and allow civic entrepreneurs to craft a persuasive story about a constantly evolving solution to a continuously shifting problem.

Contribution to Scientific Research Adistinctiveelementof POOL’s approach to civic entrepreneurship is its emphasis on researchþ as evidence to inform decision making or persuade policy makers and government officials. The creators of POOL have embraced the notion that research can reinforce the feasibilityþ of their project and used their resources to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on water pollution in New York City. According to a post on the POOL home page, between June and October 2015, POOL com- pletedþ “the most intensive and detailed water quality testingþ program conducted over such a large stretch of river in the NYC area” ( POOL, n.d.b). Results of this test have been compiled into an unreleasedþ water quality report and used as criteria for determining an adequate location for the final pool. In addition to site-specific testing, Float Lab collected water-quality data for 6 months at a fixed location in the river. While these data provided baseline values for tests of the filtration system, they also became a public record of the pollution levels in the river. When the Float Lab sensors were active in summer 2014, Dashboard, a custom visualization designed with helpfromGoogleDrive,providedalive stream of current river conditions. POOL has also partnered with aca- demic researchers, such as Wade McGillisþ from Columbia University, to analyze testing results and ensure that the filtration system is yielding water at safe levels for swimming (Brownstone, 2014). Gerding and Vealey 309

Catalytic Social Alliances The creators of POOL have cultivated an image for their initiative that allows for a rangeþ of what Waddock and Post (1991) called catalytic social alliances, which address issues that require “action by multiple actors on multiple levels and by multiple means and over a very long period of time” (p. 395). A Tweet from January 2016 demonstrates how catalytic alliances developed around POOL: “ POOL is simultaneously a public art work, piece of contemporaryþ architecture,þ & public park, that contributes to public health & education” (pluspoolny, 2016). The elasticity afforded by POOL’s mission enables the team to establish alliances that blur the lines betweenþ the public, private, and civic sectors. For instance, in August 2010, the POOL team was contacted out of the blue by Arup, an international architecturalþ design firm known for innovative designs that transform urban environments, including the Portland Aerial Tram and the Millennium Bridge in London, as well as upcoming projects such as the Second Avenue Subway in New York City and the Apple Campus II (Arup, n.d.). Arup heard about POOL and wanted to help, which led to its involvement in the preliminaryþ engineering feasibility report Timeline.Releasedin2010,this report determined that the project was actually possible and approximated how much it would cost; it also “assessed the water quality, filtration, structural, mechanical and energy systems” of the initial POOL design (Minner, 2011). Not only did this partnership with Arup validateþ the team’s initial ideas, it also provided a shot of social capital that raised the profile of the project and attracted other like-minded professionals, public servants, and civic entrepreneurs to join the POOL staff or board of directors. Asecondexampleofacatalyticsociþ al alliance is the collaboration between POOL and Wade McGillis, associate research professor of Geo- chemistryþ at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. McGillis was most actively involved with the water quality testing done with Float Lab and is frequently referenced as an expert consultant in news articles about POOL (Brownstone, 2014). In 2014, a team of undergrad- uate engineeringþ students at Columbia worked with McGillis to analyze results from Float Lab (http://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/hudsonwaterlab). The students’ blog contains weekly updates on water samples taken in the Hudson River, data visualizations based on results from Float Lab, and links to other collaborators on the project (e.g., the Hudson River Park Trust, whose facility in Brooklyn provided pier pace for Float Lab, and River- keeper, an organization comprising citizen scientists throughout New York City). While this alliance yielded concrete results, such as Float Lab and the 310 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) feasibility report, it also contributed to a vast network of collaborators and interested parties who have helped shape POOL’s growth. þ

Funding Methods With an estimated price tag of more than $20 million, POOL will not be able to rely on just one source of funding. While the projectþ gained early social capital from crowdfunding, the nonprofit has since moved to a wide range of different methods of raising financial capital, some of which are still speculative. The secondKickstartercampaignintroduced acentralaspectof POOL’s funding strategy in subsequent years: the tile. While every Kickstarterþ projecthasincentives,projectswithlong development times need to be creative since the product being funded may not be ready for many years. POOL’s solution, which is common to many community infrastructure projþ ects, was to give investors a public representation of their contribution that will physically be part of the eventual product as a tile installed onthepool’ssurface.Fundsfromthe ongoing sale of tiles on its Web site helps, but they are still drops in a bucket compared to the estimated price tag. In a profile in New York Magazine,cocreatorCoatesfloatedapotential idea for long-term funding that involves licensing the idea for POOL to cities around the world: “We could potentially have this funþding thing in which we license the technology, which would fund the PlusPoolinNewYork,”heexplained (as cited in Swanson, 2015). In addition, the level of interest created from the high visibility of both crowdfunding campaigns allowed the team to begin independently funding through various galas and fundraisers in New York City in fall 2014 (Blahut, 2014). The design of POOL as a hybrid solution (composed of its many visible and invisibleþ aggregates) has provided insight into how one group of civic entrepreneurs grappled with a wicked problem that is continually shifting and evolving and is thus resistant to being completely solved. While these findings are, of course, unique to POOL and largely emerge from our analysis of these entrepreneurs’ rhetoricalþ approach to addressing pollution in the East River, their work as civic entrepreneurs offers a way for us to reimagine what we mean when we seek to develop workable and action- able solutions in an age increasingly beset with wicked matters of concern. In the following section, we build from our analysis of POOL in order to demonstrate how solutions can be designed to rhetoricallyþ grapple with problems that, by definition, cannot be solved. Our framework identifies four characteristics of POOL’s hybrid solution—slow, subtle, scalable, þ Gerding and Vealey 311 and sustainable—that are productive points of engagement for civic entrepreneurs and technical communicators alike.

