OR/MS Today - June 2002 - President's Desk

<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" link="cc0000" vlink="cc0000" text="#000000"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br>   <table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=480><tr valign=top> <td width=10><img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 hspace=4 border=0></td> <td width=470> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B><I><A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top">OR/MS Today</A> - June 2002</I></B></font><BR> <hr size="1"> <img src="cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <font face="times new roman, times"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>President's Desk</B></FONT><br> <IMG SRC="../barbluehook.gif" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="4"><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <FONT SIZE="+2"><B>Making the Most of Membership</B></FONT><BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> <FONT face="verdana, arial, helvetica" SIZE=2><B>By Mike Trick</FONT><br> <I>INFORMS President<BR> <A HREF="mailto:jbean@umich.edu">trick@cmu.edu</A></I></B></FONT><br> <hr size="1"> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=12 border=0><br>    <IMG SRC="../art/trick.jpg" WIDTH="122" HEIGHT="178" HSPACE="3" VSPACE="0" ALIGN="Left" ALT="INFORMS President, Mike Trick">INFORMS exists in order to serve its membership. This is not the Institute's only mission, of course; it also exists to ensure the health of OR/MS and to better explain the field to the larger world. In the end, though, members give purpose to INFORMS. So, when membership decreased every year since INFORMS' creation in the mid-1990s, INFORMS paid close attention to the issue, and revamped its offerings to better meet members' needs. In this, we are successful. The membership numbers for 2001 show an increase over the 2000 figures. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Continuing this trend will require continuous improvement in our operations. As I talked about last issue, there are broad societal trends that affect professional society membership; people do not join groups as often as they used to. To offset this trend, INFORMS will have to provide more value to its members. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Part of the process of providing more value is helping members take full advantage of their membership. I was talking to a former member of INFORMS and asked him why he let his membership lapse. Like many of our members, he joined as a doctoral student in order to gain access to our journals and to speak at our conferences. Now, five years out, he was working at a consulting company and no longer felt connected with INFORMS. He felt, in particular, that the journal he received was no longer relevant to his consulting career. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> I asked him which journal that was, and he replied "the one I used most in my doctoral work, <I>Mathematics of Operations Research."</I> Now, this is an outstanding journal that publishes some of the deepest work done in our field. Its editor, Gerard Cornuejols, sits down the hall from me, and he does a great job in attracting extremely high-quality papers. That said, I would agree that it is unlikely that a consultant who uses OR/MS methods would find a lot of immediate value in most of the papers. But INFORMS has 10 journals, with an 11th one coming soon. Surely this consultant could have found a journal better suited to his needs rather than drop his membership completely! In fact, on the project we were working on, we used a half dozen articles from <I>Interfaces</I> to provide inspiration for our own work. This former member did not extract full value from his membership!<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> So, how can you extract full value from your membership? The three most visible services from INFORMS are its journal publications, its conferences and its subdivision activities, and you should get value from all of them. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Beginning with journals, I would strongly recommend a periodic review of your journal choice. There is no doubt that INFORMS publishes top-quality journals. When <I>Business Week</I> put together a list of the 12 influential management journals in order to rank research output of business schools, both <I>Operations Research and Management Science</I> made the list. Our specialized journals all rank at the top or near the top of their fields. <I>Interfaces</I> is a gold mine of information useful to those in the practice or teaching of OR/MS. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> For many members, there is no need to choose a journal; they get access to all of them. The "Publications Suite" allows full online access to all of our journals, at a very reasonable price. For those of you receiving just one or two journals, you can access titles and abstracts for all the journals through the INFORMS Web page. I would suggest periodically reviewing these; you may find that over time your interests have changed and that another journal may fit your needs better. A review will also remind you how broad a group of people INFORMS represents. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> Conferences are another major offering from INFORMS. Over the past few years, we have revamped our offerings in two major ways. First, the "national meeting" now occurs only once a year, rather than twice. This makes the meeting even bigger and better. With 35 or more parallel tracks, plenary sessions, software demonstrations, exhibition areas and more, your first (or 10th!) meeting may be a bit overwhelming. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> One way to view the national meeting is to attend many of the smaller meetings held in conjunction with it. There is an optimization meeting, a simulation meeting, a public policy meeting and so on, all held in adjoining rooms. Attending national meetings provide both knowledge (through the content of the talks) and social capital (through meeting and interacting with people). This can be a large part of the value you get from membership. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> The second big change in meetings is the addition of a practice-oriented meeting. The first such meeting was held last year in San Diego; Montreal was this year's location. I will discuss this more next issue. <BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> The third and final of the "big three" of INFORMS offerings are the subdivisions. Given the number of INFORMS' members and the breadth of their interests, most members strongly connect with a small number of subdivisions that best represent their interests. Subdivisions can revolve around specific interests (transportation, simulation and so on), geographic regions (many large cities have local chapters with monthly meetings), or other characteristics (like the very successful Women in OR/MS subdivision). Subdivisions represent a great way to meet people with similar interests who can help address your issues.<BR> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=6 border=0><br> INFORMS is working hard to provide better services to its members. I hope that you find these efforts help you get the most out of your membership, and that you are not like the consultant in my story who risked missing out on INFORMS.<BR>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=5 border=0><br>  <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <font face="verdana, arial, helvetica" size="1"> <CENTER><script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></CENTER><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="tocfr.html" Target="_top"><I>Table of Contents</I></A><br> <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=4 border=0><br> <LI> <A HREF="../../ORMS.shtml" TARGET="_top"><I>OR/MS Today</I> Home Page</A><br>  <img src="../cleardot.gif" width=1 height=1 vspace=8 border=0><br> <img src="../barblue.gif" width=468 height=1 border=0 alt=" "><br> <b><i>OR/MS Today</i></b> copyright © 2002 by <A HREF="http://www.informs.org/" target="_new">the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences</a>. 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