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After a dozen years as a market research executive, Fred Phillips was professor, dean, and vice provost at a variety of universities in the US, Europe, and South America. He is now Visiting Professor... Read More »

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It often falls to the management scientist to evaluate how well a program (in the private, non-profit, or government sector) is performing.  There is a great number of ways to go about this task.  This article discusses some of the ways to evaluate a program.  

Different analysis techniques can be applied to the evaluation task, and as we shall see, the chosen technique is quite important. I don’t address the details of technique in this article  My emphasis today is on the variety of evaluation philosophies (principles).  

They say the world is changing. Let’s check that out empirically.

We might run a couple of sample surveys, to see how people’s behaviors or attitudes change between the two questionnaire mailings.  A colleague, however, suggests panel sampling.

Yucky Science

Yucky Science

Sep 23 2009 | comment(s)

I had occasion last week to tell the story of my high school friend Allen (name changed to protect his by now certainly stellar career). We had met again back in Evanston, before starting our sophomore years in college. I’d just finished a summer job as camp counselor in Wisconsin’s north woods; Allen had worked for Searle laboratories in Skokie.

The Economist reported that in early 2007, for the first time in history, more humans lived in cities than in the countryside. We are now a different species, in terms of the environmental niche we inhabit.  One thinks of Isaac Asimov’s Trantor, the planet that was completely covered by buildings.  Is Earth headed for a similar future?

2004 was the first year Amazon.com moved more dollar volume in consumer electronics than in

(This continues a discussion of the topic I started here, in Spanish, and in §5.4 of this published paper, in English. Not necessary to read those first; this blog stands on its own.)

There are many definitions of sustainability.

Intention

Intention

Sep 03 2009 | comment(s)

What was it that my late aikido and Zen sensei asked me to do, on that day twenty-some years ago?  I do remember his request struck me as difficult to carry out, and perhaps not really necessary. I recall with great clarity the short exchange that followed the request:

“I’ll try,” I waffled.

Sensei just stared at me.

“OK, I get it.  There is no try, only do or don’t do.”  I weakly attempted to mollify Sensei with a line from the new film, Karate Kid.