David Andersen and Jim Lyneis are working on this issue (correct me if I'm wrong
) and expect first results later in the year.
I) Policy Council officers and members review
A) Welcome new:
1) President Elect: Jim Lyneis
2) VP at Large: Joel Rahn
3) VP Meetings: Andreas Größler
4) PC Members: RenAn Jia, Özge Pala, Warren Tignor, Khaled Wahba
B) Recognize continuing
1) Jay Forrester, David Packer, David Andersen, Deborah Lines Andersen, Ginny
Wiley, Deborah Campbell, Bob Eberlein, Brian Dangerfield, Henk Akkermans, Brad
Morrison, Jim Thompson, Scott Johnson, Gloria Pérez Salazar, Santanu Roy, Ali
Kerem Saysel, Krys Stave
C) Thanks to outgoing
1) President: Mike Radzicki (now Past President)
2) Past President: Graham Winch
3) VP at Large: Bob Cavana
4) PC Members: Allen Boorstein, David Exelby, Tim Haslett, and Gianliborio
Marrone
D) Reminder on Society Membership
1) A number of PC officers and members have not yet renewed.
KhaledWahba
First of all, i really thank
every member in the society board, who gave me the chance to join the PC for the
next 2 years and to be able to share our knowledge and experiences together for
the sake of continuation of the success of the society that has been built and
developed by all previous colleagues and members.
Khaled Wahba, PhD
Executive Manager
Regional IT Institute
11A Hassan Sabry, Zamalek -- 11211 Cairo, Egypt
II) Agenda Discussion
The full agenda is attached - use this thread for new items or other discussion
of the agenda.
A) Overview
1) Reports and announcements
(a) Restrict questions to clarification
• Post questions in Report Questions Thread
• Only post reports and announcements in Reports Thread
(b) For items needing discussion indicate the discussion thread to use
• Discussion threads appear in the agenda
• Only the forum administrator can start new threads
• Pressing and important issues, as well as discussion and development items are
grouped with the appropriate officer or committee.
B) Call for additions to the agenda and announcements
1) Post desired additions here
(a) President will add appropriate new items to second or third sub session.
Attachment:
2007JanAgenda.doc (58.00 KiB)
This file has been downloaded 16 times
Additions to the agenda, by
Ren'an Jia
I have some motions to make on behalf of myself and
China Chapter. Thank you very much. Best Regards! Ren'an Jia
Compared with the consumption levels of developed countries, it needs to make
some adjustments to adapt developing countries:
MEMBERSHIP FEE: If it can be free or a 25% discount to students from developing
country（They have no income and their living standards are at most 750USD per
year, which is 500 RMB per month. Such as students in Shanghai, and we can limit
their rights to balance this, for example, only service them Electronic SD
Review but no printed.
REGISTERED FEE: If all members from developing countries can enjoy the developed
students’ treatment.
HOTEL ROOM RATE: Can you arrange some lower hotels nearby to suit and meet their
needs.
PAPER SUBMITTING: It is important to many teachers and students whether their
papers can be submitted by SCI or other search systems (at least ISTP).
I believe more member will come and it also balances the distributions of our
member.
BobEberlein
Prize in Health Care Dynamics
Hi Everyone,
I was contacted by Peter Warrian who has a foundation for health care research
and would like to fund a prize for work in health care in System Dynamics for 5
year at CDN$ 10,000 per year. With about 1/2 of this to go toward paying
registration/travel cost to the SD conference and 1/2 for prize money.
I would like to have this on the agenda for the second period and to make a
motion for the approval of the prize so we can announce an activate it for this
years conference.
If you are interested in helping formulate this let me know. I will try to
figure out who constitutes the awards committee and get the ball rolling on
this.
Roberta L. Spencer
Malaysian Chapter
A Malaysian Chapter constitution has been received. We
are waiting for a list of the members. It has not yet been reviewed.
BobEberlein
Accreditation
Bob Cavana has asked that a discussion of accreditation take place. If anyone
has any energy around this please indicate so and we can include it on the
agenda.
