O.R./Analytics at Work Blog

Three days, 116 attendees, 105 talks, 8 posters, 3 plenary speakers, 2 featured speakers, and a small ceremony in honor of Robert Fourer. That’s a one-sentence summary of the Fourth INFORMS Optimization Society Conference that took place from February 24th to the 26th on the University of Miami campus. Mother nature cooperated with good weather and the participants did not hesitate to tell us (the organizers) how much they enjoyed their time here in Coral Gables. It was a lot of work, but it was all worth it. I’m exhausted but happy. Thank you all for your kind words, handshakes, and feedback.

The conference was much more than simply giving and attending talks (to paraphrase Michael Trick). There were old friends getting together, there were new friendships (and papers) getting started, there were old/long-forgotten, unfinished papers coming back to life (my case), there were laughs, jokes, and camaraderie. There were inspiring plenary talks that made some of us think (and tweet) about new research directions, and wonder whether we chose the right path. A true networking event.

In Brazil, in the context of a soccer match, we say that a good referee is one whose presence we don’t notice. The conference wasn’t glitch-free (on my end of things), but it was pretty much glitch-free to everyone else not involved in the organization (at least this was the feedback I received). That’s as good as it gets, in my opinion. We wanted to be the soccer referee who wears an invisibility cloak, and it seems to have worked. We (the conference chairs and organizing committee) couldn’t have pulled it off without the tremendous help of many people, and I want to take this opportunity to thank them once more:

From the Management Science Department: our awesome office manager Vanessa Ferguson, and dedicated students Jannelle Chaviano, Jen Verdon, Meiyin Cheng, and William Barnard. Thank you for taking care of the catering, logistics, registration desk, signage, receipts, printing and binding of programs, bags & badges, table decorations, and the 1000 other things that seem to be small but amount to a whole lot when put together.

From the IT department at UM: Emil Diego, May Peralta, and Richard Mencke. Thank you for your help with the web site and payment processing.

From the INFORMS offices: Ellen Tralongo and Paulette Bronis. Thank you for all your help with the abstract submission system, special requests of all sorts, and formatting of the final program.

From my family: Madeline Keller (a.k.a. my darling wife). Thank you for helping out with all sorts of little things, and for lending us your computer expertise and attention to detail (and for helping me get a beer early at the receptions :-) there must be some advantage to being an organizer, right?). And most importantly, thank you for your patience during my stressful days.

Read more on Tallys Yunes' blog, O.R. by the Beach

We are now two weeks into the New Year, and I’m wondering how many people have already scrapped their resolutions? While the exercise of taking pause and performing a little self-evaluation is a good one, it tends not to be effective without an action plan in place. Here at INFORMS, our Board came up with four main areas to focus on in 2012 – three in the analytics domain and one in IT -- along with a plan to reach those goals. You say “toe-may-to,” I say “toe-mah-to;” you say “resolutions,” I say “strategic goals and priorities.”

So what are these four areas of focus? Certification, Continuing Education, and Outreach under the analytics umbrella, and IT (think online presence).

INFORMS analytics goal is to “be recognized as THE leading association for Advanced Analytics Professionals by advancing the practice, research, methods and applications of advanced analytics, and identifying and serving analytics professionals with products and services they value,” which leads us to certification of analytics professionals. There will be two components required from future Certified Analytics Professionals (CAP) – a resume or portfolio and a test over a body of knowledge. 2012 will be spent developing the test by a task force of subject matter experts, focusing on descriptive, predictive, and especially, prescriptive analytics.

And while continuing education will not be necessary to pass the certification test, INFORMS does feel that this is an important component to provide the analytics community with opportunities for growth. We expect to have a plan for a full continuing education program by year’s end.

Outreach is not a new goal for INFORMS, but one that must be continually pursued. Our membership grew last year for the first time in a decade, and we want to continue that trend. Industry, government, the analyst community, and converting students to regular INFORMS memberships after graduation are all areas we will target to keep the membership numbers trending upwards.

While IT may be a broad focus, INFORMS plans to “develop and support up-to-date online systems that enable and encourage access, collaboration, and effective exchange of information, content, services, and benefits.” In plain English, we are going to focus on online content sharing and social media. We want our members involved in what is going on in the world of OR/MS and analytics and we plan to help facilitate those online conversations.

Like any personal goals, it is easier when you have help. Could you help INFORMS in any of these areas? Consider posting on Susan's List and we will get you connected with the correct committee. In the meantime, read what our bloggers had to say about O.R. and Resolutions.

Next blog challenge will be O.R. and Food. Please email your entries to socialnetworking@mail.informs.org by February 6, 2012.

