Resoundingly Human

In this week's episode I'm thrilled to be joined by a very special guest, Sam Buttrey, an associate professor of operations research at the Naval Postgraduate School and winner of the first-ever Jeopardy! Tournament of Professors. Sam competed against professors from across the country and in a variety of disciplines to win not only the $100,000 grand prize, but an opportunity to further compete in the 2022 Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.

Welcome to a brand-new year of Resoundingly Human podcasts! Whether this is your first episode, or you are a long-time listener, thank you for joining us and I hope you'll subscribe for for even more great content highlighting the incredible contributions of INFORMS members.

To kick off the first episode of the new year, joining me is the 2022 INFORMS president Radhika Kulkarni, a member of the analytics industry for 35+ years, most recently as the VP of Advanced Analytics R&D at SAS.

What a year this has been!

To start, I want to thank everyone who has tuned into the podcast this year, and whether this is the first episode you're listening to or the 50th, your support of the podcast has helped us share the incredible work of INFORMS members and the many ways their contributions are saving lives, saving money and solving problems.

In fact, I'm thrilled to share that in 2021 we didn't just reach a major milestone, but blew it out of the water, when we surpassed 50,000 unique downloads of our episodes well ahead of our expectations!

This year's episodes covered a wide spectrum of research, discoveries and ground-breaking applications in O.R., analytics, data science and more that are having a significant impact on the world around us. Let's take a look back over some highlights from 2021!

Since I first met with the 2021 INFORMS president Stephen Graves at the beginning of the year, INFORMS has achieved several significant milestones despite the continued challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, to include the launching of a new strategic plan and a return to in-person meetings with the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Anaheim, CA earlier this fall.

Now as 2021 draws to a close, Steve joins me for his final interview as president for a look back over the past year and all that INFORMS has accomplished.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges to the restaurant industry, especially at its peak in early 2020 when indoor dining in much of the country was shut down. A shining light seemed to come in the form of food delivery services, which enabled restaurants to reopen and safely provide food to patrons even though their dining rooms remained closed, or open at a reduced capacity.

But is the relationship between restaurants and food delivery services really a healthy one, especially with indoor dining allowed once again? A new study selected for publication in the INFORMS journal Management Science titled "Food Delivery Service and Restaurant: Friend or Foe?" explores this relationship and in particular its impact on restaurants and the restaurant industry as a whole. Joining me to discuss this work is Manlu Chen with Renmin University of China's School of Business.

According to the CDC, nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have hypertension or are taking medication to control it. Of these individuals, only about 1 in 4 actually have their condition under control, whether through improved diet and exercise, making different lifestyle choices such as not smoking, or with prescription medications.

Knowing when to start treating someone for hypertension is extremely important, as elevated blood pressure can lead to heart disease, stroke, and even death.

However, there can be some uncertainty in the medical community on when it is appropriate to begin medication, as guidelines are frequently revised, and that decision can also vary from patient-to-patient based on additional factors.

Anthony Bonifonte with Denison University joins me for this episode to discuss brand new research that can help guide a physician's decision of when to begin medicating for hypertension, as well as when to increase dosages. This study, "An Analytics Approach to Guide Randomized Controlled Trials in Hypertension Management" will be published in the INFORMS journal Management Science.

With Halloween in our review mirrors and Thanksgiving fast approaching, the holiday season is officially upon us. And thanks to the widespread availability of coronavirus vaccines, to include boosters for many, I think we are all looking forward to spending time with family over the holidays in a way we haven't since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, it appears that the pandemic will still have an impact on this year's holiday season as we're seeing increasing reports in the media of continued if not worsening disruptions to supply chains across the globe that may significantly hamper holiday shopping.

Joining me to share some insight on these current supply chain disruptions, the impact to the holiday season, and if there are steps you can take to minimize the strain on your holiday celebrations, is Chris Tang, INFORMS Fellow and professor with the University of California, Los Angeles.

In an effort to address customer questions and concerns as thoroughly and quickly as possible, service centers such as call centers and back-office support organizations often employ frontline workers to handle some of the more common issues. These workers may end up addressing customer questions themselves, or transferring them to another employee with more expertise in that area. Since these workers provide a gateway to an expert, they are sometimes referred to as 'gatekeepers.'

An important part of the gatekeeping process is knowing when to stop working on the customer problem and transfer. But, this presents the gatekeeper with some difficult tradeoffs. On the one hand, transferring too early can lead to expert employees in other departments tied up addressing customer issues that could have been handled without a transfer. On the other hand, transferring too late can frustrate customers who feel stuck with an employee who is unable to address their concerns as well as extend the waiting times of customers in the frontline queue.

For managers, an important part of their role is to design incentives that help these frontline employees manage this process to the benefit of the organization. These incentives can take the form of bonus compensation, shift assignments, and promotions. However, balancing these incentives can be challenging and if not managed correctly, can actually negatively influence the employees' decision-making process. This is the topic of a recent study selected for publication in the INFORMS journal Operations Research from a team of researchers at the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University. It provides valuable insights on how to effectively incentivize frontline workers such as call center agents and customer service employees. Joining me is Brett Hathaway to discuss the team's work titled: "The Gatekeeper's Dilemma: 'When Should I Transfer this Customer?'"

On this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with an INFORMS member whose work is truly saving lives, saving money, and solving [problems. Cynthia Rudin, professor of computer science and engineering at Duke University, has been awarded the 2021 Squirrel AI Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity, an honor considered to be the New Nobel Prize. This award recognizes positive impacts of artificial intelligence to protect, enhance, and improve human life in meaningful ways with long-lived effects. In particular, her work with Con Edison, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Cambridge Police Department played a key role in firmly cementing interpretable machine learning as a mainstream field within artificial intelligence.

We've all seen movies that contain a pivotal moment when characters are united in a cause or moved to action, all as the result of an impassioned speech from a leading character.

The music builds as the words of this character flow forth, everyone's eyes are fixed on them until finally there is a collective cheer as they come together to tackle a challenge, or their spirits are reignited for a seemingly lost cause, or they plunge headfirst into battle or some other dangerous endeavor, with no other incentive than these persuasive words.

But again, that's the movies. Can the words of a charismatic leader really carry that much weight in real life, and serve as their own incentive (separate of any personal or financial gain)?

Joining me for this episode is Christian Zehnder with the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, whose study, "Just Words? Just Speeches?" On the Economic Value of Charismatic Leadership, has been selected for publication in the INFORMS journal Management Science. We'll explore just how much weight charisma carries in the real world, especially in a business setting when sometimes words are the only incentives available.