COLLECTED COMMENTS ON "POSSIBLE ACTIONS THAT WOULD BENEFIT
PRACTITIONERS" (4/16/96 edition) FROM PRACTICE ONLINE LIST
SERVER
June 17, 1996
Arthur Geoffrion
Over about two months, all 24 of the ideas in the document
"Possible Actions That Would Benefit Practitioners" (4/16/96
edition) were discussed by the Practice Online mailing list. The
document containing these ideas is posted on the Web as
http://silmaril.smeal.psu.edu/pol/discussion/art_geoffrion_1.html.
Here is a compilation of all such comments. It does not
include OTHER comments made in face-to-face meetings with the
INFORMS Board, with the Roundtable, or in other settings.
Nevertheless, this is a very substantial body of commentary, and
is an important resource that will help to support future action.
In fact, two of the ideas are already being implemented, and
others are being promoted by champions on the INFORMS Board.
The comments are arranged in six groups matching the six posts
that initiated discussion. A banner announces each group.
*****************************************************************
**************** COMMENTS MAINLY ON # 1-6 *********************
*****************************************************************
From: Julie Eldridge
To: Arthur Geoffrion
... lines omitted
I would like to clarify one point. We do offer passes to the
exhibit area for folks who may not have registered for the meeting.
We have been doing this since the meetings were brought in house
several years ago. It's a benefit offered to exhibitors who may
wish to have local clients visit to see their product/service. One
of the DC exhibitors asked us for 125 passes.
The reason we check for badges--and passes--is to be sure the
wrong people don't get into the exhibit hall. There is a lot of
equipment in there, and we don't want to lose any of it.
Best regards, Julie
=================================================================
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 16:35:26 -0500
From: powell@Princeton.EDU (Warren Powell)
A few thoughts in response to Art Geoffrion's recent posting of
suggestions to benefit practitioners:
1) I suspect that most of these ideas are targeted at *general*
practitioners. We need to keep in mind that there are also
specialists, such as military, air and rail, with their own
sections, who are quite focused on specific applications. These
groups succeed because they meet a number of the needs of their
constituencies (by definition, since the constituency is providing
all the input). Key elements are:
a) providing an environment to meet others with common interests,
b) allowing consumers to meet suppliers and conduct business,
c) facilitate job searches (for both students and professionals
looking to change jobs)
d) present work on projects of common interest,
e) generally, share ideas.
It might be useful to involve the heads of these special interest
groups (military, air and rail) to discuss why Informs has been so
attractive to them, as an aid in better designing services for
other practitioner areas.
2) If we think of meetings that are almost purely practitioner
oriented (for example, the annual CLM meeting) we find that they
are almost entirely focused on points a, b and c above. In short,
*money* plays an important role (jobs, conducting business, finding
people to work on projects, etc.). The style and culture of such
conferences are *very* different than our traditionally academic
conferences. If we are going to be successful with practitioners,
we need to create different environments for both groups. One way
is through the meeting within a meeting concept. We could have a
practitioner meeting, with an entirely different format. Few
formal presentations, lots of panel sessions, and lots of
opportunity for people to meet each other (and conduct business,
which is why they are really there).
Another alternative is to make the fall meeting oriented around
practitioners, and the spring meeting oriented around academics.
The spring meeting could then be the primary meeting for academics,
which would then be supplemented by other specialty conferences
that have been popping up like mad. By contrast, the fall meeting
for practitioners could then be supplemented by other specialty
conferences run just for practitioners (for example, the rail group
organized a special meeting last summer at U. Penn).
Given a choice, I would prefer the latter suggestion. This way,
each meeting will have a distinct identity. Academics could come
to the fall meeting focusing on describing their applied work
(looking to attract funding or consulting), and practitioners could
come to spring meetings when they are really interested in learning
about the latest research, as well as attending tutorials.
Reactions?
=================================================================
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 16:31:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Ralph R. NEBIKER" [nebiker@cod.nosc.mil
I like what I'm reading.
In addition to sorting lists by organization, I think sorting by
geographic area would also be a benefit. How about color coded
badges designating geographic area, type of practice (academic,
business sector, military, goverment), etc... This would truly
facilitate introductions and conversations between people -read
networking.
We don't need a "networking room". What we need is a convivial
place for people to go, relax and talk; coffee, beer, tables,
phones, etc... A social place with a few quite corners, a
hospitality area.
I don't think we need a separate paractitioner area. I think
badge identifaction would be more beneficial, and we would meet at
the tracks & presentations oriented towards practitioners; large &
small. Perhaps a separate breakfast, lunch or coktail hour.
I like the idea of free exhibit passes for one day, or more,
along with local publicity.
Talking to other trade show reps is a good idea.
How do I choose meetings? I'm pretty much a one man operation
for a small company, which doesn't fund many meetings. In fact
they fund only those at which I present a paper. The others get
partially funded if I can tag them on to a business trip. So if I
have to pay out of pocket I'm pretty selective, and look for those
of benefit to me and closer to home regardless of the hosting
organization.
Now, with regard to practitioners.
Exactly who are we trying to reach?
The following is from Doug Samuelson's article _Promising
Future, Disappointing Present_ in this month's OR/MS Today (April
96, pg. 43):
"... the BLS total of approximately 44,000 OR/MS practitioners
(college and university faculty are listed "separatly" (sic) as are
governemnt and military) far exceeds the total membership (about
12,000) of INFORMS, let alone the non-government, non-academic
practitioner membership, which is aound 5,000. Unfortunately this
means that 80 to 90 percent of the employer-defined OR/MS
practitioners in the US don't belong to INFORMS."
I submit that it is those 80 to 90 percent that we must reach,
plus others in small businesses, new businesses, and other
professions who are really doing OR. I think we should devote some
effort to reaching out to those people, and _NOT_ assume satisfying
a survey of exisitng members will attract those people, although it
is a good start which should give us some insight.
Our meetings must give those people some value added benefit for
attending, and that means finding out who they are, where they are,
and what they're doing, and designing something to help them.
Example: Suppose they're like me and can't travel often or far,
but are clustered. Maybe we rotate the meetings around the
clusters with themes oriented toward the principle activity of the
cluster; e.g San Diego is a hot bed of biotechnology and Navy/
military activity.
My point is - we need to reach people doing OR who are not in
INFORMS.
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From: Mike Jordan [Mike_Jordan@praxair.com
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 21:25:42 -0500
I strongly support radical change to the format of Informs
Meetings.
They currently have little to offer practitioners in the way of
meaningful presentations that describe the application of OR/MS
principles in business.
An issue that will have to be dealt with is that of confidentiality
of sensitive business information. However, others manage the issue
and we should be able to borrow from their success. I am sure that
appropriate guidelines and expectations for presentations could be
developed to ensure confidentiality.
mike_jordan @ Praxair.com
=================================================================
From: "Gary L. Lilien" [G5L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
I agree that INFORMS should place more emphasis on practice. I am
a bit concerned about the implication that "academic" and
"practitioner" appear to be mutually exlcusive categories in the
text of the proposals. While those who think of themselves as
practitioners will have the value of their association with INFORMS
enhanced, what about academics who view themselves as practitioners
as well? Shouldn't that group be all (ideally) academics? Art is
an academic. All of the editors of Interfaces have been academics.
Perhaps readers will view this as a quibble. I think it is
substantively as well as symbolically imporatant to be sure
that the language we use encourages especially the younger
academics to embrace practice. Let's be sure that we
recognize that our field covers the theory and the practice
of OR/MS and the members are employed by universities,
coporations, governement agencies and the like. Hence, the
way I think about this issue is along two dimensions:
theory---practice and employer. Sure, the theory-university and
practice-corporation/government cells of that matrix carry the most
weight, but they not carry that weight simply by definition.
Let's do what we can, in our attempt to focus more emphasis on
practice, to try to even out the weights in the cells.
As one specific suggestion under meetings, the Danzig Dissertation
Award (PhD practice award!) should be included in the practice
track AND SHOULD BE ATTENDED BY NON-ACADEMICS! I have been
disappointed to see how few non-academics seem to understand that
by not attending such sessions, they signal their lack of desire to
interact with those academics interested in practice. The
opportunity cost here is high. Why not put the session on the
agenda of the Roundtable?
================================================================
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 10:15:26 -0500
From: powell@Princeton.EDU (Warren Powell)
Among Bob Bordley's insightful comments, he wrote::
> I'm sure there are other distinctions. Gary's point is that the
> border is currently distinct. We might even get really radically
> and say that the successful INFORMS member should have both an
> academic record and a practitioner record, i.e., should pass both
> hurdles. The distinctions, academic and practitioner, might then
> become junior grades of membership with senior members being
> expected to be both. But that may be unfair to the many talented
> individuals who have specialized in one realm or the other.
>
> Bob
The weakness of INFORMS in the past is the lack of diversity. In
the 60's and 70's, with the 80's as a transition period, the
society was heavily dominated by academics doing applied math. The
problem was not too much math, but too many people doing basically
the same thing. The same mistake would be repeated if we once
again placed recognition on people doing both theory and practice.
As a practicing academic, I am constantly reminded by how much I
need strong theoreticians on one side of me providing new concepts
and methods, and industrial practitioners helping me actually
make this work. The successful society is the one that recognizes
the importance of all these skills. In so doing, we also must
recognize the different needs of each group, and cater to those
needs.
I take tremendous pride in my status as a "practicing academic",
since I, and others in the same bucket, serve a valuable interface
between theory and practice. But a society full of people like me
would be neither interesting nor successful. Our success in
solving really hard problems will not come because we have trained
a single individual in all the important skills, but because we
have learned how to work as teams, joining the skills of different
people to solve really hard problems.
I do not need to be convinced of the need to encourage interaction,
but if we do not attend to the special needs of *each* group, they
will leave the society, and we will not have the diversity needed
to have *any* interactions. Instead, we will be wondering why many
of our top researchers have left (as is happening with
optimization) and why we still cannot attract practitioners.
=================================================================
From: Arthur M. Geoffrion [ageoffri
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 22:57:06 PDT
Sam -
Sorry we won't see you in D.C. We won't forget about your idea,
and appreciate your offer of help. If you have further ideas about
continuing education of practitioners, please send them to Burnell
Brown at mabbb@rohmhaas.com.
Art
Dear Art,
> Unfortunately I will not be at the DC meeting (as workshop chair I
> am planning events for Atlanta, and will be there for sure).
>
> However, I appreciate your invitation, and wish to remind you of
> the notion of a refereed web site of Mathematical Models. These
> could be in spreadsheet, matlab, gams, ampl, sml etc., and would
> contain just the Developmental Necessities of Applications (DNA)
> allowing practitioners to evolve their own projects.
>
> This is just the sort of resource I would like to recommend to the
> roughly 500 practitioners I address each year in my seminars.
> Currently, I don't feel that Informs has that much to offer the
> vast majority of these people.
>
> I believe that if such an electronic journal were opened up, there
> would be so many submissions, that one could at first limit models
> to one screen or less to lighten the editorial load.