Roberta L. Spencer
Wiley Sponsored Member
At the summer PC Meeting in Nijmegen, the decision of
who would take responsibility for deciding the recipients of Wiley Sponsored
Memberships is not conclusive. There is a current committee of Bob C, David L,
Scott R, and Graham W; as it is set up currently, the committee is responsible
for the decision. Bob C is the chair of the committee. Is being chair tied to VP
at Large?
Guidelines for Wiley Sponsored Member:
http://www.systemdynamics.org/wsmguide.htm
Who is responsible for the decision and will the committee change?
KhaledWahba
I just want to raise an issue that
i hope it fits the discussion.
As an instructor for a SD course in MBA program in Egypt, I was trying to find
case studies which can be used as a comprehensive exercise or even as an exam.
The problem was always is to find a case where you can give it to the students
without giving them the CLD and the SFD and leave it to them to build and
develop. For the past three years I have been using a local cases which where
developed by MBA students as a part of their Theses which were tackling many
subjects using the SD Methodology. It was so helpful and useful for the students
of the SD class to use those cases to try to develop the full model.
In that respect, I do suggest to issue a periodical with a proposed title “Case
Studies in SD” to be quarterly or bi-annually published. By doing so, we will
help all academics in the field to choose the case that suits the theme of the
course. Each case shall be formulated in a way to be used as educational
material beside the informative aspects.
KhaledWahba
Competency Model for SDer
I just want to put an issue in the front of PC members, that we need as SD
Society to contribute in building the Competency Model for SDer
practitioners/academics. It will help us all to understand how to direct our
efforts in the future to help us develop the community of SD and it will give us
the tools to develop our policy in the future.
III) Minutes Approval and Interim Votes
A) Any corrections on Summer Policy Council or Business
Meeting minutes
B) Approve minutes of the Summer Policy Council and Business Meeting
C) Recap any e-decisions for the record
1) Energy SIG
2) Support Permanent Appointment of Roberta Spencer at University at Albany
3) Accept Albuquerque Proposal
Roberta L. Spencer
Please note that digitizing and the
on-line availability of Dynamica and does not have anything to do with the
revision to the Wiley contract. Dynamica will be placed on the Society website -
not Wiley Interscience.
Incorrect: Recap of Motions handled electronically since the last meeting: Mike
Radzicki noted that the Winter PC minutes were approved as well as a revision to
the Wiley contract that enables on-line availability of all issues (including
Dynamica).
Correct (delete "including Dynamica"): Recap of Motions handled electronically
since the last meeting: Mike Radzicki noted that the Winter PC minutes were
approved as well as a revision to the Wiley contract that enables on-line
availability of all issues.
KhaledWahba
Originally posted by BobEberlein
C) Recap any e-decisions for the record
1) Energy SIG
2) Support Permanent Appointment of Roberta Spencer at University at Albany
I do support the two points (c.1 and c.2)
IV) Publication Reports
Report from Publisher of SD
Review - Graham Russel
Please see attached report from Graham Russel, John
Wiley & Sons
Attachment:
PC-Jan07-publisher_report.pdf (64.61 KiB)
From Deborah Lines Andersen -
VP Publications Report
Please see attached report.
Attachment:
v_p_publications_january2007.pdf (15.21 KiB)
From Brian Dangerfield:
Executive Editor's Report
Please see attached report.
Attachment: exec_ed_pc_w2007.pdf
(37.54 KiB)
JamesThompson
A minor suggestion for an
online publication
Qifan Wang's vision for the next 50 years of system
dynamics includes thoughts on publications. In particular Qifan suggests a venue
for shorter and less formal articles.
The reports on publications are impressive and indicate a robust and useful
journal. SDR is a gem, cared for, improved and polished for over 20 years. So
changing its nature is difficult for me to consider.
However, I wonder if it isn't time to consider a separate online publication
such as "System Dynamics Letters"? I imagine this to be a sort of incubator for
research as well as a place to report insights derived from field work.
As an electronic publication, it might be possible for the Society to manage it
entirely without intervention and any revenue from subscriptions might help fund
"home office" expenses.
