Weeks 5&6: The Systems Perspectives
Ocean’s Eleven
This was my first time watching the Ocean’s Eleven movie and I really enjoyed it. I also think it is a great example of Weick’s model of organizing and it helped me understand it more by connecting it to this movie. Weick’s model consists of three parts and they are: enactment, retention, and selection. Enactment is illustrated in this movie when the members of the team go to the Bellagio and study the security at the casino and how the staff members there act. Another example of enactment is when Danny is telling the group his plans and how the plan should be enacted. The group members who learned as much as they could about the Bellagio and the ones who created a replica of the vault are all important pieces to help Danny enact his plan. The second part of the Weick’s model is selection. The example of selection in the movie is when Danny and Rusty must select more members for their group in order for their plan to be successful. To name a few they select Frank Catton who is a known con man, and Turk and Virgil who are mechanics. The last part of Weick’s model is retention. An example of retention in the movie is when Rueben agrees to Danny’s plan because this is how he can get back at his competition. Another example of retention is when Danny tells the group they are planning to steal $150 million dollars, so the group knows at the end of this they will get a lot of money.
After watching this movie and connecting it to Weick’s model of organizing it also reminded me of the Fast & Furious movies. The same team is used in almost of the movies because they work well together. In this clip there is example of enactment, selection, and retention. The example of enactment is Dom and his team has to catch Shaw and retrieve God’s eye. The example of selection is the government agent already had Dom’s team on board and ready to make the plan. The example of retention is Dom gets to use the God’s eye while he has and it is a very rare device.
Locavores, Sustainability, and Systems
I thought this section was interesting because I never thought about how the food I eat gets to my house for consumption. I never heard of the word locavore either so I was intrigued to know that some this is how some people shop and eat. I think the terms locavore and carbon footprint impact the way we organize our food because it makes us think about the environment and sustainability. The terms make people question if we are growing and organizing our food in the most efficient way. This also makes me think of sustainability and if we as a society are doing enough to make sure we still have these foods for the future generation. I never really paid attention to where the fruit and vegetables I eat are from because it never crosses my mind that these foods may have lost nutrition because of the way they were transported. When it comes to only eating local foods and organic food a lot of it comes down to money. Many people don’t like to spend all their money on organic food so they don’t shop at places like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. After reading this I could reorganize the way I eat by being aware of where the food came from and if it was processed or not. I think if organic foods were less expensive that would change the way people organize their eating habits everywhere. After reading about locavores and doing more research on the term I wanted to know what I could do to be apart of the locavore and movement. I came across this article that gives 10 easy steps to become a locavore and I am interested in trying some of these out.
