What if you could make money by selling people securities, or equivalent, that have no inherent value, but people think will eventually be worth substantially more than they paid you for them? You can potentially make money from an endeavor that provides no value to the economy or society. You can make money off of […]
There are several forces currently driving change in our society: Pandemic impacts that have completely upset the status quo Economic impacts of the pandemic that have left many in dire straights Disproportionate effects of economic, educational and social inequities These forces have led to an overwhelmed healthcare system, enormous unemployment, and intense frustration on the […]
Wicked problems defy formulation and resolution. They involve conflicting values, concerns, and perceptions that lead to conflicts, strong positions, and perhaps even hatred of the “others” who have opposing views. We are faced with roughly 50% of the country being in fundamental conflict with the other 50% of the country. Actually, Biden-Harris won 51.3% of […]
It is important to distinguish between understanding complex problems and solving them. Solving problems in complex adaptive systems can be quite difficult and often intractable. Climate change, global warming and their consequences provide a compelling example. The science seems clear in terms of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. The relationship […]
How do people envision the future? How do they consider uncertainties? How do they think about investing today to have a better tomorrow? People seem willing to invest in their personal futures, e.g., retirement. They seem willing to invest in their children’s futures, e.g., education. The further they look into the future, the more difficult […]
We have in the US over 400 years of injustice in our country. Native Americans, African-Americans, and more recent immigrants have all been abused. We have taken advantage of them for the benefits of mainstream Americans at the time. What was this mainstream? Initially it was immigrants to Massachusetts and Virginia. Over time, we added […]
Recent challenges suggest that the complexity of society in the US has become increasingly difficult to understand and manage. We seem to have great trouble agreeing on anything. Consequently, we do not act to quickly understand what is happening and competently develop and execute compelling courses of action. Let’s explore the sources of the impasse. […]
We have been awash in protests of racial inequality. Assuming we agree inequality is bad — not everyone does — what can be done to greatly diminish this inequality? Those who have suffered this discrimination are poor, unhealthy, and uneducated. How can we address these discrepancies? We could just give everybody money. This idea has […]
Within much of engineering, and particularly, operations research, the goal is often the “best” decision that maximizes or minimizes a well-defined criterion or objective function. One can then, for example, employ mathematical programming to calculate the lowest cost routes for delivery trucks. Often one can even mathematically prove that these routes are best. Over the […]
The reception and dinner for Board of Trustees was held at the River’s Edge an upscale venue on the Hudson River on the eastern side of the Beresford property. “Welcome to everyone – trustees and guests,” Marie opens, after having clinked a spoon of a water glass to gain attention. “Welcome to Beresford Village. Most […]
Brad, Mary, and George meet in Marie’s conference room. Marie will join them later. Pete O’Connor has been recruited to help. Pete is Director of Educational Technology at Beresford. “Pete, we have been doing some benchmarking of course offerings around the country,” George opens. “What have you found?” Pete asks. “There is sufficient high quality […]
Phil Chen, the Beresford Provost, walked into Marie’s office. They greeted each other and shook hands, and then sat across from each other at Marie’s conference table. “Phil, I want to outline a new hiring strategy and get your opinion.” “Sounds great.” “Let me provide a bit of background first.” “Ok.” Marie discussed her analysis […]
Marie and George were drawn to exploring the real nature of value in higher education. “Are we investing in the things that create the most value for students and society?” Marie questioned. “It is not just a question of where we deploy each year’s discretionary resources. It is also an issue of where we deploy […]
George has been exploring how money is spent and the outcomes produced. His latest quest has been trying to understand the benefits of subsidizing faculty members so they can pursue research. When Marie and George operated at the department level, it never occurred to him to question this. However, Beresford is trying to make it […]
When do organizations fail? It is typically when their financials go south. Their deficits are unsustainable. Cash is draining from the enterprise. Their strategies for stemming the tide are too little, too late. Why do organizations fail? What causes these financial outcomes? The story that led to these consequences almost always started playing out much […]
I have started and led several companies, as well as research centers at universities. Often, things get started with a serendipitous opportunity. Suddenly, you have a paying customer or a willing investor, and soon an employee or two. You begin to formalize things. People ask about your strategic plan. Winning another contract or securing another […]
There is much concern lately that AI will displace human workers and perhaps eventually discard humans entirely. I suppose such scenarios are imaginable. However, I have been thinking about the potential of AI to do work that I currently do poorly. I almost always under invest in this work, often resulting in poor performance, wasted […]
All enterprises face a fundamental tradeoff. Do you invest in getting better and better at the products and services you already offer? Or, do you invest in creating innovative new products and services? The obvious answer would seem to be some mix of both. However, getting the mix right is rather difficult. This difficulty is […]
What if the US had a modern state of the art train system like other developed countries? The trip from New York to Washington would take one hour rather than three plus hours. The trip from Atlanta to Washington would take three hours rather than thirteen hours. This would be a great boon to personal […]
What are we trying to do by rethinking the ACA? Perhaps we are seeking an ideologically acceptable ACA, one that the Republicans get credit for rather than the Democrats. On the other hand, is insurance coverage really the ultimate goal? I don’t think so. We want a healthy and educated population that is competitive in […]