BrianDangerfield
This idea chimes with one discussed at a recent Editors' Meeting. A proposal had been tabled to have a Consultant's Forum in the SDR, but the agreed view of the meeting was that this should be an on-line publication with its own pages on the SDS site.
KhaledWahba
I like the idea by James of online publication "SD
Letters". I guess we need to take it to the next level to realize it.
V) Committee and Officer Reports
From David Andersen, VP
Finance Report
VP Finance Narrative Report -- System Dynamics Society
January - February 2007 Electronic Meeting
Submitted by David F. Andersen
Summary: This report is based on four financial reports developed each year by
the Society's home office staff: (A) Budget Comparison, Last Fiscal Year, (B)
Profit & Loss Previous Year Comparison, (C) Profit & Loss, Fiscal Year, by Cost
Centers, (D) Balance Sheet Previous Year Comparison. The narrative (to follow)
gives the highlights that I find in these four reports.
Attachment: All.pdf (49.82 KiB)
Executive Director's Summary
Winter Policy Council Meeting January/February 2007
Electronic Meeting
by Roberta L. Spencer
ANNUAL REPORT
• A full Annual Report on Home Office Operations will be presented at the Summer
Policy Council meeting at the Boston conference. Below, please find bulleted
items on Conferences, Membership Services and Recruitment, Sales, Society
Sponsorship, Website, Home Office Physical Space, Allocation of Effort, and
Finances
2006 NIJMEGEN CONFERENCE (and future conference information)
• Net Gain approximately $33,000. Budgeted profit at 408 registrations was
estimated at $23,500. Actual registrations were 424 plus 51 day registrations.
(Boston 05 was 521, Oxford was 388, NYC was 460)
• Counting the day registrants, it has the second highest attendance to date and
highest outside US.
• Boston, Athens and Albuquerque conference planning is proceeding well, please
see reports under VP Meetings.
MEMBERSHIP SERVICES AND RECRUITMENT – membership continues to grow
• 2006 membership: 1064 in 64 countries, up from 1052 in 2005, an increase of
1.1%
o (2004 – 977 in 57 countries; 2003 – 953 in 63 countries; 2002 – 883 in 63
countries; 2001 – 835 in 62 countries; 2000 – 814 in 55 countries)
o New countries include Hungary, Latvia, Senegal, Slovakia and United Arab
Emirates.
o Percentage of student members in 2006: 21.4%
• 6,611 records in database at the end of 2006, up from 5,887 in 2005
• Membership retention
o “New” memberships each year averages 24% (ranging between 22% - 28%)
o An average of 68% of “new” members renew from previous years
o An average of 80% of all prior year members renew
• Outlook for 2007 membership looks good as we already have 628 members signed
up as of January 10, 2007. (Compared to last year’s membership at the same time:
577)
• Library Campaign: Started by Jim Hines in 2002 to encourage institutional
subscriptions. To be done this January, in its fifth year, letters will be sent
to members whose universities do not subscribe and to non-subscribing course-listers
on the “Courses in SD” webpage.
SALES
• Beer Game sales $98,968, up 3% from 2005
• Proceedings and back issues sales $7,546, up 66% due to the moving sale
o Most proceedings (now including 1996) and back issues of the Review are now
available online
• Forrester Seminar Series sales $3,900, down 22% from 2005
• MIT SDG Literature Collection DVD sales $4,110, down almost half from 2005
• Bibliography (version 2006b currently online) is updated through Fall 2005 SDR
and Oxford Proceedings. There are over 7900 references.
o A new bibliographer has started this year; she is currently working on making
the bibliography current.
• Work continues on the reprinting of the Electronic Oracle, expected to be
completed by summer conference 2007.
SOCIETY SPONSORSHIP
• 2006 Society Sponsorship: $34,411, down 6% from 2005
o 2 new sponsors in 2006, 5 in-kind sponsors
• Pledges to date for 2007 $31,250
o 4 new sponsors in 2007, 4 in-kind sponsors
WEBSITE
• Site was moved from the University at Albany server to EV1 in October 2006.
• Site is being continuously updated thanks to Webmaster and VP Electronic
Presence.
