Some random things from today’s INFORMS Practice Conference:
- Sanjay Saigal, popular columnist for OR/MS Today and founder/CEO of Intechne, formerly of ILOG, just to continue a theme, chided me for not pointing to his blog. I actually read his blog, but he normally blogs on non-OR things. It is great (with a great title): check out “Another Argumentative Indian”.
- I met Sandy Holt, who had given me a blog idea. If you see me, don’t hesitate to say “hi!”: I’d love to meet more of you who have emailed me over the past couple of years.
- I had a good long chat with Cindy Barnhart. Cindy is the current President of INFORMS, and is an associate dean of engineering at MIT. For a person who seems pretty laid back, she certainly seems to get a lot done!
- I also had a long chat with Irv Lustig from ILOG. Irv is extremely upbeat about CPLEX at ILOG, just as Alkis Vazacopoulos is very upbeat about Dash and Fair Isaac. As OR becomes more mainstream (in a form known as “Advanced Business Analytics”, with “Business Analytics” being “look at your data!”), it is natural that the software firms would act more like businesses, being bought and sold, and having turnover. Perhaps I overly worry about the various changes.
OK, time for dinner and an early bedtime. My buddy from graduate school, Chris Lofgren, now CEO of Schneider is speaking first thing in the morning.
Thanks for the updates Michael, I wanted to make it to the conference but Baltimore was too far for me 🙁
At least I can vicariously attend through your blog!
Mike – Thanks for the back-scratch, however backhanded. However, I wonder if you haven’t at least partially confused me with yet another argumentative Indian, Vijay Mehrotra, who is indeed a fine columnist for OR/MS Today. If so, I’m delighted. Vijay, the non-dilettante of us two, I’m guessing, not so much!
Ooops! I don’t know where I got it in my head that Sanjay had an OR/MS Today column. Sorry! But I think the rest is true (and not meant to be backhanded at all).