A Framework for Slow, Subtle, Scalable, and Sustainable Solutions We present here a methodology for better understanding how civic entrepreneurs rhetorically grapple with wicked problems, specifically by foregrounding four interrelated characteristics that we see at the core of hybrid solutions. Together, these characteristics establish equilibrium between the competing dynamic and stable components of a solution. Building from our previous premise that the problems civic entrepreneurs address are inherently wicked, we suggest that hybrid solutions succeed when they effectively employ strategies that are slow, subtle, scalable, and sustainable. The combination of these characteristics does not simplify the problem but rather increases the complexity of the solution. Just as wicked problems resist being solved, hybrid solutions in some ways resist being posed; that is, a solution is not a solution if the problem it addresses is unsolvable. Thus, a hybrid solution recognizes both the complexity of the situation and the reality of entrepreneurial ventures, which—whether for profit or not—fail if they do not make progress toward short- and long- term goals. When entrepreneurs tackle huge problems such as social inequality or environmental degradation, they do so fully recognizing that their efforts will be neither quick nor all encompassing. Wicked problems persist, and solutions that minimize or ignore their complexity are doomed to fail. As our analysis of POOL has demonstrated, hybrid solutions that hope to succeed against aþ seemingly impossible task must establish roots that extend outward in different directions. In many ways, as POOL became more realistic and the chance of it actually happening increased,þ the obstacles it had to overcome to get there grew more numerous and daunting. Specifically, cocreator Wong has stated that POOL progressed slowly through the permitting and regulatory pro- cessþ in part because there are few precedents for a floating pool in an urban waterway. As a result, either POOL had to be adapted to fit existing city codes or existing codes had toþ be revised to accommodate such an unusual project (Szewczyk, 2015). Creating responsive hybrid solutions is a matter not simply of having a better design or receiving additional funding but of balancing the drive for innovation and vision of an entrepreneurial venture with the need to fit that idea into existing systems or policies. To that end, we describe four transferable characteristics of hybrid solutions and 312 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) conclude with a series of heuristic questions that function as a framework for addressing wicked problems across both civic entrepreneurship and technical communication.

Slow Solutions While many civic infrastructure projects are forever delayed and down- sized, we define slow in this case as pace rather than duration. That is, how slowly or quickly a project progresses between iterations says less about the effectiveness or viability of the solution than about how creators reinvest this extra time. When profit is replaced by social mission as an underlying motivation for entrepreneurship, the traditional push to innovate quickly or risk losing market value is replaced by a slow and deliberate strategy to gain social capital. Such capital cannot be rushed, but it also cannot wait forever; it requires an approach that takes calculated risks and is open to unplanned detours but that clearly and frequently communicates progress to stakeholders (Dees, 2007). An example of this slow solution is the shifting dead- lines of POOL: The original timeline released in 2012 was an estimate that becameþ outdated as the project progressed. But delays in selecting a site in order to meet permitting requirements allowed for more careful water quality testing and more time for the POOL team to analyze these data and use them as the basis for further storytellingþ and presentation. Some aspects of slow solutions are certainly subject to chance or accident, but we believe that such solutions can be deliberately and strategically—if not entirely— prepared for in the planning stages of a venture.

Subtle Solutions Subtlety in civic entrepreneurship is a delicate proposition: A subtle solution is one that both resists grandiose and infeasible claims and actively uses conscious restraint in how and when to present incremental solutions. Although the larger vision of POOL is anything but subtle, the goal of the first Kickstarter campaign wasþ comparatively modest: to raise $25,000 in order to develop and test a 10’ by 5’ filtration system. The goal of the second campaign, in contrast, was to raise $250,000 in order to increase the size of the test system and put it in actual river conditions. By beginning with small and attainable goals, the creators achieved the momentum necessary to level up to incrementally more complex problems overtime, even when that meant delaying the final product to conduct additional testing. Gerding and Vealey 313

