The first task requires an understanding of INFORMS in terms of existing and potential (hence, future) members' needs as well as an understanding of INFORMS' strategy to retain existing members and attract potential ones. The second requires an understanding of the technology IoL is currently using as well as an understanding of what is happening with technology and the processes and organization supporting the use of this technology. There is also the issue of marketing IoL not just INFORMS, to existing and potential members (see Table 1).

Table 1: A framework to discuss a desirable future state of INFORMS Online.
Where IoL should be?	Where INFORMS should be?	Existing Members	Potential Members
	What role IoL should play to help INFORMS get there?
How to take IoL there	Technology
	Marketing
	Processes and organization

Where INFORMS should be: There are many constituencies and interest groups and sub-divisions within INFORMS. For instance, one constituency, Publications, largely serves the needs of the academic community (members and non-members) and the expert O.R. practitioner community. INFORMS has highly rated journals, but good journals by definition have high rejection rates — how should Publications reach out to a broader academic and practitioner community?

What role IoL should play to get INFORMS there: IoL should be part of the marketing effort of INFORMS to reach out to potential members and to serve the needs of the existing ones. For many existing users, it provides information about conferences and a link to PubsOnline. It also has many pages devoted to students, practitioners, etc. The content IoL should have depends on what kind of membership INFORMS wants to have in the long run. IoL can be a way for members to be involved with INFORMS. It can provide a way for the academic community to support dispersed practitioners and attract them not just to IoL but to INFORMS. Still, how and to what extent IoL should serve non-members is not an easy question.

Technology: The precursor to INFORMS Online was a gopher and a Web/WAIS version for databases like membership and abstracts. Then we had freeWAIS to support these and other databases along with manually created HTML pages. Since then, IoL technology has moved to the more modern php/mySQL as part of a "content management system" to ease the management of tens of thousands of pages of information. This quarter, Matt and Brian Borchers, who also has stayed on from the previous team, along with Randy Keifer are coordinating the effort to consolidate everything from the old databases and pages into the content management system. Discussion forums are a way to attract members and non-members to IoL, and we have some technology to support such forums. User-created content via "wikis" and Web 2.0 in general are getting much attention. Might these be part of IoL's future?

Marketing: How do you get existing or potential members to come and explore IoL? How do they know when content has changed? Should content change? Can we afford to update content on a regular basis, other than for conferences? What is the brand image of IoL, not just INFORMS, going to be?

Processes and organization: IoL is an organization whose structure and processes have evolved over time with solid and dotted lines on the org chart as regards to who reports to whom. People work together in a variety of ways formally and informally to keep things moving and serve numerous stakeholders, but if needs change, the organization and processes may have to change as well. For instance, if IoL is to play an active role in the early stages of the effort to organize a conference (e.g., by providing the conference organizers an easy way to coordinate sharing of information), we may need new processes and different ways to organize volunteers and professionals.

Being in the 11th year of first my "Cyberspace" and now "Q.E.D." column and in the fifth year as software review editor, besides having a day job, I need all the help and advice I can get in how to serve INFORMS in the coming years. We are looking for associate editors to be part of the IoL team. The IoL volunteer team currently includes Matthew Saltzman ("editor in chief emeritus") and Brian Borchers as deputy editors, Adriana Alvim as AE-Meetings, and Ezgi Eren and Homarjun Agrahari as AEs for the student side of things. There are also volunteers on the Student Union pages. We have Jim Orlin and Mike Trick advising us. If you have the desire and ideas, please write to me or to Matt (mjs@ces.clemson.edu).



ManMohan S. Sodhi (M.Sodhi@city.ac.uk) heads the Operations group at Cass Business School in London.

Table of Contents

OR/MS Today Home Page


OR/MS Today copyright © 2007 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. All rights reserved.


Lionheart Publishing, Inc.
506 Roswell Rd., Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060 USA
Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969
E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com
URL: http://www.lionhrtpub.com


Web Site © Copyright 2007 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.