• Conference submission/review system continues to be upgraded, more automated.
HOME OFFICE PHYSICAL SPACE
• We have moved back into our new office space, after renovations during Summer
2006; includes additional furniture to match existing, dedicated
packing/shipping area, additional storage, guest space and private office for
Executive Director.
ALLOCATION OF EFFORT
• Cost centers are Core, Sales, Conference, Web, and Publications
FINANCES
• Due to a new University requirement the Society became listed in the NYS
Attorney General’s Charity Bureau Registry.
• Also required, the Society is now registered to collect, report and pay sales
tax in both New York and Massachusetts.
• The Society has a new CPA/accounting firm: Murphy Hall & Company, CPA's,
Burlington, MA
• Refer to VP - Finance Reports (Unaudited) Net Income (Gain) for 2007:
($62,153)
Does anyone have any questions or comments? Thanks, Roberta
Attachment:
WinterPC2007summary.pdf (22.78 KiB)
AndreasGroessler
Report 2006 Nijmegen Conference
...is attached.
Attachment:
FinalPCReportNijmegen.pdf (10.27 KiB)
AndreasGroessler
Conference Rotation and
Multi-year Budgeting
David Andersen and Jim Lyneis are working on this issue
(correct me if I'm wrong
) and expect first results later in the year.
AndreasGroessler
Program Guidelines
Two issues are of importance
1. Poster sessions: The program chairs of the 2007 conference (John Sterman and
Rogelio Oliva) decided to raise the perceived importance and quality of poster
sessions. Therefore, at the 2007 conference they plan to have just one joint
poster session with all posters in the evening, with food and drinks being
served.
2. Focussed Research Sessions: We tried this new format twice (Boston 2005 and
Nijmegen 2006) and results were quite mixed in both conferences. Some research
sessions worked very well, but some obviously did not achieve an acceptable
level of quality and interest. It is consensus among people involved in
conference preparation, that - until somebody comes up with a revised format to
better guarantee quality - no FRSs will be offered in future conferences.
BobEberlein
Vice President Electronic
Presence
The report is attached - biggest news in our new web
site host.
Attachment:
VPElectronicPresence.pdf (8.46 KiB)
2007 Boston Conference
Progress Report
Please see attached file.
Attachment: Winter2007Boston.pdf
(22.39 KiB)
2009 Albuquerque Conference
Report
By Leonard Malczynski, Aldo Zagonel and Roberta Spencer
Please find attached the 2009 Letter of Acceptance that was sent to Leonard
Malczynski and Aldo Zagonel at Sandia National Laboratories.
DATES: July 26 – 30, 2009
CONFERENCE TEAM:
Organizing Chair: Leonard Malczynski, Sandia National Laboratories
Program Chair: Andrew Ford, Washington State University
Theme & Special Sessions Chairs:
David N. Ford, Texas A&M University
Krystyna A. Stave, University of Nevada Las Vegas
Stephen H. Conrad, Sandia National Laboratories
Edward Anderson, University of Texas
Program Vice-Chairs:
Ignacio Martinez, Argonne National Laboratories
Aldo Zagonel, Sandia National Laboratories
Workshop Chair: Jack Homer, Homer Consulting
Conference Manager: Roberta Spencer, Executive Director of the SDS
Conference Host: Sandia National Laboratories
Conference Co-Hosts:
Los Alamos National Laboratories (tentative)
University of New Mexico (tentative)
Argonne National Laboratories (tentative)
Idaho National Laboratories (tentative)
Conference Partners:
Powersim Software AS (tentative)
Intel Corporation (tentative)
CONFERENCE VENUE:
Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town www.hotelabq.com
CONTRACT: We have a signed contract with the Hotel Albuquerque.
ROOM RATES: $139 for a double or single plus taxes.
SPECIAL CONSIDERATION: The Hotel Albuquerque is donating five complimentary
double rooms for four nights each (20 room nights) for conference scholarship
recipients. Additionally, the Hotel Albuquerque is donating a complimentary
2-night weekend stay to encourage early room reservations.
