while reading my feedly sources last night, a suggestion to follow a blog called Green OR popped up. “green” and “operations research” are two of my favorite terms, so of course i clicked on their timeline. you should definitely check out ian frommer’s blog when you can.
the very first post up discusses the role of business analytics in companies seeking to improve their environmental sustainability. he doesn’t give a long list of examples because, honestly, once you see a couple of possibilities for using OR to support sustainable outcomes, you don’t need very many more to pique your curiosity. moreover, he lists a bibliography for the more academic minded elsewhere on his site.
to me, this post was exciting because sustainability, as poorly defined as that term is, invites every entity to re-imagine its identity in view of the urgent Earth systems problems confronting us. if that was not enough, many of the OR tools available to researchers and practitioners have found new vitality in the face of ubiquitous computing and data collection machines. some companies will reach this junction having traditionally been environmental in focus and seek opportunities to more efficiently conduct their core business without much re-invention. others will see their identity totally transformed at the nexus of transformational technology and unprecedented resource constraints. this is exemplified by frommer’s reporting of UPS’s recognition that they have gone from a “trucking company with technology” to ” becoming a technology company with trucks.”
while these transformations offer great promise in revitalizing our economy, changing employment patterns, and accelerating technological innovations, i can’t help but wonder what type of social/cultural breakdowns have to happen first. in “the information: a history, a theory, a flood” james gleick reports richard dawkins’ creation of the concept “meme.” paraphrasing the concept, a meme is analogous to the gene in that it is an idea or piece of information that not only reproduces itself, but also determines the potential paths of expression in the organism by which it is reproduced. to combine this idea with a definition i first read in dallas willard’s renovation of the heart, an idea system is made of the unstated assumptions (memes) that require no explication or acknowledgment of their existence, yet govern social, cultural, economic, and even spiritual expression. memes and idea systems are remarkably important in that they ensure social, cultural, and political stability. the problem is that our current idea systems lead us on a path to collapse. whether you understand that metaphorically, or literally as jared diamond explains is your choice, but the reason “sustainability” has caught on as such a powerful concept is because consensus is building around the conclusion that our idea systems have unsustainability as an emergent property.
ok, so how does this all link back to math? well, our problem is that math doesn’t supplant idea systems more than it helps us approach an objective mechanism for observing, structuring, and manipulating idea systems. math doesn’t necessarily transform idea systems. instability does that. this is exemplified in a quote from frommer’s piece: “Much of this will likely make the company more sustainable. But the prospective O.R. analyst need not know much about sustainability coming in.” indeed, business analytics will make a company less wasteful and more efficient. but sustainable? i’m not so sure. i am encouraged by the potential math holds for transforming business. i am troubled by the changes we need to see in the idea systems math encodes.