>
> I would like to help with this if it is of interest to you.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Sam
=================================================================
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 09:36:58 -0500
From: powell@Princeton.EDU (Warren Powell)
In response to two recent emails:
1) I strongly agree with Ralph Nebiker's point that the challenge
is to reach out to nonmembers, but if 80 percent of our profession
is not a member of Informs, then we probably have a good number of
members who are about to become nonmembers. Since these are easier
to reach out to, we should not discount their opinions. At the
same time, we should look for the professional associations that
the children of our profession have gravitated to, and in
particular look for opportunities to create a professional
association for those who do not feel they are well represented by
Informs. We can learn from the successes of these societies, and
perhaps profit from their weaknesses.
2) In response to Gary Lilien's concerns about separating academics
and nonacademics: all of us agree that there is value in the
interaction, but we have to recognize that academics *primarily*
want to talk to academics, and nonacademics *primarily* want to
talk to nonacademics. If we try to force these groups together, we
will just further alienate them. For example, the lack of
attendance at the Dantzig dissertation competition reflects the
reality that dissertations are fundamentally academic inventions,
and few students have the maturity to present work that is of
interest to a nonacademic (especially when they are trying to win
an academic award).
Academics and nonacademics have strong cultural differences. We
need to foster environments that encourage both, creating in the
process as many opportunities to foster interaction. Right now, we
not only are suffering from the departure of our practitioners from
a society that is viewed primarily as academic, we are also losing
core academics to competing societies such as SIAM since Informs is
now viewed in many communities as "too applied" (!!!). Consider,
for example, that Informs is simply no longer viewed as the "place
to present work on optimization". This is incredible! How can our
society lose ownership of this core discipline? But, we are indeed
losing it, because Informs is not providing the type of environment
that is needed to attract the best researchers in this field.
In short, I do not believe that we can be all things to all people,
and we run the risk of doing nothing well. I think that Informs is
large enough to foster settings geared toward specific groups, and
allow interactions to grow naturally. We should be reaching out
aggressively to practitioners by working directly to meet their
needs without regard to academic participation (which, I believe,
will come naturally). At the same time, we need to be sure that in
the process of reaching out to practitioners, that we do not lose
our academic base.
By the way: I am very much a "practicing academic," with an
industrially funded research lab with a staff of 12, including 7
doctoral students. I continually have to balance the needs of
keeping industry happy (which is my primary source of funding) and
the academic community, which determines whether my papers are
published and whether my students get good teaching positions. I
*know* that combining practice and research is the future of our
field, but this has not changed my need to wear very different hats
as I work with two very different communities.
I will continue to press for two informs meetings, each targeted at
a very different audience. I am very confident that a
practitioner-oriented meeting will continue to attract academics
(but wearing their practitioner hats), and I believe that
similarly, an academically oriented meeting (which is primarily
what we have now) will attract practitioners who come wearing their
"I want to learn" hat. Interactions happen naturally.
=================================================================
Author: irv@dizzy.cplex.com (Irv Lustig) at GRC_INET
Date: 04/22/96 11:15 AM
This is in response to Art Geoffrion's posting regarding meetings
and practioner involvement.
One of the most difficult decisions any INFORMS member has to make
is whether to attend the INFORMS national meetings or meetings
in one's own specialty. The difficulties are the usual - time and
money. But INFORMS can help here, using an idea borrowed from the
ACM. The idea is to have a "federated" meeting, which is a
collection of smaller meetings all run at the same time and place.
Registration for one sub-meeting entitles a registrant to go to
talks at any of the other sub-meetings. Each sub-meeting uses its
own measures for quality control - they could decide to require
papers to be submitted and to referee them, and even to publish the
papers as a proceedings. Or they could run their meeting as just
a collection of talks.
Suppose INFORMS has one national meeting in the current form, and
the other meeting as a "federated" meeting. The federated meeting
would be a collection of the following (and others) meetings:
Computer Science Technical Section meeting
Winter Simulation Conference
Telecommunications Section
Conference on Information Systems and Technology
TECMAN Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Conference
INFORMS Marketing Science Conference
Thus, whichever sections (societies) decide to hold meetings, they
do it in conjunction with the INFORMS federated meeting, and
everybody's travel costs are reduced, because we all don't have to
attend so many meetings.
An example of the dilemma that one faces is with the following
sequence of meetings (only one of which relates to INFORMS
directly) -
SIAM Optimization Conference
Victoria, BC, May 20-22, 1996
Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization, sponsored by
Mathematical Programming Society, Vancouver, BC, June 3-5, 1996
IFORS 14th Triennial Conference, Vancouver, BC, July 8-12, 1996
That's a list of 3 meetings in close proximity both geographically,
and certainly subject matter will overlap as well! I'll only go
to the first one. And most of the optimization community is
skipping Washington because of the SIAM meeting. I wish these
meetings were combined!
I'd rather see a big umbrella placed over all of these meetings,
where each sub-meeting maintains its own quality control.
-Irv Lustig irv@dizzy.cplex.com
Director of Numerical Optimization http://www.cplex.com/~irv/
CPLEX Optimization, Inc. http://www.cplex.com/
=================================================================
From: steve_wilcox@ccmail.va.grci.com
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 14:32:51 -0400
Irv has an excellent idea here. My organization has limits on
how many conferences it will fund me to attend, and the
justification for going to each one must be fairly persuasive. As
a result, I have not gone to the conferences he mentions.
Steven Wilcox
GRC International, Inc.
SWILCOX@GRCI.COM
=================================================================
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 14:01:06 EDT
From: V5256E@VM.TEMPLE.EDU
Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
To: "Arthur M. Geoffrion" [pol@silmaril.smeal.psu.edu
Let me suggest something simple that could be done immediately.
Every new member of INFORMS and all practitioners should be sent
a publication "How to Navigate and INFORMS Meeting." The
meetings are big and complex. In one's first few meetings one
has no network if one is a practitioner. Academics have their
advisors taking them around and making the introductions.
Practitioners need to have an understanding that sponsored
sessions are usually of higher quality etc. This document should
explain colleges and SIG's, or whatever they are called. It
should explain how one gets involved and meets people. This
would not require radical surgery, unlike changing the meetings.
Eg. poster sessions hurt junior faculty. Fred Murphy
=================================================================
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 08:10:50 EDT
From: RBORDLEY@CMSA.gmr.com
It's often been said that you have to let people give a paper in
order for their deans to fund travel. One of your suggestions
indicates that deans will still fund travel if you change these
paper sessions into poster sessions. The implication is that deans
simply mechanically decide whether to fund travel based on the
blind requirement of giving a paper or a poster session. Is this
assumption about dean behavior really true?
=================================================================
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 07:07:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael ROTHKOPF [rothkopf@rutcor.rutgers.edu
Hi,
This is a response to Warren Powell's thoughtful posting. The
recognition that many practitioners are specialized practitioners
is an important one. At least part of a practice community should
act as a confederation of such special interest practitioner
groups.
I am worried, however, about the idea of separating meetings
for practitioners and academics. We must do everything we can to
promote interaction, because it is the interaction that,
ultimately, sustains both groups. Applied theorists whose theories
are unimportant to those who apply theories will not be important
in academia, and practitioners who have no new theoretical advances
to offer will not be popular consultants.
Also, Gary Lilien's post is quite apt. We must not take
academic to mean (!) theorist or practitioner to mean (!)
non-theorist. Some of the most important contributions to practice
will come from academics who are practitioners and some of the most
important contributions to theory will come from practitioners who
advance theory.
=================================================================
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 09:27:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Terry P. Harrison" [hbx@silmaril.smeal.psu.edu
Subject: POL_POSTING A message from Leon Schwartz, INFORMS
VP-Practice
****** Here is a posting from Leon Schwartz, INFORMS VP-Practice
Revising the National Meeting is a key initiative of concern to
practitioners. This includes a variety of efforts, ranging from
Expand Practitioner Track to create separate Practice meeting to
reengineer the entire meeting structure and process.
We will be proposing a motion to the Board in May to create an
official structure within the local meetings committee to
coordinate all practice related sessions at the National meetings.
We expect this to help focus more attention on the small, but
increasing, number of practice oriented activities at the meetings;
and set the stage for the possibility of the Practice "meeting(s)
within a meeting" concept.
The Atlanta meeting committee believes that by first attracting
Software vendors through the tutorials and then attracting
practitioners through the vendors, we can ultimately encourage
practitioners to view the INFORMS meetings as marketing
opportunities. They are working hard to get committments from
vendors to demo their state of the art software for INFORMS. This
can also promote the expansion of the exhibit areas.
There is also serious concern among practitioners about the general
quality of papers at the INFORMS national meetings. Reengineering
a new approach for papers will be a much longer and more difficult
process.
I would appreciate any comments on these ideas......Leon.
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 11:14:43 -0400
From: "Amir A. Sadrian" [asadrian@notes.cc.bellcore.com
Terry,
I read Art Geoffrion's writeup about INFORMS meetings with great
interest. I think all of them are good ideas. Particularly, I
strongly support couple of them for which I have offered my views
below.
* Expand the Practitioner Tracks and Consider Radical
Redesign of Meetings
We do need to do this if we want to attract more practitioners. I
like the idea of posters. However, from a practitioner's point
of view, I am not sure who would like to travel a long distance
to have a poster session. Of course, unless the presenter is
trying to sell a product. This view may not be supported by
academicians.
I am very much in favor of reviewing all the papers or have many
tracks that all their papers have been reviewed. I think the
quality will improve dramatically even if we require the
participants to submit extended abstracts and we review the
extended abstracts instead of the whole paper. This requirement
will also reduce the number of presentations (from 40 parallel
sessions to a smaller and more reasonable number) which may not
be a bad thing.
* Use Meeting Registration for Data Collection
Other organizations do this successfully. As a professional
society whose members do data analysis "for living," we need to
do this to "keep on living." The data should help us to
understand the diversity of our clients ( i.e., conference
attendees), their profiles, their likes and dislikes. We need
this data if we want to provide our clients a "Service with
Soul" as Tom Peters says it.
* Study How Practitioners Choose Meetings and Sessions
Yes. See the reason provided above for Data Collection.
===============================================================
From: Bob Chamberlain
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 15:01:10 -0800
To: "Arthur M. Geoffrion" [pol@silmaril.smeal.psu.edu>
As a practitioner, what do I hope to get out of InfORMS
meetings?
I am not a "hail fellow well met" networker. Don't bother with
setting up a special hospitality area or reception - at least not
for me.
But I do go to meeting, for five main reasons:
(1) It is hard to stay abreast of what is being developed, even by
faithful reading of the journals. As a practitioner, I am a
generalist, so I need to know the basics of the full spectrum of
approaches even more than I need to know the latest details of any
particular specialty. Good tutorials can be a very efficient way
for me to keep up. These tutorials should start from scratch -
especially including explanations of the cryptic notation that
"everyone" takes so for granted that they do not realize that it IS
cryptic. But do not treat me as stupid, merely ignorant in this
particular area. Tutors should realize they will get my greatest
respect if *I* learn the subject - not if they show me how much
*they* know.
