The Community of OR

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The Community of OR

• INFORMS Combined Colloquia
• November, 2005
• Michael Trick
• Tepper School,Carnegie Mellon

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Social Capital (from Bowling Alone)

• Value we get from interactions, even if no
  obvious learning (human capital) gets done
• Results are often hard to recognize, but a career
  without social capital is sterile and ineffective

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Definition

• Social Capital measures of the value of social
  networks.
• Those tangible substances that count for most in
  the daily lives of people namely good will,
  fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse
  Hanifan, 1916

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Why is Social Capital Important/Useful?

• Lubricant that makes interactions go (like
  money in economic transactions)
• Leads to
• Trust
• Reciprocity
• Cooperation
• Institutional Effectiveness

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Examples of activities

• Working for Political Party
• Serving as officer in a club
• Church Attendence
• Membership in professional organization
• Entertainment at home
• Bowled in a League

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Decline of Social Capital 1970-1995
Worked for political party 7 2.8
Served as officer in club 10 6
Attended Church 42 36
Member of Institute of Architects 41 28
Entertained at home 14 9
Bowled in a league 69/ 1000 31/ 1000
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Further Sign?

• INFORMS Membership

1994 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Total 13,100 11,752 11,058 10,499 10,532 10,208 10,536 10,437
Student 2700 2253 1985 1755 1731 1782 1998 2105
Retired 325 492 504 516 525 522 524 506
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Decline of Social Capital

• By almost any measure, the activities that lead
  to social capital are declining after having
  reached a peak in 1950-1970 period
• Decrease is strongest in youngest cohorts
  (relative to involvement of others at that age)

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Effects of this decline

• Society is measurably more doubtful of others
  (people dont trust each other as much)
• People break little laws more (at a set of stop
  signs in NY, stopping went from 38 in 1978 to
  1)
• Charitable giving has decreased
• Many more signs of breakdown

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Why?

• Many suspects
• No one reason
• Careful study does remove some possibilities
  hard to blame internet when the decline from 1970
  is steady
• Pressures of time, money, sprawl at work. Key
  issues are television usage and generational
  shifts

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Television and technology

• There are now 2.4 TV sets per household, and the
  average household watches TV 7.5 hours/day
• Isolated and isolating activity that correlates
  most strongly with other measures of social
  disengagement

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Tricks TV situation 5 TVs
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TV Usage TV is my primary form of entertainment
Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree
Volunteered 4.1 9.1
Letters written 12 18
Club meetings 5 9
Worked on community project 1.5 3
Gave finger to another driver 3 1.4
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Generational Shifts

• Two ways these changes could come about uniform
  across all ages or replacement of civic
  generation with a less civic generation
• Data is clearly in favor of the latter. Matches
  with TV results

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Implications Unique for OR

• By our nature, we are
• Alone in our organization, or part of a small
  group
• Dependent on outside interactions to generate
  projects, ideas, creative research directions
• It is arguable that OR professionals are more
  dependent on social capital than many other
  professions

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Effect on Young Professionals

• Tempting to view time spent not in research as
  wasted time
• Wrong! In addition to the importance of finding
  balance in your life, social capital can result
  in unexpected successes
• Half of my vita is due to hallway conversations
  with colleagues in economics, finance, and other
  areas
• I am better in the classroom due to what I learn
  from colleagues

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Types of Social Capital

• Two main types
• Bonding forming in-groups (not a pejorative).
  This colloquium is a great opportunity
• Bridging interacting with other groups.
  Bridging people tend to be very central and
  successful in organizations
• Do both!

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Advertisement

• INFORMS can help
• Meet those in your field and those in related
  fields
• Outreach campaign such as The Science of Better
• Be active and involved
• Attend meetings, follow up interactions
• Volunteer

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Message 2 Be part of the Community and Improve
the Field

• Not just by having a nice new theorem
• Tell people about what we do!
• OR is exciting

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Tell people what we do

• The more people know about OR, the more
• Students
• Funding
• Projects
• Success

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Tell people what we do

• Doesnt have to be own work
• Have 3 or 4 good stories, and tell them as often
  as you can
• Great opportunity at this colloquium to collect
  stories
• Dont be shy, modest, analytical (all those
  things OR people normally are)

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Message 3 But not too much community Dont
listen to others (even me!)

• More exactly, listen, evaluate, and accept/reject
• Many different paths in this career tendency to
  suggest just do what I did!

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Example

• My first web page was in 1994, when there were
  800 web servers
• One of which was
• http//akebono.stanford.edu

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Bottom line

• Dont forget the most important take-away from
  this colloquium

The People you have met!
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Pittsburgh 06