O.R. and Resolutions

• New Years Resolutions for 2012, Laura McLay
• Doing More Good with Great O.R. (Operations Research), Anna Nagurney
• Re Solutions, Nicola Petty
• Losing weight fact based, John Poppelaars
• Resolutions, Seasonality and Transient Effects, Paul Rubin
• My New Year Resolution – Take a Second Look, Patricia Randall
• Resolutions to optimize O.R. blogging, Thiago Serra
• A resolution I would make if I were O.R., Thaddeus Sim
• Four lessons about resolutions for 2012 (and O.R.), David Smith
• Operations Research Resolutions for 2012, Mike Trick

My mother worked for EPA for almost 20 years, instilling me with a respect for the world around me. The topic of O.R. and the Environment seemed like a natural (weak pun intended) fit. I was struck by the sentence in Patricia Randall’s blog entry, “While I am certain it is possible to include green objectives in a model, I haven’t had a client say ‘Minimize my emissions or my carbon footprint’. Or have I?” “Green objectives” need a paradigm shift from being viewed as going above and beyond, to being intrinsic to the fabric of good business. What O.R. and analytics are already doing is finding the best way to solve problems with optimum impact, and that optimization should include preserving the planet we all share.

There are many opportunities for OR/MS and analytics folks to include “greening” as an element of their analysis that protects the earth while streamlining supply chain networks and decision models, decreasing waste, and increasing revenue and production. Maybe the call is to go beyond the obvious solution, to add in environmentally friendly options, as a “value-added” service to your clients, or to calculate the impact to future generations of not implementing green measures. Of course, this could be viewed as Pollyanna thinking, that it isn’t financially possible, it’s too difficult, or that no one really cares about those types of objectives. But to quote a cute, mustachey guy (no, not Paul Rubin,) “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.”

Thank you to everyone who submitted to this blog challenge, they will be included in the upcoming Focus On Environment, a compilation of articles from INFORMS journals. As we head into the holidays, the next blog (and perhaps personal) challenge will be O.R. and Families. Please email your entries to socialnetworking@mail.informs.org by December 12.

O.R. and the Environment

Extra Credit goes to Anna Nagurney and Laura McLay for two entries.

• Brilliant Lecture by Dr. Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Laureate and Activist, Anna Nagurney
• Sustainability of Supply Chain Networks, Anna Nagurney
• only you (and your optimization model) can prevent forest fires, Laura McLay
• crowd sizes, home energy usage, baseball odds, and pop songs, Laura McLay
• Environmental Business – A Green Light for Analytics?, Capgenini Blog Team
• Corporate Buyouts, Sustainability in the DNA? , Ian Frommer
• EnviORment [sic], Francisco Marco-Serrano
• Deciding on Lean or Green, John Poppelaars
• OR, the Environment, and the Law of Unintended Consequences, Paul Rubin
• Optimizing Your Transportation Network can Reduce Your Carbon Footprint , Patricia Randall
• Primal and dual valuation of our natural resources using O.R., Thiago Serra
• Water supply and the environment, David Smith
• Jumbo decision models to protect the environment, Shivaram Subramanian
• Grizzlies, Pandas, and Optimal Ecological Structures, Mike Trick

The January blog challenge of O.R. and Politics provided many scenarios of how operations research can improve the political process (or not.) One of the common threads was the ability of O.R. to provide transparency and logical solutions in situations commonly dominated by politicians whose main motivation is to stay in office. But therein may lie the crux of the struggle -- how much does logic figure in the political process? To borrow from Anna Nagurney’s post, one of the definitions of politics is “the total complex of relations between people living in a society.” Can that “complex of relations” tolerate both logic and the sometimes illogical feelings of the people? O.R.’s highest purpose, while not intentionally excluding the benefit of individuals, is to improve the greater good of society. However, when heartfelt anecdotes about individuals are highlighted by the media, they often become a rallying point for politicians running for reelection and can evoke a response from constituents that demand reason and logic be thrown out the door. Let’s face it, everyone isn’t as passionate about O.R. as our blog challenge participants. Take a look below at their takes on O.R. and Politics.

And speaking of passion… February’s Blog Challenge is O.R. and Love.
E-mail your entries to graphics@mail.informs.org.

Role of O.R. and response planning

• Disaster Politics and Operations Research, Anna Nagurney
• Snow removal using a shovel, a plow, and operatations research, Laura McLay

O.R. and political districting

• Optimizing the House of Representatives, Robert Randall
• Operations Research and gerrymandering, Larry D'Agostino
• Political Districting and OR, Tallys Yunes

O.R. and advising politicians

• Does Prime Minister Rutte require an OR/MS counsellor?, John Poppelaars
• OR or CYA, Paul Rubin
• How’s VAT?, Capgemini O.R. Blog Team
• State of the Union, Ian Frommer

O.R. and the voting process

• And the Chancellor is…, Francisco Marco-Serrano
• How Operations Research Helps Me Understand Politics and Voting, Michael Trick

O.R. and urban development

• Politics in a developing country, David Smith
• Optimizing Public Policies for Urban Planning, Thiago Serra

Politics and Honesty

• The honest politician and other rare events, Shiva Subramanian
• The Diogenes Problem, Paul Rubin, who has earned bonus points in the blog challenge for posting twice!