OR/MS Today - April 2003 President's Desk Marketing the Profession By Thomas Cook INFORMS President tom.cook@calebtech.com In my President's Desk column in the February issue of OR/MS Today, I said that I was very bullish on our profession and gave a number of reasons for my optimism. I further stated that we can't take the growth or even the continued existence of our discipline for granted. In my opinion, if we don't do something that we are currently not doing to create demand for our solutions, we have an uncertain future at best. I went on to say that marketing of our profession would be my number one priority this year. In this issue, I want to tell you: why the INFORMS Board voted unanimously to move forward with the marketing initiative; what the objectives of a multi-year marketing program are; what has been accomplished thus far; and what the plan is for moving forward. We have long been a discipline that offers huge value and we have rarely gotten credit for our contributions. I would venture to say we are a very well-kept secret. Consumers of our services don't know we exist and don't understand our value proposition. A case could be made that OR/MS is a dying profession evidenced by: cutbacks and elimination of many OR practice groups; elimination or downgrading of faculty jobs, courses and research funding; flat or declining INFORMS membership; and a growing lack of recognition everywhere. This identity problem impacts everyone in our profession — practitioner and academician. Many of us even have a difficult time describing to others outside the profession what we do and our value proposition. One objective of most professional societies like INFORMS is to enhance the profession and build a positive public image. Last year, those of you who participated in the CESSE survey rated INFORMS last among professional societies in these two categories. Although the objective of the marketing initiative is not to market INFORMS, it should benefit our society greatly by boosting membership, meeting attendance, journal sales and other programs. So, there are lots of reasons for doing a better job of marketing our profession, but what specifically are the objectives of a multi-year marketing program? As I have mentioned, the No. 1 objective is to unlock the latent demand for our solutions. I believe over time we can transform our situation from a "supply push" to a strong "demand pull" by providing the profession with a positive identity with key target audiences and creating excitement and pride amongst members of the profession. If you agree with the necessity of doing a better marketing job, your next question is probably, "What has been accomplished?" Last summer, we created a Marketing Steering Committee to push the new marketing initiative. That committee is currently composed of the following members: Tom Cook (chair), Gary Lilien (member of the Public Information Committee), Randy Robinson (PIC chair), Irv Lustig (member of Roundtable Executive Committee), Ralph Aliva (marketing professor and former VP of Marketing for Texas Instruments), Peter Cherry (INFORMS director at large), Mark Doherty (INFORMS executive director) and Barry List (INFORMS public relations director). Marketing of the profession has been a major focus of the last three INFORMS Board meetings starting in August 2002. We have had workshops on marketing and branding. We have completed the branding survey that will be helpful going forward. At the San Jose meeting, Mike Trick chaired a panel session, and I led a discussion with the Roundtable. We realized, to be successful, we needed some external expertise, and the Marketing Steering Committee screened proposals from five firms and held in-depth meetings with the two finalists. A firm was selected and Phase I of the project was funded by the INFORMS Board in our February meeting. In short, quite a bit has been accomplished, but we are just getting started. The plan for the rest of the year is, together with Philip Johnson Associates, to develop two primary deliverables: Our Marketing Position consisting of our target audience, the audience's needs, the profession's value proposition and our distinctive competence (what is special and unique about OR/MS); and Our Creative Platform consisting of messages and images that best convey our position. The combination of our marketing position and our creative platform will provide the foundation of all future communication activities for marketing our profession. This might sound simple, but in fact, to do it well is tricky and difficult. I am confident we can do it, and once we get it right, the execution of the plan should be successful, measurable and cost effective. In summary, INFORMS has launched a multi-year marketing program for our profession that, if done well, should pay significant dividends to every member of our profession. Stay tuned. Table of Contents OR/MS Today Home Page OR/MS Today copyright © 2003 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 2003 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.