(2) There are interesting problems being solved all the time. I
want to hear about them - both the problems and the solutions,
whether or not they apply to any of my current activities. Morse
& Kimball's book turned me on to OR/MS in the '60s by their
interesting problems. I still feel that the most interesting
applications areas are those without a previous body of theory to
be merely extended. Show me the new areas in which we can apply
our point of view - quantitative analysis of difficult, important
problems.
(3) I want my 15 minutes of fame, telling people who can appreciate
it about my latest brilliant piece of work, whether it's
theoretical or applied. If I'm really lucky, someone may have an
insight that will help me do my job even better.
(4) I do enjoy running into some of the people I've come to know
over the years as a result of contact with them almost solely at
ORSA and TIMS meetings. (But *I* would not use a "hospitality
room" nor am I comfortable at a reception.)
(5) It is inspiring (usually) to see and hear the leading lights of
the profession I have chosen. (My degree was in Mechanical
Engineering, about 35 years ago.) It is also inspiring (usually)
to see and hear the new graduates.
So what can we do to make the meetings better for the likes
of me? My interests are so eclectic, that's a tough question. How
about:
Encourage good tutorials at beginning, intermediate, and advanced
levels of not only academic subject ares, new and old, but of
applications areas. How about tutorials on OR problems in
aviation, in railroads, in marketing, in bidding, in military C4I,
and so on? How about starting most tracks with an overview/
summary/tutorial session? (But I want to go to them all -
don't have them all in parallel!) I don't really have to hear them
all in one meeting, so they could be repeated (with updating as
necessary) from meeting to meeting, at least to some extent.
Encourage descriptions/discussions of interesting problems even
when - no, especially when - the best approach has not yet been
identified. Get the academicians to come to these as discussants.
What tools might be applied? What could these tools do, what would
they tend to mess up or ignore?
Continue to give me my chance to talk (and boast), even when I'm
only marginally coherent. But don't let anyone else waste my time
- be sure *their* papers have been approved by three reviewers, one
of whose specialty is English composition. ;-) In all
seriousness, it would be nice to insist that there always be a
paper that has been completed and can be handed out, even if it is
coherent speculation rather than a report of completed research.
Bob (Robert G.) Chamberlain
| Jet Propulsion Laboratory M/S 525-3660 rgc@solstice.jpl.nasa.gov
| California Institute of Technology phone: (818) 306-6484
| 4800 Oak Grove Dr. fax: (818) 306-6953
| Pasadena, CA 91109
** Opinions and quips are mine - or public - not JPL's **
=================================================================
From: Charles.J.Mccallum__Jr@att.com (Charles J Mc Callum, Jr +1 +1
908 949 0844)
Date: 2 May 96 17:37:00 -0400
Some of my thoughts on Possible INFORMS Actions to Benefit
Practitioners, with regard to Meetings -
First, I note that the words expressed by Bob Chamberlain in his
email message of 4/29 are very close to my views.
Now for comments on the individual suggested actions:
1. Change the meetings - I'm not big on radical meeting changes,
at least until clear goals are defined. Inspite of numerous
complaints, by many measures, our meetings are wildly successful.
It's a complicated issue. From my point of view, one significant
benefit to practitioners would be a considerable strengthening of
the tutorial aspect of the meetings. meetings.
2. Hospitality Area - I'm concerned that this would further
separate practitioners and academics rather than strengthen the
interface.
3. Exhibit Area improvement - Probably worthwhile but probably not
a big hitter.
4. Registration list sorted by organization - A good idea.
5. Data collection at meetings - Another good idea; I believe
some of this is done now.
6. Study practitioner meeting choices, and needs - VERY worthwhile.
Again, I think the tutorical aspect can be exceedingly beneficial.
Chuck McCallum
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From: Veena.B.Mendiratta@att.com
Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 14:36:57 -0500
The views and suggestions by Bob Chamberlain on
improving INFORMS meetings expressed really well
what I would have liked to say on the subject and I
support them.
--------------------------------------------
VEENA B. MENDIRATTA
Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, Room IH 5B-403
2000 N Naperville Road, Naperville IL 60566
voice: 708-979-3872 fax: 708-979-9364
email: veena.mendiratta@att.com
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**************** COMMENTS MAINLY ON # 7-11 ********************
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From: horner@lionhrtpub.com (Peter R. Horner)
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 13:10:57 -0500
DEAR ART:
I would be glad to take part in the discussion. While many of the
ideas regarding OR/MS Today are good ones, the key is finding
people with the expertise in the areas you mention who: 1. can
write, 2. are willing to write, 3. have the time to write, and 4.
have something important to say. The "Practice Lesson" feature in
OR/MS Today, which is aimed specifically at practitioners, works
because it is an interview situation. We write it ourselves, thus
we can control it. We just have to find a willing interview
subject, and most folks will do that, even practitioners.
Whenever possible, we try to slant our features toward
practitioners as well, but here we must depend on the "kindness
of strangers." That is, I have to find someone who has not only
done some interesting work, but is able and willing to write
about it, and then have it cleared by his superiors. Easier said
than done. Unless you are talking about consultants looking for
business or folks who have some marketing angle to exploit (in
which case we probably don't want it), it is tough to get
practitioners to write on a regular basis.
Pete H.
OR/MS Today
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Date: Thu, 25 Apr 96 11:12:28 EDT
From: RBORDLEY@CMSA.gmr.com
I like the idea of expanding practitioner interest ideas in OR/MS
Today. Offering practitioner's concerns in some journals will also
be helpful if you:
(a) picked specialized journals whose specialty happened to fit a
well-defined segment of practitioners. Thus it might work on
Marketing Science but not on Behavioral Science
(b) could generate enough regular volume to make it of interest to
practitioners.
=================================================================
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 12:31:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael ROTHKOPF [rothkopf@rutcor.rutgers.edu
Hi,
I have reactions to several of the proposals in this part, but
here I just want to deal with one of them, proposal 10. Launch a
Trial Subscription Program for Practitioners.
We are not doing a good job of letting practitioner members
(!) know what INFORMS has to offer them. Let me document that with
two cases in point.
1. In the October 1995 issue of OR/MS Today, there is a
letter from a member. After commenting on a column that OR/MS
Today published, and identifying himself "As a non-OR-labeled
OR practitioner, and as someone who has spent the past 30 years
working with computers in one form or another," this member
writes: "I'd really enjoy reading--and would pay an increased
membership fee--for an unrefereed publication, consisting of
articles written by those of use 'in the trenches,' that offers
not only a broadened view of OR's applications, but also some
insight into methodologies, tools, etc. used to solve the
problems. Yes, I know academic discussions are enlightening
provided I can find the time to wade through the mathematics,
correlate the theses and make some sort of connection (if
possible) to my "real world" situations." I called him, saying
that I was the editor of Interfaces and that, aside from the
term "unrefereed,' I thought that I was the editor of the
publication he was looking for. Where have I failed, I wanted
to know. The answer was that he did not know of Interfaces! (I
sent him a sample issue.)
2. Nancy Butler, INFORMS' new marketing director, did an
informal telephone poll of sixteen members, six of them
practitioners. In an April 11 memo describing her findings, she
wrote "None of the practitioners were enthusiastic about the
journals. Most subscribed to OR...I asked a few whether or not
they were familiar with Interfaces, and they were not."
Given this situation, I believe that our marketing to
practitioners must start with our own members. The easiest new
practitioner members to get will be the ones who know of satisfied
current practitioner members.
I have proposed that we start with a pilot project involving,
say, 200 non-academic members who do not currently subscribe to
Interfaces. I am proposing that we send them a sample copy with
a request for an evaluation and a request for a decision as to
whether they wish to subscribe. If the response in the pilot is
sufficient to justify the cost, I suggest that we then extend the
effort to all non-academic members. I hope that this will both
increase the circulation of Interfaces and increase the
satisfaction of our practitioner members with our publications.
I think a next step might be a request that each practitioner
subscriber to Interfaces by asked to nominate one or more fellow
practitioners for an introductory offer. Such an offer might be
along the lines of proposal 10. However, I suspect that
proposal 10. will turn out to be quite expensive and require a
very high hit rate to be worthwhile. (In any case, it will
require a good process for identifying promising prospects.)
Thus, an expansion of the single issue and request for
evaluation format to non-members might be better. In any case,
it is clear that we must begin a serious, intelligent (not just
vigorous) marketing effort to practitioners.
=================================================================
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:30:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael ROTHKOPF [rothkopf@rutcor.rutgers.edu
This is a response to the one of the specific suggestions for
improving publications--#9., the establishment of a column
covering cyberspace. It is an excellent idea. You may consider
it done. Terry Harrison has agreed to write such a column for
Interfaces (and host guest columns, which all and sundry are
invited to submit! All of the writing work should not have to be
done by Terry.)
=================================================================
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 15:11:41 -0500
From: msdaskin@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Mark S. Daskin)
Dear fellow INFORMS members,
The views that I express below are my own and not necessarily
those of the publications committee. I hope that those of you who
read this will take them in this light.
With regard to item (7) -- 7. Expand News of Interest to
Practitioners in OR/MS Today -- my only comment here is that OR/MS
Today does not formally fall under the publications committee and
so I think that those directly involved in OR/MS Today need to
comment on this idea. I think that there still are a number of
issues related to the competition for papers between OR/MS Today
and Interfaces that need to be addressed. These issues are
likely to become more accute as we solicit more papers from
practitioners.
In terms of (8) I think that some of these ideas could be done in
OR/MS Today (or perhaps Interfaces) better than in some of the
other journals. I do not think, for example, that we would change
the readership profile of Transportation Science dramatically by
including a forecast of transportation issues in the year ahead
each year. Other ideas (e.g., tutorials and examples of good
applications that do not have a lot or research content per se)
might be appropriate for some of the journals (including
Transportation Science). To some extent many of the journals
already have space allocated to practice. The problem at many
journal (e.g., Interfaces) is not that there is not enough space,
but that there are not enough papers to fill the space we now have.
In terms of doing a lot for practitioners (and by that I really
mean non-academics -- which is not to say that academics are
non-practitioners) on the internet or in cyberspace, I would like
to know how many people in this target audience actually have
internet access on their desks now. My sense is that many
companies have been much slower than academia at allowing full
internet access to their employees and often for good reasons. The
point is that those of us in academia may have a distorted view of
the pervasiveness of the internet within industry and we should
simply check out this sort of hypothesis with some data before
investing heavily in this sort of activity.
Having said that, let me turn to item 11 (Experiment Aggressively
with More Specialized Electronic Publishing) before returning to
item 10. Here I think we may be able to do some things fairly
quickly. If we redefine a "publication" to include the slides that
one uses for one of our meetings we might encourage practitioners
(and others) to make those slides available on the internet. This
would do a few things. First, they would not need to be refereed.
