When you wake up each morning, is it with a smile on your face and excitement, energy, and enthusiasm for the day and your projects?
We are part of communities -- from the colleges and universities that we, as academics, teach and conduct research at to the companies that the practitioners and leaders in our profession in industries as varied as healthcare to transportation and logistics to financial services and high tech and consulting (to name just a few) contribute significantly to.
We are also, many of us, members of professional societies, which provide us with essential communities and from which we gain strength in so many ways.
With possible challenges in our immediate academic and corporate organizations due to continuing change, economic pressures, fluctuating perspectives in terms of administration, and even our own values and dreams, professional societies can provide sustenance and support for our entire professional lives.
In addition to the camaraderie and networking opportunities, professional societies provide avenues for continuing education and personal and professional growth.
INFORMS, as the leading association for professional in analytics, operations research and management science, for example, has a plethora of communities that one can be part of, at different stages of one's careers:
From student chapters at various universities:
to INFORMS regional chapters:
to societies within INFORMS:
to fora, such as WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences):
Various WORMS activities at the Annual INFORMS Meetings
one receives continuing education in many forms -- information and knowledge from conversations with colleagues and from lectures and talks with additional resources provided by INFORMS such as podcasts and now even INFORMS TV!
And, of course, we gain and learn so much through the wonderful conferences:
from regional ones:
2011 Northeast INFORMS Regional Conference
UMass Amherst, May 6-7, 2011
UMass Amherst, May 6-7, 2011
to the annual national ones, which serve as reunions for many of us, as well as international ones, which take us to exotic locales:
Moreover, through INFORMS membership, one can find out about new jobs and opportunities -- terrific for students and for those seeking greener pastures or just new challenges.
Finally, with INFORMS' new CAP (Certified Analytics Professional) program you can gain valuable new credentialing. And, one of the first to take the CAP exam, Dr. Irv Lustig of IBM, explains the benefits of this exam in his interview with Barry List, the Communications Director of INFORMS in the video below.
Irv, by the way, was an undergraduate at Brown University, when I was a PhD student there, and I was his TA for Professor Stella Dafermos' OR course (she was my advisor). Needless to say, Irv was very smart and went on to Stanford to get his PhD in OR with Professor George Dantzig, as his advisor.
And, in closure, I emphasize that learning and gaining strength from our professional society communities can also be a lot of fun!
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