The Hotel Albuquerque does not have enough sleeping rooms for our conference. We
will have a room block at the Best Western Rio Grande Inn, located .3 blocks
from the Hotel Albuquerque for over flow. Additional student housing can be
provided by the University of New Mexico.
SITE VISIT:
In October 2006 Roberta Spencer visited with Leonard Malczynski, Aldo Zagonel
and others at Sandia National Laboratories resulting in many successful
meetings. Additionally a site visit to the Hotel Albuquerque was made. The team
believes the hotel meeting spaces will fit our needs nicely.
Attachment: 09LTRACCEPTPC.pdf
(9.54 KiB)
Administrative Committee
Meeting Report
Please see the attached report. Included in the report
is a link to photos showing the renovated home office space.
Attachment:
admin_comm_report.pdf (12.54 KiB)
Nominating Committee Report
by Michael J. Radzicki
The nominating committee for the 2008 slate is comprised
of: Michael J. Radzicki (ex officio, Past President, Chair), James Lyneis (ex
officio, as newly elected President Elect), Yaman Barlas (Turkey), Ozge Pala
(The Netherlands/Turkey), Qifan Wang (China). A motion to approve the committee
(Mike Radzicki moved, Bob Eberlein seconded) was accepted on July 23, 2006.
I, as the Past President and the Chair of the Nominating Committee, am pleased
to present the following nominations. All candidates have been asked if they
were interested in the positions and all have said yes. The slate we are
presenting is:
--President-Elect: Erling Moxnes (Norway) (2008)
--Vice President- Finance: David Andersen (USA) (2008-2010)
--Vice President - Chapter Activities: Tim Hazlett (Australia) (2008-2010)
Policy Council Members (2008-2010):
1. Enzo Bivona (Italy)
2. Lars Weber (Germany)
3. Imrana Umar (Africa)
4. Burak Guneralp (Turkey)
The membership will be notified of who is being nominated before March 31 in the
Newsletter, by post, or e-mail.
Sincerely, Michael J. Radzicki, Past President
Roberta L. Spencer
Use of Society Lists for
Mailing
I spoke with a non-profit membership (international)
organization about how they deal with sharing their membership list. They do not
share membership list EVER for e-mail use. The non-profit produces a newsletter
every month and offers space in the newsletters to sponsors. In the past when
they did give out member info to be used by others for email, they received
complaints, so they simply do not do it anymore. Addtionally, they had problems
with opting-in and opting-out.
They do "rent" their membership lists for one-time hardcopy mailing use for
$350, sent in an Excel spreadsheet to the renter (they have 5000 members). The
non–profit asks to see full final copy, and it must be mailed out within 2
weeks. They "rent" the list, they do not sell it since it is used only one time.
They give a price break to other non-profits and to their publishing partners.
wtignor
Second the motion regarding the
Nominating Committee slate of candidates for officer and PC member posts (to
take
office in 2008).
DeborahCampbell
I apologize for being unable to tell from the names ... could someone please inform me if any of our proposed slate of new Policy Council members are women?
Roberta L. Spencer
Deborah - None of the 2008 slate of candidates are women.
VI) Report Discussion
A) Single thread for both:
1) Publications report discussion
2) Committee and Officer Report Discussion
B) Clarifying and informational questions only
1) Substantive discussion should be placed in the appropriate thread or a new
discussion item requested in the Agenda thread.
DeborahCampbell
I apologize for being unable to tell from some of the names ... are any of the proposed slate of new PC members women?
Roberta L. Spencer
Deborah - None of the 2008 slate of candidates are women.
DeborahCampbell
Thanks Roberta.
To everyone:
I am concerned that our new slate of PC officers and members has no women in it.
If we vote this slate in as it stands, next year will see a decline in the
number of women on the policy council, as Ginny will be stepping down. Since we
will stand at 5 women out of a total of 25 officers and members, I see this as a
problem. (After all these years, women will be only 20% of the PC.)
We have shown a steady increase over the last few years of women on the PC,
including an increase of women in officer positions. If we had one woman in this
slate, we would be holding steady. As it stands, we will decline. It would be a
shame to plateau our trend -- let's definitely not go backwards.