Second, it would give us some upper bound on the interest within
the non-academic community in making material available since the
cost of doing so would be relatively low (you do not need to write
a paper, just make the files available to folks.) Third, we would
get a sense of how pervasive the internet is within the
non-academic community. The key advantage of this to people in
industry is that it would help advertise what they are doing to a
much broader audience. It also might encourage broader
non-academic participation in our meetings in the future. (If GM
folks place some of their slides on the Web, then people at Ford,
Chrysler, Honda, .... might want to be able to do the same in the
future so that they are not overshadowed.) One of the key issues
here is one of information technology. I would be interested in
knowing from the info technology committee whether this would pose
an undue burden on the people who now maitain these links. Could
we, for example, keep the Washington meeting stuff on line for some
period of time and create a link from the abstract of a paper to a
file on someone else's system that has the slides.
Finally, in terms of launching a trial subscription program for
practitioners I have two thoughts. First, we need to look at what
the cost of this will be. A good first cut might be the
information in my most recent memo to the publications committee,
executive committee, editors in chief and the board. Table 6
shows, for example, that it cost about $10-$11 per volume per
subscriber to print and mail Interfaces. (This is our best guess
right now at this number and I would hate to have to swear
to its accuracy.) Given this number it would cost about $5-$6 to
print and mail half a year of this journal to any person. Running
an experiment with 200-300 people would cost between $1000 and
$2000 and might be money very well spent. I am not sure we need to
do a much bigger experiment now. If it turns out that a
significant portion of these people elect to subscribe, then lets
find a way of getting the word out to other non-subscribers. My
second thought is that there are a lot of people who do not
subscribe to our journals. We should not focus only on
"practioner" non-subscribers. We may be more successful in the
short term at increasing our subscription levels by focusing our
marketing efforts on other groups.
=================================================================
From: Art Geoffrion
Here are a couple of miscellaneous ideas that have come to me
that may bear on your segment of the Monday afternoon discussion in
D.C.
Hope you find them worthwhile.
-------------------------------------------------------------
#18 Marc D. Cohen:
This would be fabulous if you can do it and would potentially
change the face of OR/MS. I think it's more a case of
defining and marketing the "future big wave" than managing it.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 8 Mar 96
From: George Kocur [gak0%bluejay@gte.com
... I also would suggest that the publishing/review process for
practitioner articles be considered for revision. A lot of us in
industry don't have the time to go thru the careful writing/review/
revisions cycle of academic publications. We once did, but now do
this in our spare time, which is being eaten into by our work also.
There have been several times in the past when we had things we
wanted to share but could not justify the amount of effort, the
risk of article rejection and the long review cycle. While these
were not earth-shattering ideas, they may have been of use to some
other practitioners. (Many of these were minor advances in various
network algorithms, for example, but which were of value to us and
were fairly easily implemented.) We now get no credit in our
workplace for publications (they are no longer measured in our
management objectives), so this becomes purely a 'community of
interest' activity for us. Nonetheless the community is of value,
and if it allows more active participation (i.e. more can publish,
versus just read), it may be of value in building up the
practitioner community in INFORMS.
Some of our 'competitors' have publications that are sort of
junky, written heavily by practitioners (and some second rate
academics), but they're easy to skim and we can pick up ideas on
some of the model pragmatics and industry issues from them. They
also provide a lower-risk, lower-standard forum. Does INFORMS
want to lower its standards? I don't know for sure, but I think
that a middlebrow approach (better than some of the junk but not
up to the other INFORMS pubs) might be a viable vehicle for
attracting practitioner interest.
Heresy? I don't know... Is this best as a Web site?
Perhaps...if it can be well done and perhaps partially supported
by ad revenues or fees.
=================================================================
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 20:51:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael ROTHKOPF [rothkopf@rutcor.rutgers.edu
To: "Arthur M. Geoffrion" [ageoffri@AGSM.UCLA.EDU
I have some reaction to George Kocur's comment.
First, Interfaces tries to help practitioner authors in a
couple of ways. These include Mary Haight to help with rewrites
and use of practitioners for reviewers. In addition, we recently
started a new feature, Practice Abstracts, which is intended to
draw upon material written for internal purposes by companies to
save on writing effort. Don Keefer is editor of this feature, and
he will be glad to co-operate with potential authors (as will I!).
To the extent that Kocur is talking about small contributions
to theory rather than to practice, I have some concerns. Good
theory is absolutely vital. There may be real value based
questions about what is good, but once these are answered, I think
that practitioners as well as academics need the highest standards.
Readers' time is a scarce resource--especially practitioner
readers. They are entitled to well written, well thought out
material. Thus, I wonder about the importance of "middle brow"
journals. I do think, however, that journal editors should be
selected for judgment about what material will be of ultimate
use in practice and what will not. When a new line of theoretical
research opens up, often it is not easy to envision the potential
applications. However, as the line develops, it should become more
apparent. (I was struck by a piece in the recent 100th anniversary
issue of the NY Times Sunday magazine section. They printed an
excerpt from a 1907 or 08 piece by the Wright brothers. The piece
lauded their airplanes in comparison with some competitors', but in
talking about the future of aviation, they looked forward to the
day when they could gain some altitude and then turn off the engine
and soar like a bird. Not great technological forecasting.)
=================================================================
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 12:21:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Ralph R. NEBIKER" [nebiker@cod.nosc.mil
With regard to improving publications and information flow.
I think the two tiered approach is better; retain the rigorous
review process for the refereed journals, and open up OR/MS Today
and Interfaces by adding a more informal section devoted to
practice.
I enjoy the Interfaces articles. But I have to admit I don't
work in an environment large enough to tackle "planning China's new
highway system, or saving GM of Europe". I could be way off base
here, but I believe there are a lot of smaller, more mundane
operations around which do good work, unique work, but which would
never make the cut of "grand scale OR".
I would suggest an orientation toward the narrative (long
letters, short stories), including situations which are unique and
interesting, and including those dealing with difficult customers
as opposed to difficult OR problems; "I just couldn't sell him on
how simple this solution was".
I suggest we consider reprinting articles from other magazines
and journals, with permission, as a way of expanding our own
horizon's. I think we could benefit from such cross polinization.
OR was founded on the principle that new ideas don't always come
from within.
With regard to cyberspace - I concur that the business world has
not put the "net on every desk", and does not have the degree of
access the academic world does, especially with reagrd to the web.
Last year, and this year, I am participating in a multi-week
conference on the net. We download the articles ahead of time,
read them, and devote one week to open discussion of each artcile.
This alone makes it easier to participate and consider new ideas.
However, one technique I think is of particular value is a two
phased approach. The first week (or group of sessions) is devoted
to tutorials bringing everyone up to speed on new appraoch's,
technology, and techniques. The second session(s) is devoted
to a discussion of current problems by those doing the cutting edge
work; something I don't normally paticipate in.
I think that if INFORMS held one such six to 12 week conference
on the net each year, it would find itself with more attention and
be reaching an expanding audience.
I must give credit for this idea to Roger Smith of Mystech
(smithr@mystech.com), who does a magnificent job of running the
Elecsim conference each year.
================================================================
From: Bordley, Robert F.
Portfolio Planning
986-1336
I like the idea of expanding practitioner interest ideas in OR/MS
Today. Offering practitioner's concerns in some journals will also
be helpful if you:
(a) picked specialized journals whose specialty happened to fit a
well-defined segment of practitioners. Thus it might work on
Marketing Science but not on Behavioral Science
(b) could generate enough regular volume to make it of interest to
practitioners.
=================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 10:35:40 -0800
To: pol@silmaril.smeal.psu.edu
From: rgc@solstice.jpl.nasa.gov (Bob Chamberlain)
In response to:
> POSSIBLE INFORMS ACTIONS
> THAT WOULD BENEFIT PRACTITIONERS, Part 2
(snip)
>8. Establish a Practitioners' Corner in Some Publications
>
> Add a practitioner-oriented feature to the publications which
>are not dedicated exclusively to academic research, in an effort
>to justify more practitioners subscribing to more publications
Believe it or not, I do not want to need to subscribe to
more publications. In addition to Interfaces, ORMS Today,
Operations Research, and Management Science, I now subscribe to -
and read (or at least leaf through) - Aerospace America, American
Scientist, Engineering and Science, Invention & Technology,
Science, and Scientific American. Practitioners *usually* have
to stay abreast of not only the techniques journals, but a host
of publications in the applications area.
>and to help keep academics aware of the needs of practice. It
>could include tips from successful practitioners, how-to
>tutorials on new OR/MS technologies now ready for practical
>application,
...Hmmmm....Back in the early days, OR/MS technology was
driven by the problems that needed to be solved, not the problems
by the technology that was "ready". (Is this a complaint? I'm
not sure - maybe only an observation.)
>reviews of OR/MS software and technology, a
>beginning-of-year prediction of where OR/MS technology seems to
>be heading, an end-of-year summary from the editor and associate
>editors of the year's articles of value to practitioners, etc.
If we do do any of this, let's collect it all in
Interfaces, NOT spread it around to all of the journals. As I
said above, I have PLENTY to read as it is. When I am triaging
my foot-high stack of not-yet-read journals, I like being able to
glance at the table of contents of an issue of Operations
Research and decide "Nothing for me in there this time" then
putting it in the send-to-the-library pile. If the articles I
want to read are collected in one journal, at least the pile is
less daunting.
>Periodically, some of these articles could be reprinted
>separately (in clusters?) and used to help attract practitioner
>subscribers.
>
> But: would practitioners have time to help write such
>features, or even to read them?
At least some of us are generalists. That means that we
not only have to "keep up", but often "come up [a learning
curve]" in a specialty that is new to us. This is a large part
of what makes the work interesting and fun - BUT it consumes much
of the time we have allocated to reading technical material.
(everything else snipped)
What is the ideal publication situation for InfORMS from
my point of view? One journal which contains everything I am
interested in and nothing that I am not at least intrigued by.
But, as with meetings, my interests are eclectic and I like
finding jewels that any kind of "profile" of my interests WOULD
SURELY MISS (because I am not *yet* aware of it, much less
interested). Hypertext journals may eventually meet my needs
best. But the technology has to improve before it can - I can
read hypertext sitting at my desk in my office, but not in my
easy chair at home or relaxing at the beach. (Yes, I do read
journals - and textbooks and other technical material - in those
settings.)
Bob (Robert G.) Chamberlain |
rgc@solstice.jpl.nasa.gov | Yet another bright idea dimmed by
Opinions & quips are mine | the light of close inspection
- or public - not JPL's | :-S
=================================================================
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**************** COMMENTS MAINLY ON # 12-14 *******************
*****************************************************************
Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 11:21:53 -0500
Subject: POL_POSTING Response to part 3
From: Warren Powell
Some thoughts in response to the suggestion to "Review Practitioner
Focus" listed in part 3 of Art Geoffrion's most recent message.
