Systems Thinking and Public Transportation

Systems Thinking

Thinking systematically is not necessarily the way in which our brains normally work. Often we assume events take place separate from one another or that our actions do not directly affect anyone or anything else. This would be an incorrect assumption. In fact, most of the world around us can be considered a system. Our bodies, the school I attend, a football team, these are all systems. The definition of a system is, “an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something” (Meadows, 2008). The three things that must take place for a system is that there must be elements, interconnection of these elements, and it must achieve something. When I was reading about systems thinking and read this definition I automatically assumed that everything can be considered part of a system, unfortunately I was once again wrong. The example that was used in the book was sand on a road which would not be considered a system because you can take the sand away or add more sand and either way, these two elements do not interact with one another. I look forward to learning more about systems thinking and the way in which we can solve some of the major problems going on in the world by looking at the entire picture; not just the different elements of a problem separately. Most importantly, the more that we learn about systems the better we will be able to identify the functions of a system and why it is important.

Public Transportation and Sustainability

We watched multiple videos in class about public transportation and the way it has improved in other countries over the years. One of the videos was about the public transportation system in China. For one particular area that had a high volume of traffic and cars in a busy city the solution was too add “bus only” lanes. These bus only lanes allowed for thousands of passengers to get to and from one side of the city to the other in a short amount of time. One of the main innovations that stuck out to me with this bus system is that they built elevated walk ways so that passengers could load on to the bus without going up and down the stairs; this small change saved time for the passengers and drivers. Another video that we watched had to do with bike rentals in Paris, France. Bikes are available at different stations all over Paris that way if you pick up a bike in one area you can drop it off at another. Velib, the company that started this bike sharing program has helped encourage people to use their bikes by making the first half hour free. They realized that to reduce the amount of traffic on the roads they needed an easy and convenient way for people to get around the city. Both the bus only lanes in China and this bike sharing program in Paris could be utilized in a city like LA. Los Angeles is known for its traffic and smog as a result of the amount of cars on the road. I believe that we need to rethink the way in which we travel in that city and therefore should adopt one or both of these alternate forms of commuting.

Sustainability

I should start by saying, this is the first class I have ever taken about sustainability. So when I was posed with the question about what experience I have with sustainability I had to rack my brain to see if there was anything I’ve done that would be considered sustainable. The only thing that came to mind is that I try to recycle regularly, pick up trash when walking on the beach, and believe in e-mailing more than printing out documents to save paper. Other than that, I have no experience. Because most of my classes are in business, I often hear the term sustainable but have never really understood exactly what it is. People are starting to pay attention to the way in which we treat the world we live in and starting to understand that we need to make changes now if we want to have a place for our future generations to enjoy. In the business world, being sustainable is usually more expensive (in the beginning) because companies have to research and develop different ways to produce products and services for their clients. Therefore, many companies have yet to adopt sustainable business practices. I am hoping after I finish this course I can take the knowledge I’ve gained and utilize it in my professional career. One way in which I hoped to gain a better understanding of sustainability was by watching a video from a leading thinker on creativity and innovation in the workplace, Sir Ken Robinson.

During the hour and a half long video Robinson spoke about many things. He spoke about the way in which American’s thinking is short term for many reasons. Mainly we can blame it on the fact that we haven’t been around as long as many other civilizations, namely Europe and China. He also spoke about the way in which our minds work. That creativity and imagination is possible for humans because we have the ability to recall past events, and have a way of “predicting” certain outcomes. The unfortunate thing about some of our innovations is that they are in fact hurting the world we live in, and we are over consuming so many of our precious natural resources. When speaking about this, Robinson mentioned the overuse of water in Las Vegas; where they constantly water golf courses to keep them looking pretty regardless of the amount of water being wasted. Robinson also made a good point about innovations like the first car. Henry Ford was only concerned with helping people to get from one place to another easily, not about the way in which it would impact the world with its emissions and use of oil. This is where innovation and creativity has unfortunate side effects. Robinson believes, and I agree, one way in which we can change our future is to work on our education systems. If we allow people to learn the way in which it comes naturally to them, and let them learn things that are interesting to them not just whatever the government has decided is important, then it may lead to a smarter more productive future. If we allow creativity to thrive, future generations will have the tools and knowledge necessary to create new and better ways of doing things that may save our world from what we have done to it. He mentioned more than once the short amount of time that humans have inhabited the earth, 150,000 years; while the earth has existed for billions of years. The earth will go on; it is us who may not. Robinson made many good points in his lecture and I hope to someday read his book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. For me, this video was informative and I believe it can help shed some light on the idea of sustainability. A link to the video is provided below.

http://video.csupomona.edu/streaming/videosearch.php