Week 4: reading reflection

I think one of the strangest things to get used to is turning problems into opportunities. It makes perfect sense--it's one of those "oh, duh" moments--but I'm used to having ready-made solutions at my disposal. Advertising sells me solutions for problems I didn't know I had (Spicy Shelf! Snuggies!) so how often does an organic problem in need of a solution arise? 

Next to never. But those rare opportunities do exist, and I'm feeling more prepared to identify, solve and capitalize on problems. I can't figure out if I'm an adapter or an innovator but perhaps people can be a healthy dose of both. I think grey areas are fairly common through all aspects of life, though we like to categorize things as one or the other, not in-between. Outliers are hip now--Malcolm Gladwell even wrote a book about them--but the shift from sticking to the status quo to being yourself has been subtle until recent years and still faces opponents. 

I have to disagree with "we've never done anything like that before" alone being an idea killer. Admittedly I'm headstrong and few of the deterrents listed in the reading would stop me from pursuing an idea, but simply stating something has never been done before isn't discouraging. "Where do you get these weird ideas?" That's harsh. "We've never done anything like that before." Okay, no big deal, let's do it.   

Can I mention that I love the creative exercise "think of and write down all of the functions you can imagine for the following items?" Oh, well, I suppose this being my blog and all nobody is going to stop me. Let's try our own. Think of and comment below all of the functions you can imagine for the following items: 

• A wooden pallet
• Leather scraps
• A medium-sized ceramic pot
• A brown paper bag
• A detail-oriented but lazy staff member

Ten of the world's biggest problems REBOOT: The top 5 world problems

The request to trim my list of ten of the world’s biggest problems to five of the most serious initially left me gobsmacked, but after a pause, I realized it wouldn’t be too difficult because of how I framed the conversation. If we think in terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, my top five problems, from most serious to least serious, are 1) Water, 2) Food, 3) Air Pollution, 4) Climate Change and 5) Healthcare.

Without clean water to drink and bathe in, food to eat and air to breathe, we, as humans, don’t stand much of a chance. Those subsisting on little food, dirty water and air have a poor quality of life. Climate change is at number four because it affects the top three concerns, and healthcare landed at number five because it can address deficiencies created from substandard conditions. Health is wealth, y’all. 

As for the solutions, I would rank the international effort to reduce climate change first. It’s a bit of a cheat since the ball is already rolling on it (making it easy to implement), but the Paris Agreement requires maintenance. Getting everyone on the same page to address a common problem means combined resources and all parties contributing rather than countries helping while others do such significant damage that it negates the positive contribution—not only is international collaboration on climate change the easiest of my solutions to implement, it may be the most important.

Solutions for the other issues tend to fall into the same categories: individual contributions, public awareness and additional funding. Although individuals are highly variable in their participation, pushing for individual contributions is the second easiest solution to implement. There are programs in place to help households save energy and water, to teach us how to minimize our carbon footprint and show us how to garden, even small scale farm. Public awareness through education and marketing is the third easiest to implement but requires, I think, an overhaul in presentation. The commercials we’re used to seeing at three in the morning with malnourished dogs and a sad soundtrack need to be rethought to activate people.

Crowdfunding has become a popular practice in recent years.

Fourth is funding, which is in part connected to public knowledge. We can’t contribute to causes we don’t know exist. There isn’t a whole lot to say about this solution—money supplies charities with the things they need, i.e. water filters or dog toys. 

The least possible to implement would be quick fixes. Immediately offering free healthcare for all without structuring the program first or requiring all Americans to own cleaner cars, quick fixes are “too good to be true” scenarios that we probably wouldn’t attempt to begin with. Novel ideas can be used to find practical solutions as long as we stay in touch with reality.