It is unclear how well practitioners and academics will mix as
members of the same section. Transportation has addressed this
issue by having a core section of academics, contained in the
transportation science section, which is open to practitioners (but
not very successful at attracting them). Completely separate from
TSS are the air and rail sections.
The air and rail groups have proved very successful because they
are run by and for practitioners.
Some might raise the concern that separate sections for academics
and practitioners fosters a separation when we should in fact be
encouraging interaction. However, any attempt to force these
groups into one section would most likely result in the complete
departure of the practitioners from Informs (and possibly some
academics). By encouraging these groups to come to the informs
meetings, significant interactions occur through presentations
(which are generally attended by both groups) and through
other social settings.
Our goal in the future is to form an umbrella society that will
allow us to coordinate the different groups (we already maintain a
high level of coordination on an ad hoc basis).
I feel that this is where the society concept may be of tremendous
value. Mixing academics and practitioners in the same section is
unlikely to be of value - the interests and cultures are simply too
different. The most important goal at this stage is getting
academics and practitioners to both come to the informs meetings
(otherwise, we will never have any interactions).
I would encourage each chapter with a strong academic focus to
determine where their students go, and to determine if there is a
sufficiently large group to justify a section devoted to their
needs. For example, we are actively undertaking exactly this step
in the area of logistics, which at the moment is not well served
(there is a logistics section, but it is very inactive). In
transportation, we using the academic section to foster very
small groups that are not yet ready to stand on their own (for
example, public transit). As these groups grow, they may wish to
spin off into their own sections (under the umbrella of a society).
I would appreciate reactions to this approach.
=================================================================
From: Charles.J.Mccallum__Jr@att.com (Charles J Mc Callum, Jr +1 +1
Date: 29 May 96 17:05:00 -0400
Subject: POL_POSTING INFORMS Chapters and Sections,
Some thoughts on the suggested possible actions:
Re 12 - Review Practitioner Focus (see below). I like the idea of
greater communication, eg, notification of all local practitioners
whenever a practitioner is scheduled to speak at a Chapter or local
university.
Re 13 - Create a Development Source Book. Some folklore knowledge
probably exists, eg, through Chapter Chair Bruce Fowler and/or
Section Chair Bruce Schmeiser. This could be more broadly
publicized, eg, by an article or column in OR/MS Today.
Re 14 - Promote a Strong Internet Presence. I strongly support
this. Some electronic communications structure already exists. I
believe Subdivisions VP Vicki Sauter set up three kinds of chapter
listgroups some time ago.
=================================================================
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**************** COMMENTS MAINLY ON # 15-16 *******************
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Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 11:21:28 -0500
From: powell@Princeton.EDU (Warren Powell)
In response to the latest suggestions:
The suggestion to "reorient prizes toward practices" could be
interpreted broadly, and dangerously. While I applaud the efforts
to reach out to practitioners, I am concerned that we will end up
doing a poor job of serving our core constituency of academics. We
should be looking to serve everyone well, and even better, and in
some areas, we are starting to lose sections of the academic
community. For example, would this suggestion apply to refocusing
the Lanchester award or the von Neumann theory award? That would
be a disaster. I support new initiatives designed by and for
practitioners to attract practitioners, but repackaging what we
have designed for academics to serve a broader audience would, in
my mind, end up by serving no audience.
I think the idea of merit awards is a good one. Would every
Edelman finalist be eligible? It would be interesting to see if we
felt a project that was not submitted to the Edelman competition
was viewed as being more deserving than an Edelman finalist. It
would suggest that there is a lot of good work out there, being
done by people who do not have the time to participate in the
Edelman competition.
I would suggest that merit awards be made without requiring a paper
(papers are very academic activities). The evaluations should be
similar to the way the Edelman committee determines finalists. In
fact, I would suggest letting this committee handle the awards, and
allow submissions of abstracts just for consideration of the merit
award (to encourage people who do not have the time to undertake
the full competition). This will also avoid competition between
the merit award and the Edelman.
=================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 May 96 13:27:28 EDT
From: Newton Garber [ngarber@rutcor.rutgers.edu>
I am inclined to disagree with Warren Powell's thoughtful
suggestions about practice prizes being generated which do not
require the presentation etc. as in the Franz Edelman Award. The
purpose of awards is not only to honor the awardee, but to
promote the profession, and the documentation generated by the
Franz Edelman Awards is the primary source of practice
literature. The also rans sometimes get into print by having
been submitted to the competition. A better alternative would be
to find a way to enhance the nomination for the Franz Edelman
competition so that other ways than submission of an abstract by
a (potential) author can initiate entry. Such a process could be
used to energize reluctant candidates for that honor.
It would also make sense for the selection committee for the
INFORMS prize to produce public documentation relating to its
selection of winners. It is incumbent on us to do whatever we
can to circularize good practice. Any moves that would tend to
reduce this aspect should not be considered.
=================================================================
Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 16:31:54 -0500 From: powell@Princeton.EDU
(Warren Powell)
In response to Newt's comments:
There is a lot of work going on that does not get documented.
One reason is simply that the Edelman is too much work. It is
nice to give awardees as much exposure as possible, but if this
requires a lot of work, some practitioners simply won't bother.
Perhaps this is a good screening mechanism, but good applications
by busy people may be missed. My thought was to maximize the
likelihood that someone would take the step of advertising their
work.
I don't think presentations per se are a problem - but
presentations that require the level of preparation required by
the Edelman is a problem. My sense is also that many
practitioners don't like writing papers. We should allow
documentation that is likely to be produced as a normal course of
activities within the host environment (short presentations are
common, papers are not).
I strongly support your suggestion of advertising the selection
criteria for Edelman winners.
=================================================================
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 14:40:20 -0500
From: powell@Princeton.EDU (Warren Powell)
Ken,
Thanks for your note. I am sending this response to the POL
list.
I don't believe the academic world is going to be able to make
the adjustments that are needed. I think it is better to let the
business world create an environment that it enjoys and derives
benefits from, and then invite the academics along.
Questions: given the work that is going on that does not get
documented, what can Informs do to create an incentive to bring
this work to the Informs meeting? Is there a benefit to
presenting this work (but without the overhead of the Edelman)?
Is it enough to bring it recognition, or are other benefits
needed (networking, sharing information, getting ideas from
others, identifying experts in the audience who can contribute,
etc. etc.)?
Informs is a basically academic community reaching out to
practitioners. I think we would be more successful if we could
help create a setting that would allow practitioners to create an
environment that suits their needs, offering the benefits of a
large society. However, this will not work unless their is an
unmet need. Are practitioners well served? Can informs provide
professional services, networking, tutorials, and other benefits
that would provide enough of an incentive to draw practitioners
into the conferences?
======= From Kenneth Fordyce:
>To add to your response to Newt:
>
>- Edelman is a major amount of work.
> Much of the work has less to do with describing the details
> of the work than in meeting the other requirements.
>
> The academic community misses a lot of the applied work.
> The cultures are different. The barriers
> of entry into an academic setting for a practitioner are too
> high from the practitioner's point of view.
> It doesn't mean the barrier is wrong --- just too high from
> the practitioner's perspective.
>
> Of the top of my head I could identify 4-10 applications
> that had a business impact from small to large that use such
> techniques as AHP, LP, algorithm/heuristics, categorical
> statistics, simulation, etc.
>
>If the academic work wants more access to the applied world,
>then they will have to search it out and make adjustments to
>its culture.
=================================================================
From: "Ralph R. NEBIKER" [nebiker@cod.nosc.mil>
To: Pract On-Line Interfaces [pol@silmaril.smeal.psu.edu>
Regarding the ongoing discussions...
I just read a line to the effect "INFORMS is an academic
society reaching out to practitioners." (Warren Powell,
5/20/1440) Maybe so, but it wasn't always that way. It remains
to be seen, if true, whether this is a healthy situation or not.
As it stand now INFORMS membership is in decline, although the
decline seems to be slowing. The academic community is in
contraction, and the long term question is survival of INFORMS,
and OR/MS as a disticnt profession.
Who/what are we missing? 80+ percent of the practitioners.
The second line of the above quote suggests we'd be more
successful giving practitioners the benefits of INFORMS, and by
meeting their needs. I couldn't agree more.
We need to keep the academic side. It is vital to our
survival. We should not dilute it in some hope that this meet's
practitioner's needs. It hasn't to date. Accept that it won't.
I keep reading about "bending academic type things" into some
less demanding form in hope that it'll satisy practitioners...
"Let's see, if we have low standards maybe more practitioners
will write poor articles?" What gives here?
One assumption is that practitioners are dying to write
articles and don't have the time, or are constrained by
proprietary disclosure constraints. On the contrary, I don't
think everybody out there is dying to publish.
My impression is that the academic community is driven by job
survival to publish as much as, and anything, they can, to keep
their jobs. In fact, one OR study confirmed the number of
journals has increased just enough so everyone can publish.
The point is, as stated before, I don't think the present
members are the people to ask about how to bring in
practitioners.
Practitioners and academics have different needs. Truth be
told, if I did have a Edelman project to write up - I wouldn't
because it doesn't interest me. My impression, which could be
wrong, is that practitioners are less interested in tooting
their horn, publishing, and writing competitive award papers,
and more interested in keeping up with new technology, trends
and applications.
Let me give you an example. When I go to a trade show or a
meeting I usually don't look for the "award winner". I have
broader interests - I am looking at and for new things, reworked
ideas, different approaches that interest or might help me. I
am looking to get caught up in an area I have negelcted for a
few years, or a new area I'm unfamiliar with. Whether or not
they're the "award winner" matter's little in this context.
Some ideas in support of practitioners that seem to me to be
worth following up:
To make joining INFORMS worthwhile it must bring some value
added benefit to the practitioners. Find out how to reach the
80+ percent who are not in INFORMS and ask them; ask other
practitioer oriented societies what their needs are and how they
fill them.
Clearly, a well developed tutorial, and technology/practice
updating program is desired. There have been a couple of
suggestions on how to do that.
A more eclectic choice of articles for INFORMS to broaden
horizons.
We must ensure we presevre and strengthen the academic's
participation.
We must add programs which satisfy practitioners, without
displacing or diluting the academic programs.
We must encourage cross-polinization between academia and
practice.
Example: If I went to a conference, I'd like to hear from
some of the runner's up as well as the winner. Especailly if a
runner up had a more practical idea for me.
Let's find a way to reach the 80+ percent we don't hear from.
=================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 May 96 21:18:37 EDT
From: RBORDLEY@CMSA.gmr.com
The idea of more awards for practice seems good since it gives
practitioners further motivation to belong to the society (since
academics already have strong motivations.) The only
qualification I have is that we might want to consider segmenting
the award by practice area, e.g., having (1) an operations
management award (2) a strategic decisions award for the best
application of decision analysis or other OR modelling tools
toward making strategic decisions etc.