One of the PhD students in the School of Systems and Enterprises asked me a few questions after reading my March 15th blog post on “Thoughts on Teaching, Classrooms, and Computers.” She wanted to know what I would do if I was now a PhD student. Before getting to her specific questions, I need to […]
University research centers are delicate organizational systems. They bring together faculty, research staff, and graduate students for several reasons. Centers are often formed as a result of a large NIH or NSF grant or because of a large gift or grant from industry or wealthy alumni. So, there is money on the table and researchers […]
New York — In reaction to a flurry of consumer complaints about major airlines’ new “zero fare” model, one airline has unveiled a new marketing pitch, with the following tag line. “We don’t need you — take the bus!” Responding to pundits’ criticisms of this being ridiculously “over the top,” an airline spokesperson responded, “We […]
A few years ago, I co-chaired the National Academies Healthy America Initiative. The members of this committee came from both the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering. Our assignment was to wrestle with issues surrounding the effectiveness and costs of healthcare delivery. However, we wanted to put this in a larger context. […]
How many user names and passwords do you have? Do you need passwords with exactly six or eight or ten characters including as least one numeric character and one non-alphabetic or non-numeric character? How often are you required to change them for security reasons? Do you have a list, tucked away physically or electronically that […]
The poor performance of the US healthcare system can primarily be attributed to three things. First, the “fee for service” payment model incentivizes providers to provide as many services as possible to maximize reimbursements from insurers, either private or public. Second, the lack of integration of archival and operational information systems undermines the delivery of […]
Who is more American? Is it the Kenyan or the Mormon? Who created or destroyed more jobs? Is it the community organizer or the private equity economizer? The candidates are focused on attacking personalities and circumstances rather than reality. But, what really happened to blue collar jobs? This answer is straightforward. Our blue-collar laborers became […]
I am a student of history, particularly economic history. Lately, I have been immersed in reading about technological innovation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Transportation was transformed from stagecoaches and steamboats to railroads, automobiles and airplanes. Electricity transformed communications from mail, telegraph and telephone to radio, television and now Internet. In the […]
Over the past two decades, I have often asked executives about their toughest problem. Not surprisingly, they use many different words to answer this question. However, there is quite a consensus around, “Running the enterprise I have while trying to create the enterprise I want.” Keeping the existing enterprise running tends to be a very […]
I recently visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. One can question the whole “City on the Hill” imagery, but the Great Communicator was undoubtedly able to evoke a positive emotional response from me three decades after the original narrative. How does this compare to the Current Communicator? Both Presidents inherited troubled economies– one could easily […]
Much of contemporary analytics focuses on tabulating and portraying characteristics of existing systems, whether they are for energy supply, health delivery or a wide range of other complex systems. This type of analytics addresses “what is” or in many cases “what was.” This approach is backward looking, which makes a lot of sense if there […]
We continue to anguish over escalating healthcare costs. To gain control of these costs, we need to understand one essential equation. The total cost of healthcare is Total Cost = Costs Per Use x Number of Uses Careful design of delivery processes to eliminate unwarranted care process variations can decrease the costs per use. Variations […]
We often see dire assessments of our educational systems. K-12 is judged to be quite poor compared to other developed countries, as reflected in comparisons of educational achievements across countries. This is particularly true for STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. More broadly, our high school graduation rate of roughly two thirds means that […]
It is difficult to transform a large enterprise. Leaders of many private sector enterprises have told me that their toughest job is managing the enterprise they have while trying to create the enterprise they want. Not surprisingly, the failure rate is very high, as illustrated by 200% turnover in the Fortune 500 in the past […]
I am pleased to report that this week John Wiley released “The Economics of Human Systems Integration: Valuation of Investments in People’s Training and Education, Safety and Health, and Work Productivity.” I edited this book with contributions from many economists, systems engineers, and behavioral and social scientists. The overarching question that motivated this book was, […]
We seem to be in times of great uncertainty and potentially enormous changes. I have been wondering how different this is from the past. To answer this question, I reviewed our country’s first 40 decades – from 1620 until now in the first year of the 40th decade. How many decades would you guess there […]
In January, I discussed the notion of transforming organizational silos in academia to collaborative networks that can address large-scale research problems. At the moment, I am sitting in a meeting at the University of Illinois that is, in part, focused on this possibility. People are discussing the difficulties that they have encountered in pursuing this […]
I once asked an Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Executive of a government agency whether he preferred to be in control of all the budget of his agency or to be in control of how the money was counted. He responded, “If I can control how the money is counted, I don’t need to control […]
The debate in Washington seems stuck in partisan positioning and sound bites. We have lost track of the fundamental objectives that need to be pursued. I think the overarching objective should be quite simple – we want a healthy, educated, and productive population that is competitive in the global marketplace. We do not really want […]