Scalable Solutions Many entrepreneurial endeavors fail by aiming too high too quickly; a scalable solution,then,isonethatrecognizesthat when tackling wicked problems, growth must be planned and incremental. The end goal might still be somewhat of a reach: Even after years of small successes, POOL still seems somewhat implausible. At each step toward that fantasticþ goal, the project has been scaled accordingtoavailableresources,public response, and technical feasibility, among other limitations. Had the creators skipped their initial small-scale campaigns and instead tried to raise the estimated $20 million needed to realize the final pool concept, it likely would haveþ failed immediately. At the same time, a Kickstarter campaign for a pool filter is decidedly not exciting, and a large part of POOL’s success stems from its surprise value and viral appeal. By being ableþ to scale up or down as needed when constructing the project’s narra- tive, the POOL team reached the broadest possible audience and crafted aversatile,compellingnarrative.þ

Sustainable Solutions Perhaps most important, a hybrid solution must be sustained over time. That does not mean that creators must think ahead to issues of maintenance or upkeep once a solution is realized (though that definitely helps); rather, the problem itself must be sustained as a wicked problem. Even if the final vision for POOL is realized by the end of the decade, the problem of enabling aþ better interface between New Yorkers and the polluted waterways in their city will remain. Even if the filtration system developed for recreation has other applications (i.e., cleaning the water in a small pond or lake), the creators must sustain the complexity and enormity of their initial problem in order to present a solution that is socially and civically respon- sible. Almost 6 years into the project, POOL has cultivated a reputation among civic innovators, designers, andþ environmentalists, one that also must be sustained once the next generation of social entrepreneurs begin to reach out to them for advice, support, inspiration, and social capital.

Conclusion Throughout this article, we have advanced an alternative understanding of how civic entrepreneurs work rhetorically to grapple with and solve wicked problems. Specifically, we have illustrated this alternative approach by 314 Journal of Business and Technical Communication 31(3) examining the civic venture of POOL as a hybrid solution composed of both stable and dynamic components.þ The stability of POOL is most clearly rooted in the public campaign’s architectural renderingsþ of the concept that visually depict the seemingly unrealistic idea of building a recreational pool in the middle of the East River as a feasible, credible, and worthwhile initiative. In its dual purpose of acting as both a community space and a large-scale filtration system, POOL reflects recognizable ideals of environmental activism while it strategicallyþ writes itself into New York City’s long history and legacy of building community pools for public use. While POOL offers various stable visions of its past, present, and future for stakeholdersþ and potential investors, its overall design as a civic endeavor is anything but static. Rather, as a hybrid solution, POOL is designed to dynamically adapt to the (literal and figurative) fluidityþ of water pollution as a wicked problem. What is most clear from thinking of POOL as a hybrid solution is that it in many ways embodies Rittel and Webber’sþ (1973) contention that “one cannot understand the problem without knowing about its context; one cannot meaningfully search for information without the orientation of a solution concept; one cannot first understand, then solve” (p. 162). For instance, POOL’s Float Lab was never designed to provide a complete and exhaustiveþ account of pollution in the East River. Instead, the Float Lab gave the team a richer understanding of how various pollutants affect the river, necessitating a much more robust and readily adaptable solution. As we have argued, this dynamic capacity of POOL is visible in the civic venture’s goal of conducting ongoing data collectionþ for further scientific research; in its collaborative and iterative development by designers, scientists, architects, engineers, citizens, and artists; in its cross-disciplinary commitment to building more social alliances with public, private, and government stakeholders; and in its method of generating financial and social capital for making POOL a reality sooner rather than later. Our notion of hybrid solutionsþ offers a renewed sense of what it means to solve—or at least work toward solving—wicked social and civic problems for both technical communicators and entrepreneurs. This notion deepens the prevailing understanding of civic entrepreneurship as a form of problem solving, which, according to Waddock and Post (1991), involves the deliberate (and, we suggest, rhetorical) construction of “the necessary vision, drive, and resources to galvanize the efforts of a large, complex network of individuals and organizational actors toward resolution of a complex problem” (p. 394). In carefully attending to POOL’s hybrid solution, we have productively reimagined the workþ of civic Gerding and Vealey 315 entrepreneurship not only as working toward the clear resolution of social and civic problems but also as designing solutions that reflect the complexity, fluidity, and wickedness of the problems they hope to solve. To avoid trivializing or underestimating the complexity of such problems, civic entrepreneurs must design solutions with both stable and dynamic components that exist inequilibrium,thusensuring that any solution becomes one step toward achieving a larger social mission rather than an end in its own right.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biographies Jeffrey M. Gerding is a doctoral candidate and assistant director of Professional Writing at Purdue University. He is currently working on his dissertation on civic engagement and user experience research in public sector digital service design. His work has appeared in the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy and IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. His research interests include professional and technical communication, public rhetorics, user experience design, and research methodology.

Kyle P. Vealey is an assistant professor of English at West Chester University. His research interests include technical and professional communication, rhetoric of science, rhetorical theory, and public rhetoric. His work has appeared in the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, Programmatic Perspectives, Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy,andIEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.