The reason for doing this is:
(1) To recognize that many OR practitioners primarily use only
a subset of the OR toolbox and really identify much more
closely with a section than with the entire society
(2) To Avoid creating a Practitioner's Ghetto which is aloof and
disconnected with the rest of the INFORMS society. The reality
is that there are a few meeting tracks which are dominated by
practitioners, many meeting tracks which are dominated by academics
and a few tracks that seem to have a mixture. We probably want
to encourage the mixed tracks as well as the pure-practitioner
tracks. Giving the awards by academic area (or at least by
section area) might help reinforce the mixed groups.
The disadvantage of doing this is that it doesn't reinforce the notion
of OR as a single unified discipline.
=================================================================
From: Charles.J.Mccallum__Jr@att.com (Charles J Mc Callum, Jr)
Date: 3 Jun 96 08:44:00 -0400
Some Thoughts:
Re 15. Reorient Prizes Toward Practice (see below) - Rather than
reviewing prize criteria, putting more practitioners on prize
selection committees sounds like an important next step.
Re 16. Create New Practice Awards - The newly approved INFORMS
Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice is a good step forward.
The suggested 10 non-cash "Merit Awards" should probably be
linked to the Edelman Competition.
=================================================================
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 96 7:51:15 EDT
From: Newton Garber [ngarber@rutcor.rutgers.edu>
To: ngarber@rutcor.rutgers.edu, pol@silmaril.smeal.psu.edu
Chuck McCallum's comment is critical. Any practice recognition
awards should require that the majority of selectors be from the
practice community. After all, the Lanchester Prize was intended
to be a professional award but has turned into a book prize.
=================================================================
*****************************************************************
**************** COMMENTS MAINLY ON # 17-20 *******************
*****************************************************************
From: Arthur M. Geoffrion [ageoffri>
Subject: Re: A Favor (# 19, 20, 22)
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 6:39:53 PDT
Al -
This is a good idea, and the task might even be done
electronically now that the Net is being used more and more for
advertising job opportunities. It fits in with a couple of
possible initiatives that will appear in later POL postings, namely
# 19 (Sponsor a Professional Statistics and Living History Project)
and # 22 (Define and Reach Out to Possible New Member Markets).
Your job title project would also fit in beautifully with # 20
(Collect and Analyze Career Path Data); perhaps you could send a
posting to POL offering your results when we get to that POL
posting.
Thanks for your thoughts. I'll make sure they have a longer
life than just this little exchange.
> From Al Soyster:
>
> I received your message and applaud your leadership for
> focusing on the practioner in our meetings. I would like to make a
> suggestion concerning who the practioner is and what do they do.
> (Incidentally, my review of the job titles of the 900 students who
> have received IE Masters degrees at Penn State is about done.)
>
> Could we enlist someone at INFORMS HQ to monitor the "want
> ads" for job listings for the engineering and business in several
> metropolitan newspapers? We would need some algorithm, maybe based
> on keywords, which would align jobs with OR type background or
> topics. Ideally, can we somehow define a metric which relates job
> opportunities with the "topics we always use in our national
> meetings?" It is my hypothesis that our typical topics(at meetings)
> are not much related to the "job world" as defined in such papers
> as the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Boston Globe. At any rate, it
> would be useful to monitor how the "marketplace" is
> characterizing our profession in terms of job opportunities.
=================================================================
Date: Thu, 23 May 96 21:05:20 EDT
From: RBORDLEY@CMSA.gmr.com
To some extent, three of your ideas:
(1) Collecting professional statistics
(2) Managing Big Waves
(3) Practitioner Review of INFORMS practices
all seem interrelated.
An obvious way of managing Big Waves is to periodically poll
practitioners on how their tools are helping them with their
careers and what other tools or trends(big waves) seem to be
surfacing as potential opportunities or competitors. This could
also further emphasize that INFORMS is genuinely interested in
focussing academic effort on the real needs of practitioners.
Furthermore it might also provide academics with another source
of practical problems.
The idea of Practitioner Review of INFORMS practices is reasonable
as long as the distinguished practitioners reviewing INFORMS
practices take the time to understand what those INFORMS practices
are. To facilitate this, I suggest that the review consist of:
(a) Distinguished practitioners at high levels in business
(b) `prac-ademics', i.e., respected practitioners who are involved
in academic affairs as adjunct professors, etc.
I think the second group could be helpful because they can help
translate the comments of the first group into actions which
academics
might be able to implement. I'm afraid the gap between `pure'
practitioners and `pure' academics may be too broad to make a
direct dialogue somewhat inefficient. (What actually is happening,
I think, is that the `pure' practitioners dialogue with academics
who have strong consulting backgrounds who then translate those
practitioner ideas that seem useful to the `pure' academics. This
isn't a bad system. I'm only proposing that we replace the
academics with strong consulting backgrounds by practitioners with
serious academic connections to give the panel the flavor of being
100% practitioners.
=================================================================
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 14:20:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Ralph R. NEBIKER" [nebiker@cod.nosc.mil>
Item 17: Internal Practitioner Review of INFORMS. Good idea. More
in the nature of fine tuning though. We should be looking at "sea
change', "paradigm shifting" ideas.
Item 18: Proactively Manage Big Waves. Very good idea. Early
Warning Task Force - good idea. Possible mechanisms: Guest
articles in INFORMS from other professional associations, invite
guest instructors to conduct tutorials at conferences or on the
internet, then measure by level of interest - letters in INFORMS,
feedback forms, feedback e-mail.
Items 19 and 20: Carrer path manaegment data. Seems like a good
idea. Seems like even more work. How would we use this stuff?
Item 21: IT/Internet Task Force. I like Item 18 better. I feel
about the Internet the way I do about programming languages; I
learn and use what I need. We need to use it. I'm not sure a
"Task Force" is called for. If we have limited resources, I'd put
this at the bottom.
Item 22: Reaching Out. I think this is the best of the 24.
Item 23: Education - Formal Degree and Continuing.
I like the continuing education portion of this as we have direct
control of subject matter and content.
I have misgivings about devoting a lot of effort toward
formal degree programs. From what I've read in our own journals,
follow up studies show we don't take our own advice in altering
formal degree programs, and OR is not alone in this propensity.
The academics pretty much run this, they have for years, they do a
pretty good job - let them do it. For now, lets focus on higher
payoff activities.
Item 24: On-Line Knowledge Base: Very good idea.
My votes for the top 6.
1st- Item 22 - Reach Out!
2nd- Items 23/18 - Continuing Education & Managing Big Waves:
Internet conferences
Visiting tutors at formal conferences
(inside & outside OR)
Guest authors in OR/MS Today or Interfaces
(inside & outside OR)
(Series over several issues)
3rd- Item 6 - How do practitioners select meetings and sessions?
4th- Item 8 - A "practitioner's corner" in publications - yes, but
in a flagship journal - not spread around - Interfaces or OR/MS
Today.
5th- Item 12 - Review practitioner's focus.
=================================================================
From: Charles.J.Mccallum__Jr@att.com (Charles J Mc Callum, Jr +1 +1
Date: 4 Jun 96 08:30:00 -0400
Some thoughts:
Re 17. Internal Practitioner Review of INFORMS (see attached) -
Possibly valuable; sounds like a potentially large undertaking.
Re 18. Proactively Manage Future Big Waves - I suggest charging
journal editors in this (and other inventive) directions. I very
much like Pat Harker's new editorial statements for the journal
Operations Research. Also, editor search committees should be
composed and chrarged in this direction.
Re 19. Sponsor a Professional Statistics and Living History Project
-It's certainly worth collecting some "basic" data. It would be
great if this could be done with relateively little pain, eg,
through membership renewal surveys (for self and nonmember
colleagues) and possibly through universities.
Re 20. Collect and Analyze Career Path Data - Ditto, to 19. above.
=================================================================
*****************************************************************
*************** COMMENTS MAINLY ON # 21-24 ********************
*****************************************************************
From: Arthur M. Geoffrion
Subject: Re: A Favor (# 19, 20, 22)
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 96 6:39:53 PDT
Al -
This is a good idea, and the task might even be done
electronically now that the Net is being used more and more for
advertising job opportunities. It fits in with a couple of
possible initiatives that will appear in later POL postings, namely
# 19 (Sponsor a Professional Statistics and Living History Project)
and # 22 (Define and Reach Out to Possible New Member Markets).
Your job title project would also fit in beautifully with # 20
(Collect and Analyze Career Path Data); perhaps you could send a
posting to POL offering your results when we get to that POL
posting.
Thanks for your thoughts. I'll make sure they have a longer
life than just this little exchange.
Art
> From Al Soyster:
>
> I received your message and applaud your leadership for
> focusing on the practioner in our meetings. I would like to make a
> suggestion concerning who the practioner is and what do they do.
> (Incidentally, my review of the job titles of the 900 students who
> have received IE Masters degrees at Penn State is about done.)
>
> Could we enlist someone at INFORMS HQ to monitor the "want
> ads" for job listings for the engineering and business in several
> metropolitan newspapers? We would need some algorithm, maybe based
> on keywords, which would align jobs with OR type background or
> topics. Ideally, can we somehow define a metric which relates job
> opportunities with the "topics we always use in our national
> meetings?" It is my hypothesis that our typical topics(at meetings)
> are not much related to the "job world" as defined in such papers
> as the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Boston Globe. At any rate, it
> would be useful to monitor how the "marketplace" is characterizing
> our profession in terms of job opportunities.
=================================================================
From: Burnell_A_Jr_Brown @ rohmhaas.com (Burnell A Jr Brown)
Date: 04/22/96 06:53:25 PM
Subject: Requesting Your Thoughts
Dear Friends --
I've agreed to lead a discussion segment at our coming meeting with
the INFORMS Board. The topic is "Continuing O.R. Education". This
note is to request your input. The attached information (below)
will give you a general idea of the scope and "drift" of subject.
I invite you to contribute any ideas or opinions you would like to
share with the Board. I promise to gather and relay your responses
with as little "filtering" as possible.
Please respond before Wednesday, May 1. This will give me just
enough time to gather and prepare the material before heading for
D.C.
Thanks & best regards!
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
CONTINUING EDUCATION (a proposed area of INFORMS action):
(Proposed) Practitioner Continuing Education Project Start a
project to discuss and broadcast how best to design continuing
education/seminars aimed at helping practitioners to be effective
and to grow professionally.
(Note that continuing education is differentiated from degree
programs. CE programs would presumably be short, focused programs
targeted to the interests and time availabilities of active
practitioners.)
What are the greatest continuing OR/MS education and seminar needs,
and why? What would you suggest as means to address these needs?
What concerns (if any) would you raise in this context? Can you
suggest any other important questions that should be addressed
here?
(Don't overlook topics that fall outside OR/MS and its immediately
supporting disciplines, like interpersonal communication and
organizational intervention skills.)
Opinions and suggestions of any kind are invited. Eventually your
input should be turned into guidelines for both producers and
consumers of OR/MS-related education and training.
=================================================================
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 12:44:24 -0400
From: "Amir A. Sadrian" [asadrian@notes.cc.bellcore.com
Subject: Re: Requesting Your Thoughts
Hi Burnell,
I hope all is well with you. In response to your email, I think CE
programs are very useful. I divide them into 3 general
categories. All three I think are very much needed.