I read that the nominating committee considered a diverse pool of candidates,
and as the Diveristy Committee Chair I definitely appreciate that. Yet I am sure
there are some excellent female candidates in our Society. I think it is crucial
that we actively maintain our improvements in recruiting women into leadership
of the Society.
Jim Lyneis
This was a concern of the
nominating committee, as well as geographic, non-MIT, and other forms of
diversity. The list of potential candidates contained a number of women, and one
was asked to serve. Unfortunately, she was unable to sign on this year. Why
another women was not then asked I do not know. Mike (Nominating Committee
Chair) will have to respond as he did the "asking." One possiblity is that by
the time this occured the other candidates were asked and accepted, thereby
closing out a number of regional slots, and the next on the list in the region
in the remaining open region was a man.
Given this experience, perhaps a better approach in future years will be to
assure that we achieve our diversity goals before filling other slots.
DeborahCampbell
Thanks Jim for the information. I
understand the possibility you describe, yet do not think it keeps us from
making a change to the slate right now. While the candidates for various regions
and other various diversity slots may have "accepted", the slate will not be
final until we and the membership vote it in.
I am very pleased to learn that there were several women in the list of
candidates. I request the Nominating Committee recruit one of these other female
candidates to replace one of the men listed to ensure we have a slate that at
least keeps us steady with female representation on the PC.
AndreasGroessler
[I'm not sure if this is the appropriate medium for the following message but I
do want to be supportive of this formum, so..]
Let's look ahead.
I know two excellent Dutch female SD practitioners: özge pala and Kim van
Oorschot. You may have targeted özge already, but perhaps not yet Kim. She was
with Minase, my former consulting company, and for the past half year at INSEAD.
I support your fundamental point: I we do not look actively for more diversity,
it is unlikely that we will see it.
BrianDangerfield
Members may wish to note that the UK Chapter has its first female President this year in Susan Howick (Univ of Strathclyde, Scotland). She is also an Associate Editor for the SD Review.
Jim Lyneis
I think that I can speak for the
committee, and especially for the chair, Mike Radzicki, that diversity was a
serious concern and that the fact that no female was nominated was not
intentional. Mike was very proactive in proposing female candidates.
As I suggested earlier, we did have a proposed slate that had a female
candidate, who unfortunatley was not able to accept that position. When this
occured, we went to the next name on the list in that region, without thinking
about the fact that it left no females on the nominated slate. And as I said,
the others had already been asked and accepted.
Of course we could withdraw the nomination from one of these gentlemen, and put
him up next year. Or, we could correct our error next year. I personally favor
the latter, but its up to the PC to decide.
KhaledWahba
I believe what Jim suggested would
make more sense which is to correct it next year and to give us the chance
during the conf. in Boston to talk about this issue and to have more
opportunities to look for the most active females.
DeborahCampbell
In response to Andreas regarding
how we would decide: it appears from the discussion that the nominating
committee had a list of prioritized candidates from each region that they used
to recruit candidates. It seems (from my outside vantage point) that it would be
fairly straightforward to find a female on one of the lists that is in the
highest position, ask her if she would be interested and able to participate,
and if she accepts, let the male candidate from the same region know that he
will be considered for next year. If she does not accept, move on to the next
female candidate and do the same. Jim did mention that there were several female
candidates considered.
In my view it is actually much easier for us to correct this unintentional
oversite (that a female had been lost from the slate) this year rather than next
year. If we correct it next year the following must happen: to get back to the
numbers we have this year, we have to propose 2 female candidates. To make
progress again on our commitment to increase the gender diversity of the PC, we
have to propose 3 female candidates. Proposing 2 female candidates has only
happened once in the history of the PC that I can determine. I think proposing 3
women next year would be more difficult than postponing the one man for a year.
BobEberlein
There are two very important issues
here: one is the diversity of the policy council, the second is the process by
which we govern ourselves.
