mediasalt

I like new, shiny things.  New gadgets, new apps, new something to show off and scream out “hey look at what I found! You should have it too!”  I’ll admit it; I jump on board to new things very quickly… I am the epitome of an early adopter for many tech oriented things.

So, imagine my surprise when, while taking a course in my Futures Studies degree program, I am told to download this program: VenSim. VenSim is free for personal and educational use.  This free version hasn’t been updated since December 2009, and it doesn’t have the polish of an Apple program or the cloud nature of a Google app.  In fact, the interface is a bit clunky to use and they have an icon of Pac-Man for their delete button [note: I am not sure if that makes the program better or worse].

So what is VenSim for, and why are you reading about it on MediaSalt?

VenSim is for modeling designs for Systems Thinking.  Systems Thinking is a way of looking at things from either/both a macro point of view or/and a micro point of view to discover how things influence each other.  When you start getting into the details of a system you discover that there are so many influences on that… well… influence each other that it’s hard to get a handle on just why anything works the way that it does.  Changing one small factor here or there can have such a disruptive effect on a system that it could change everything in the world; or, the fact that there are so many influences on any given system that it is literally impossible to change the world because the systems will eventually balance itself out.

Seeing the world from a Systems point of view

The problem is this: we like to think that everything had a direct cause-and-effect relationship.  Once you start seeing the world from a Systems point of view you realize how far from the truth that is.  Just because you build a website, people don’t magically come (except for the Google crawlers because they are, in fact, magic).  Just because you build an impressive, free Bible reading iPhone app doesn’t mean people will download it; and if they do download it, that doesn’t mean they will read it.  And just because you failed, just because you messed up and some project didn’t go right or you didn’t get approval or you didn’t make the budget… that doesn’t mean you really failed.  It’s only one piece of the system and your failure could very quickly be balanced by a success you never dreamed of.

So yes, I have Systems Thinking on my mind and I probably will always be bringing some kind of systems outlook to my life and interactions in the future (until, of course, something new comes along to make me look at the world in new ways).  I would challenge you to download VenSim, run through some tutorials and study up on Systems Thinking (a good start is Systems Thinking 1 by Draper Kauffman).  It might just let you pull out a bit and see things in a different way.

For Discussion:

How would you even begin to create a “System” for religions and evangelism?