Traditional areas: examples would be Inventory, Transportation,
Project Selection, Resource Allocation, ..., etc.
This is for people who have changed responsibility and trying
to get a deeper understanding of the recent theoretical
advances and learn about the new tools available in the
market. These courses are expected to help
membership/participants to do their current jobs more
effectively.
New Trends:
As an organization we should be aware of new trends and
provide our membership the needed knowledge through tools and
training. An example would be Reengineering. When the
reengineering wave came, we could have offered courses to our
membership to get them ready and help them to be among the
first in their organizations riding the wave. Courses in the
New Trends area are expected to get OR/MS practitioners the
new "hot" projects that their VP wants to start.
Managerial and interpersonal skills:
Courses in consulting, presentation skills, communication
skills,..., etc. will be useful. However, I think the
competition in this area is high. There are many outfits which
provide these type of courses. We may want to establish
alliances with some of the companies which teach these type of
courses and then endorse them for our membership only if
theses outfits meet our high standards.
=================================================================
From: Arthur M. Geoffrion [ageoffri
Subject: Re: Roundtable Discussion
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 96 17:02:58 PDT
Nancy -
I'm so pleased that you will be able to participate on Monday
afternoon.
You are absolutely right to express the concern you did. The
resolution, I am quite sure, falls more in the realm of semantics
than of substance. No one is proposing to abandon the "other
50,000" OR/MS practitioners in search of some bird in the bush. We
are aiming for that 50,000. The language used in the current
statement of possible initiatives derives from the presumption that
most of the missing members presently now identify more strongly
with something OTHER than mainstream OR/MS ... and that they are
going to some OTHER professional meetings and reading some OTHER
magazines/journals than ours. Maybe this presumption is wrong.
Maybe they still consider themselves hard-core OR/MS persons whose
needs INFORMS may not meet very well. Part of possible initiative
#22 is to find out the true situation. The other part of it is to
delineate where the boundaries are for our traditional market, and
to PUSH THEM BACK. This aspect has been articulated best by Al
Blumstein in his "umbrella" concept of INFORMS.
Let me put my answer a bit differently. I believe that action
on enough of the possible initiatives will bring a substantial
percentage of the missing 50,000 to INFORMS. In a sense the
initiatives are ALL about those people. #22 is about those people
and ALSO those lying just beyond the usual boundary.
Hope this clarification helps. Sorry I couldn't return your
call today; it was too late by the time I picked it up, and early
tomorrow I'm off on a trip that will take me out of the office
until Monday.
> I wanted to follow up the voice mail message I left you earlier
> this week. I just hung up with Leon and he said that you are in
> Mexico this week.
>
> First of all, serving practioners is one of my top priorities and
> I am loooking forward with anticipation to the Monday afternoon
> discussion.
>
> BUT if I had to speak for 5 minutes right now about "reaching new
> markets" I would have to say that I think our first priority should
> be to learn about and meet the needs of professionals who already
> consider themselves working in the OR profession but percieve
> INFORMS as too academically-oriented (rightly so).
>
> Lew seems to be of the same opinion and we haven't even discussed
> this yet.
>
> Perhaps you could enlighten me further as to what your thinking is.
>
> I am working on a plan of action for this year with Leon. Once we
> finalize my draft, I will fax you a copy. I am very interested in
> your feedback since I know you have been championing this cause for
> some time.
>
> I look forward to meeting and speaking with you.
>
> - Nancy
=================================================================
From: Sid Hess
To: Tom Baker, Bob Bordley, Marc Cohen, Chuck McCullum and Amir
Sadrian (all by e-mail)
and by fax:
Elsie Del Rosario (632) 632-3957
George Kocur (617) 890-9320
John Lucas (810) 265-0678
Richard Powers (503) 388-9884
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 96 15:36:02 PDT
cc: Art Geoffrion, Mary Demelim, Nancy Butler and Bob Armacost
Subject: "New Member Markets" Discussion at D.C.
All addressees cast votes in Art's poll favoring one or more of
the three tasks (#22, 5 and 20) in Cluster 3. The cc's did not
participate in the voting but have been invited to participate in
our discussions, both by e-mail/fax this week and in D.C.
Art has asked me to confer with you on the "New Member Markets"
topic and then summarize your views at our Monday session. My
summary is intended to give Monday's open discussion a "kick
start".
Please send me, and if possible all addressees and cc's, why you
favor these tasks and any thoughts on how we could proceed with
them if we convince the rest of the Roundtable. I will assemble a
draft summary which I will provide you Sunday evening.
So to begin our exchange here is my personal input:
THE MARKET: LET'S GET THE SIZE RIGHT
Our membership market is not the 44,000 "Operations and Systems
Researchers and Analysts" reported by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. The U.S. Census Bureau is reporting numbers 4 or 5
times larger!
The '90 census long-form questionaire which included questions
about employment went to 1/6 th of all households. As best I
have been able to determine they used the same professional
definitions as BLS. But their estimate of total "Operations and
Systems Researcher and Analysts" employment was 246,000.
Each year the Census Bureau repeats the employment survey with a
very small stratified, cluster sample. Their estimates are
reported each January in
EMPLOYMENT AND EARNINGS:
'90 212K
'91 201K
'92 192K
'93 236K
'94 222K
'95 217K
BLS obtains its data from questionaires that go to employers, via
Departments of Labor in the 50 states. But BLS prints the
questionaires which differ from industry to industry. To make
form-filling less arduous for the individual companies the list
of occupations is truncated to the expected occupations in each
industry. " Operations and Systems Researchers and Analysts"
does not appear in the list that goes to Chemical and Allied
Industries. And sure enough these industries don't report
employment of them! In fact the BLS summary shows no OR jobs in
any Non-durable Manufactuting Industry.
I'm currently working through the Delaware Dept. of Labor to
correct or explain the discrepancy. Watch this space.
WHO & WHERE ARE THE NON-MEMBERS (whether 30k or 200k)?
I can think of three inexpensive ways to learn about them:
1. Rely on university alumni records sampling from old OR
graduate lists to estimate proportions with OR and non-OR job
titles. Requires cooperating alums or faculty to trigger the
request.
(I've done this at MIT: Of 132 Masters Degrees in OR, 42
had job titles and were in the U.S. Of the 42 , 3 have OR in
their current title, 2 have "computers" , 3 IE or SE, 9
engineering or science and 11 consulting. MIT's employment data
is not helpful. However, I have confidentially obtained names
and addresses of each graduate; so I could still survey (or even
promote membership to) them . . . if the Alumni office would give
me permission.)
2. Rely on industrial members to identify and interview the
non-member professionals in their companies. (Chuck White at
Dupont is doing this for us.) Personnel dept. may have employee
degrees and majors in their data base which could be related to
current job title. (Zeneca promised to do this for me in their
own data base.) Any statistics would be anonymous.
3. Call former members, i.e. exit interviews. My
recollection is that our annual membership turnover has been 10
or 15 % for decades. We may have 20-40k ex members out there.
But we do have reasonably good addresses for the most recent
departed. We should at least find out why they leave. And
perhaps learn something about the non-member population.
In summary I think we should do the exit interviews now. Nancy
Butler, INFORMS Marketing Director, has recently called a small
sample of members and thereby obtained some useful insights.
Nancy, could you make a few exit calls yet this week?
********
Enough already, what are your ideas? And thanks for listening.
=================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 13:00:20 -0400
From: Marc D. Cohen [sasmdc@unx.sas.com>
Subject: "New Member Markets" Roundtable Discussion at D.C.
Sid,
I think it is very important to interview and survey members who
have left INFORMS and find out why. We can learn a lot about
ourselves and our "product" in this way. It might also be useful to
interview operation researchers who are members of other
organizations and not INFORMS members and find out why. This might
tell us about the missed opportunities.
I believe that practitioners will become and remain members of
INFORMS if INFORMS meets their professional needs that they know
about INFORMS. Finding out what those needs are and whether they
are being met can probably be answered by carefully constructing
and executing a survey and keeping in touch with the membership. On
the other hand, informing practitioners is an issue of marketing.
We have to let the world know the benefits of the practice of OR.
I look forward to talking with you about these and other related
issues.
=================================================================
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 11:46:31 -0400
From: David B. Knies [dknies@agilenet.amef.lehigh.edu
Hello Art ..... travels, could not get D.C. meeting, etc. but had
a chance to look thru the three pieces you sent me. the key item to
me in pulling-in the practitioners is the use of WWW. The more that
can be put up and made easily accessible on a site, the stronger
the potential relationship among the Roundtable, INFORMS, and the
practitioners. Papers, presentation overheads, case studies,
profiles, knowledge mappers, etc. all add to the base of interest.
(As the worm turns, I am involved in this same sort of 'adventure'
with the Agility Forum .... so these are not random thoughts!)
By the way, did you happen to sit in on Mike McGrath's supply chain
plenary talk last Tuesday? Reactions?
=================================================================
Date: Fri, 31 May 96 08:48:16 EDT
From: RBORDLEY@CMSA.gmr.com
Art,
I really like:
(1) The idea of identifying kindred groups related to OR/MS and
attempting to network with them electronically (and other ways.)
I suspect that many of the BIG WAVES would be much less surprising
if we really were more closely coupled with kindred groups.
In principle, we have liaisons with a lot of other societies.
But with the exception of IFORS, I have not seen any evidence that
those liaisons have had a significant (or any?) impact on our
membership.
One could imagine expanding the list of events in OR/MS Today
to include more events from these kindred groups. Possibly we
could have letters to OR/MS Today raising and debating the
different philosophies and methodologies associated with each
group. (I remember a fairly active interchange I had with Bob
Machol through OR/MS Today on the value of life issue.)
(2) The idea of introducing more practice-oriented notions in
teaching and identifying better teaching practices.
The American Physical Society has a journal that is
specifically targetted toward Physics teachers, specifically high
school Physics teachers. While there's probably not a market for
a journal targetted toward OR/MS teaching, I could certainly
conceive of a journal targetted toward teaching MBA programs,
systems engineering, OR/MS etc.
Since I've started teaching as an adjunct, I've come to realize
there's an informal exchange of teaching ideas, cases, good
problems etc. that takes place between those teaching decision
analysis.
Practitioners could very easily impact this market and make
contributions to these journals in a way that isn't really possible
with the standard academic research journals. Practitioners could
help a `teachers' journal understand what teaching exercises and
lectures are really helpful and what are forgotten six months after
the student leaves the class. Teachers of OR --- and that is
presumably the main job of most of the membership of the society
--- would, of course, benefit from a journal which is designed to
make them more effective at their main responsibility. (Hopefully
the standard jokes about teaching being treated as a nuisance that
must be tolerated by `real' researchers will subside. It's even
possible that the decline of OR in the business schools might have
been mitigated if the profession had spent a lot more time
improving the quality of teaching. As GM has bitterly learned,
the market tends to punish those who neglect their core business.)
