October 1999
TV Special Showcases Profession
By Vijay Mehrotra
OK, by now it's no secret. I'm a big cheerleader for the operations research profession. This, of course, is a self-interested posture, for the real truth is that I'm a big cheerleader for myself, and I happen to be in operations research. If I happened to be a plumber or a pipefitter, I'd probably be carrying on regularly about how we were unjustly underappreciated and about how our significance was bound to be on the rise in the emerging new economy.
Given that background, it's no surprise that this month's column is one huge commercial about operations research. In fact, to be more precise, it is actually a commercial about how to make a commercial about a commercial for operations research.
You see, a few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Barry List, the head of Public Relations for INFORMS. He explained that there was a PBS television special about operations research that was going to be on television this fall, but warned us that it was up to us to determine just how broadly this broadcast would be seen.
I'm totally pumped up for this video. I mean, really, can't you just see it? Jean Claude Van Damme as A.K. Erlang, bounding up telephone poles to gather empirical data to validate his Markovian assumptions for telephone traffic. Kevin Bacon as the young George Dantzig, desperately proving theorems in the face of the war effort and moving vacuum-tube driven computers to get the first automated Simplex solution.
Well, I'm not sure if it's going to be anything like that. In fact, I'm not sure at all what we'll find on the video. All I know is that I want to see it, and I'd like the people I know — colleagues, friends, potential clients, future employees and/or employers — to see it as well.
So I'm doing my part, and I'm challenging you to do the same. Below is the letter I sent to KQED, my local public television station, to urge them to broadcast this special. If you send me e-mail, I'll e-mail you this so that you can modify it and send it to your local station with a minimum of hassle.
Just do it. And tell your peers to do the same.
******
The purpose of this letter is to express my strong support for the upcoming television special, "Operations Research: Science and Technology for Informed Decision Making."
This special program will be aired by the National ITV Satellite Schedule (NISS) feeds GE 3 Channel on Wednesday, Oct. 13 and again on Wednesday, Nov. 17 at 1430 - 1500 ET.
As a KQED member and San Francisco resident, I strongly urge you to present this special on KQED.
Operations research is an exciting and crucial profession in today's world. This branch of applied mathematics has its roots in World War II, as scientists from different disciplines struggled to create innovative solutions to the critical and complex resource allocation problems associated with the war effort. However, over the past 50+ years, the ideas and methods of operations research have been developed extensively and applied to many important contemporary problems, including areas as diverse as pollution control, call center agent scheduling, natural resource conservation, telecommunications network capacity analysis and airline pricing.
In addition, the Bay Area has been a wellspring for the operations research profession. Both Stanford and UC-Berkeley are acknowledged as among the very best academic programs in the field. Indeed, the "father" of the operations research field is Professor George Dantzig, who has been at Stanford since the mid-1960s and was at UC-Berkeley prior to that time. In addition, many of us who have emerged from these programs have stayed in the Bay Area, contributing significantly to existing organizations (such as Hewlett Packard, PG&E, Sun Microsystems, Wells Fargo and Silicon Graphics) and in many cases contributing to the vibrancy of our local economy by starting companies and creating jobs. Finally, operations research professors from universities such as USF and SFSU have contributed their energy and expertise to help local governments deal with challenges such as the scheduling of police officers and the development of optimal parking policies.
Despite all this, there are still relatively few people who are aware of the operations research profession. (As one of my former students wryly put it, " 'Operations' is a household word, 'research' is a household word, but 'operations research' is most definitely NOT a household word.") Part of this is the nature of the subject matter: mathematics itself is a frightening topic to many people, conjuring up bad memories of high school struggles with gibberish comprised of a mixture of alphabetic characters, symbols, numbers and Greek letters. Beyond that, we as a profession have not done a very good job of communicating with people — in terms that they can understand and appreciate — about what we do and why it is important. Together, the result of all of this is an amazing lack of understanding of an increasingly important and interesting profession, especially among the young people who are our potential leaders of the future.
The television special "Operations Research: Science and Technology for Informed Decision Making" is an excellent opportunity for the public to become much better informed about operations research, and for us as operations research professionals to become much better understood. Given the deep-rooted history and significance of operations research here in the Bay Area, I am also confident that this special fits in very nicely with KQED and its mission.
In closing, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read and consider my request. If you have any questions at all about operations research, or about the "Operations Research: Science and Technology for Informed Decision Making" television special, please feel free to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you, and to seeing this special on KQED.
— Vijay Mehrotra
Vijay Mehrotra is the CEO of Onward Inc., an operations management consulting firm in Mountain View, Calif. He holds a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University and can be reached via e-mail at vijay@onward-net.com.
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