So here we are a solid 4 months since my last post. I guess I have no excuses and attribute my absence to a high quality of life! Between the activities of an amazing international technology start-up company and full-time family fun the blog material has been in a holding pattern.
Here are a few worthless fun facts about how to fill up a summer. Here in Texas even when it’s hot we practice and play lots of baseball. We have leagues and tournaments and World Series extravaganzas and it’s worth every minute not to mention several pounds (close to a kilogram) of sunflower seeds of all flavors.
Of course the best way to manage the summer heat is in the swimming pool or the lake so we did lots of each. I even took a quick swim in the Bosphorus not far from Bebek on the European side of Istanbul. Super refreshing and certainly worth the effort, I recommend it to everyone who has the opportunity.
I would be remiss to not put in a couple words for the state of affairs on the brewing front. This summer has been an amazing journey through the world of Double and Imperial India Pale Ale. I have been inspired by what the innovators of craft beer have done with big malt and bigger hops. It’s a wonderful trend!
I have also embarked on a new approach to talking about my passion for solving the wORld’s (pun intended…Is it lame to say “pun intended”? Probably) toughest problems with Operations Research techniques. As much as I love words like optimization, linear and non-linear, analytical, mixed integer and goal programming, I’m shifting my focus and talking points to the business value we can create not so much the techniques.
Ultimately analytics and value go hand-in-hand, but the message is clearer and easier to understand if we focus on the benefits of the results. I can’t promise I will be consistent but I hope you recognize over the coming months a new theme in Wayne’s wORld.
Stay tuned over the next couple weeks as I run down the latest activity at conferences I participated in over the summer and the innovative application of the advanced capabilities I used to discuss in great detail here.