I know, from my interaction with POMS, that there is
significant interest for such a journal. It's even possible that
we might want to take one of our existing journals (possibly the
parallel journals, Operations Research and Management Science),
have them start a teacher's section and encourage --- like the
American Physical Society --- having a PHYSICAL REVIEW kind of
journal and a AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICS kind of journal.
What do you think?
=================================================================
From: Charles.J.Mccallum__Jr@att.com (Charles J Mc Callum, Jr)
Date: 5 Jun 96 08:52:00 -0400
Some thoughts:
Re 21. Create an IT/Internet Task Force (see attached) - Good idea.
In addition, the new Terry Harrison Interfaces column should serve
to educate others and generate valuable feedback.
Re 22. Define and Reach Out to Possible New Member Markets - Tough
but incredibly important.
Re 23. Practitioner Education and Continuing Education Project -
For continuing education, a "professional" should be able to help.
Re 24. Create an On-line Knowledge Base Concerning Practice - A
good idea that can also be leveraged through the Terry Harrison
column.
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***** The following message cuts across nearly all items *****
From: Arthur M. Geoffrion [ageoffri>
Subject: Re: INFORMS for Practitioners
To: PRINGLLG@sba-upham.sba.muohio.edu
Date: Thu, 2 May 96 8:38:11 PDT
Cc: blumstein (Al Blumstein), robinson (Randy Robinson),
schwartz (Leon Schwartz), butler (Nancy Butler),
armacost (Bob Armacost), jordan (Mike Jordan),
eldridge (Julie Eldridge), mccallum (Chuck McCallum),
daskin (Mark Daskin), horner (Peter Horner),
rothkopf (Michael Rothkopf), hess (Sid Hess), lev (Benjamin Lev),
bb (Burnell Brown), hausman (Warren Hausman), savage (Sam Savage),
spencer (Tom Spencer), freestone (George Freestone),
tims (The Institute of Management Sciences)
Dear Lew -
I owe you reply to your wonderfully thoughtful memo of a week ago.
Here goes.
> Dear Art,
>
> I've received and now read your "Possible INFORMS Actions That Would
> Benefit Practitioners" of 16 April, 1996. In what follows, I'll do
> the best I can to give my reaction(s), though - needless to say - I
> could probably be more helpful in a DIALOGUE with you, Nancy and Bob.
> But, schedules being what they are and mindful that my lack of
> background on some of these topics may make me dangerous, here
> goes......................
>
> First, your FIRST SENTENCE. Twice, in the last several months, I have
> been with a group of Academics wingeing about the fact that they are
> now coming under pressure to eliminate faculty lines in OR. My
> reaction: where have you been, Charlie? This has been going on in
> business for twenty years and I didn't hear you voicing any alarm.
> Now, the (very) natural consequence of those 20 years of attrition
> has begun to catch up with you (directly). I'm delighted you have been
> awakened but nevertheless wonder how you could have ignored the
> inevitable for so long.
The first paragraph is a kind of mantra that I always chant for
the benefit of those of my academic colleagues who have somehow
missed the reality of "shared destiny". I began chanting it,
not too well, as TIMS president 15 years ago. And I chanted it
a bit better in my "Forces, Trends, and Opportunities in MS/OR"
article (May-June 1992 in Operations Research). Would you like
me to send a copy of that article to you? I think it might be
useful in your INFORMS work.
> Second, in any (for the momement, unspecified) living system which
> consists of two parts: (1) the generator/parent class and (2) the
> descendent/children class, one might ask for the long
> term/natural/ergodic/optimal relationship between the size of the two
> classes. In some systems, the answer might be 10:1 or 100:1 or 30:1
> etc. But, normally, in such a healthy system, the size of class (2)
> will far outstrip the size of class (1). Breeding cattle would be
> less attractive if one needed more Bulls than calves to be generated.
>
> Yet, in OR, perhaps one sign of our illness is that this
> general rule appears to be violated. I don't know the #s. But,
> certainly, if INFORMS is an example, we seem to have far
> greater emphasis/mass on the 'generator" population than on
> the" generated" populsation.
This is an interesting way to put it.
> This paradigm MAY have some fatal flaw of which I'm not aware. If so,
> maybe you could tell me before I embarrass myself further. But, on
> the surface of it, it strikes me that there may well be something to
> this notion. IE that we are far short of having developed a healthy
> practitioner class of size and ability necessary to sustain itself
> and, as a consequence, insufficient ultimately to sustain its
> generator class.
Go with it! I'd like to see someone try to build such a model,
or maybe plug some rough numbers in one of the standard models of
this sort. It would make a GREAT paper for Interfaces, and I'm
sure Rothkopf would be supportive.
> That's a general comment. I now list below, rank ordered, the 24
> possible projects. Since, I'm not ranking them on common scale (eg
> per unit of time or $ invested), please take them as spiritually
> revelatory of my thoughts and not operationally set in
> stone..........
>
> (5) - 10 I think that this is a VERY BIG ISSUE. I have discussed
> this a bit with Nancy, am very much in support of her plans (though
> they may have evolved further since we spoke) and would offer to help
> out on this one to the extent that's useful.
Cluster 3 folks will appreciate your offer.
> (19) - 10 We do indeed need this! If one is unaware that a body
> temperature of 110 degrees F is lethal, no corrective action is
> indicated.
I'm so pleased you like this. It ran dead LAST among the 24 ideas in
the polling I did among practitioners.
> (6) - 9 I think this too is a BIG ONE. The choice of independent
> variables is obviously critical and the use, then, of (at least) some
> discriminant function analysis, evident. I'd help with this too if you
> want.
Cluster 1 folks will appreciate your offer.
> (1) - 8 I'm not knowledgable enough to evaluate this well. But,
> it sounds and feels right to me. It seems to me though, lurking only
> slightly below the surface, is the next big question: the supply
> side. How does one get practitioners to be willing to present their
> best work. P.S. I plan to follow up on the council of Logistics
> Management. One of my colleagues here is involved with them. Lastly,
> on this point, I'm very much in agreement with the notion of
> increasing the quality and reducing the number of parallel sessions.
The CLM model works very well for middle and upper management, though it
has been some years since I was a regular attendee.
> (10) -8 I don't know our variable costs (obviouly relevant here)
> but........................ if the measure of "Practitioner" is tight
> enough, this could be a VERY good technique to pursue. And, in any
> event, it's very inexpensive to test it!
Yes, the price is right for a pilot.
> (20) - 8 This is VERY TOUGH but IMPORTANT. I would only urge
> that it needs a lot of study before action is taken.
Sounds like good advice.
> (24) - 8 This could be very helpful; the problem is ...........
> how to get top quality people to work on it.
This happens to be one of my personal favorites. There is also the
problem of getting PRACTITIONERS to give it a time slice now and then.
> (15) - 8 How about a prize, to be given to the Academic
> who has created, historically, the most/best set of
> practitioners????
Look for the new prize being suggested by A/PIC.
> (9) - 7 This would be an important service
Cyberspace is the one way I can see of building greater vitality
in the practitioner community on a non-local basis.
> (12), (13) & (14) - 7 This all seems worthwhile and should be
> done, failing some financial or operational fact that eludes me.
All we need is a champion on the INFORMS Board. Maybe you could drop a
few hints.
> (7) - 6 This would be a good and useful service to our market.
> One suggestion on behalf of Practitioners especially: "I want a list
> of the BEST CURRENT literature on such and such a topic". Getting
> that fast and efficiently would be VERY helpful.
Maybe our journal area and associate editors could help field
inquiries like this. I tried something like this with the
Roundtable many years ago, but practitioners didn't make use of
their "line" to journal editors. Still, the kind of query you
suggest seems like a good one to support.
> (16) - 6 I think this COULD be helpful, but in its current
> form, needs more thought/clarity
Practitioners have not embraced this idea as enthusiastically as I
expected.
> (3) - 6 Good.
I'm hopeful for some action here.
> (11) - 6 I don't know but it 'feels' right
There is a LOT being done by some other associations we need to tap.
> (23) - 5 This would be a good, long - term service but NOT at
> the cutting edge of today's problems.
>
> (2) - 4 This seems fine but it doesn't apear to me to be a
> 'driver'
>
> (4) - 4 OK
>
> (21) - 4 I'm quite wary of any such liason. From our point of
> view, like the scorpion who needed a ride from the swimmer across the
> Nile, this 'union' has its risks. I prefer to see us building our
> internal strength before casting about for "Strategic Alliances"
I've had many caveats on this over the years, mostly from people who
have been burned (read swallowed up) by IS/IT.
> (17) - 3 I think you'll find that there are more politically
> attractive ways to achieve the same objective. This one may just lead
> to devisivness.
Considerable subtlety is needed. In fact, the responses from
practitioners to the very document you are discussing constitute a kind
of informal process of exactly this sort.
> (8) - 2 I'd urge caution with this. What publication(s) do
> you have in mind here. I believe you'll find that there is a
> hidden 'Catch 22" here that dooms this one from the start. To
> overstate my case, Publication A is directed to practitioners
> or it is not. If it is NOT, they won't read it. Period. If it
> is, they don't need a 'corner'.
Very well put. Still, arguments can be made in favor of this sort of
thing. For example, such a feature in a "non-practitioner" magazine
would help raise the level of visibility of practice among academics.
For another example, the articles could be collected and reprinted and
made available in some direct manner to practitioners. Also, it would
help assure practitioners that academics really do care about practice.
> (22) - 2 Same comments as for (21) I prefer to see us
> building our internal strength before casting about for
> "Strategic Alliances". Though there are data acquisition
> aspects of this project that I find attractive.
I hear you. Partly the problem is ambiguous wording. There are two
ways to parse: [new] [member markets] and [new member] [markets]. I
intended to include the second parsing more than most readers
understood.
> (18) - 1 Once again, perhaps expressing a minority view, I
> believe it is TO OUR GREAT AND EVERLASTING CREDIT that OR has
> "missed all the big waves" That stuff has, in fact, done us harm
> (from glancing blows). So, au contraire, I would urge that WE
> PUBLICISE THE FACT THAT WE DID MISS THEM.
My, that certainly is a contrarian view. Never heard it before.
But as much as I disagree with it, it does have its allure --
maintaining the purity of the Master Race, and all that ... but
I fear that an inability to adapt to the current environment
will lead to the extinction of our species.
> Art, there's a bit of (I hope you agree, necessary) superficiality
> about my comments. I just don't have the time to wrestle each of them
> to the ground in any complete sense. In any even, I hope that you,
> Nancy and Bob will find the above at least a bit helpful.
>
> Very best......................
>
> Lew
This is the most complete set of comments yet received on these
ideas, Lew, and I REALLY appreciate your taking the time to make
them.
For obvious reasons, I'm taking the liberty of circulating
this message to those who will participate in a leadership role
in the Roundtable's discussion on Monday in D.C. Hope you don't
mind.
Kindest regards,
Art
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