I agree with all of Deborah's points on the diversity of the policy council. We
do charge the nominating committee with keeping that in mind. From all the
discussion it does appear that the committee made a good faith effort at working
toward gender diversity. Having someone refuse a nomination is actually a pretty
rare thing, and clearly threw a wrench in the works. The irony, of course, is
that someone responsible enough to refuse a nomination because she could not
committ the time required for the activity is exactly the type of person we
want. We may want to develop a different procedure for developing nominations,
perhaps looking for people who will actively declare interest and state in a
paragraph or two what they would like to bring to the table. That pool could be
augmented by people asked by the President to declare their interest. Then the
slection process would give us people who are both willing and enthusiastic and
we would not hit this type of problem.
The second issue is process. Just in terms of rules of procedure we are now in
roll call for a vote. In principle, the minute voting opens discussion should
stop. In a physical meeting that is how it works. It does not seem helpful to
stop discussion mid vote electronically, but we should not stray to far from
this protocol. Certainly there is not mechanism to stop a vote unless a quorom
is not acheived.
From Deborah Campbell on
March 3, 2007
Motion to extend voting time for slate
of candidates
Hello colleagues,
We have extended our electronic Winter PC meeting in order to have more
discussion on the forum about the important decisions we need to make. Important
discussion has begun about the slate of candidates, yet voting on this slate is
scheduled to close tomorrow. I believe that the issues need to be understood by
all and that the discussion deserves the opportunity to come to its natural
conclusion before voting closes.
To that end, I submitted a motion to extend the voting period by two weeks to
the PC website. Unfortunately, while I tried to force the starting date for
voting of my extension motion to be today, the computer overrode my desires, so
the motion I've submitted online is worthless because we cannot vote on it until
long after the voting closes for the slate.
Therefore, I submit my motion to the PC Listserv, probably completely out of all
proper order as Roberts would have it. I think the challenges of the electronic
forum and the lack of involvement on the forum from many PC members or
interested parties up to this point warrant some bending of the rules.
My motion:
Moved that we extend the voting time period for the slate of candidates by two
weeks. There is active discussion on the forum about the slate. Due to the time
it takes to conduct discussion asynchronously, as well as the issues of
usability expressed by members who we want to have a voice, the issues need to
be understood by all and the discussion completed before voting closes.
Anyone willing to second this motion?
Best regards,
Deborah
From Michael Radzicki on
March 3, 2007
Motion to extend voting time for slate of candidates
Dear Colleagues:
As chair of the Nominating Committee I guess it's my duty to weigh-in on the
issue that Deborah Campbell has raised. Although I don't think it's prudent for
me to disclose the ebb and flow of the discussions that led to the slate of
candidates put forth by the Nominating Committee, I can tell you that the
Committee was keely aware of the issue of diversity (geographic, age, race,
MIT/non-MIT, and, of course, gender) and that our work took two or three weeks
longer than I anticipated due to the passionate debate surrounding diversity
issues. That no women ended-up on the slate we submitted is, in my view, very
unfortunate. But I can tell you that women were seriously considered for
virtually every open position (including president) and that one woman declined
an invitation to serve on the Policy Council. I can also tell you that, even as
Society President, I was out-voted by the committee a couple of times. In other
words, I can report to you that no one individual (even the President) was able
to ram-rod anything through the committee. Finally, although the present slate
contains no women I think that, in the end, the Committee (which, by the way,
contained a woman) did an excellent job in assembling a slate that represents
the other important aspects of
diversity it considered.
All that said, Deborah does raise a legitimate issue. As to a resolution, I have
several thoughts. First, I think it would be a very bad idea to go to a
candidate who has already been asked (and has agreed) to enthusiastically serve
the Society and tell him that, although he's qualified, we'd now like him to
step aside because he's the wrong sex. Rather, let me suggest that the Council
choose one of the following options.
1. Accept the current slate of candidates and vow to do better next time. Should
the PC elect this option, I'm sure the Diversity Committee would be willing to
provide assistance to next year's Nominating Committee on how to arrive at a
slate that better represents all aspects of Society diversity.
2. Appeal to the Society's Constitution and note that the PC can consist of up
to 16 members:
Quote: "The Society shall be governed by a Policy Council (also referred to in
the Articles of Organization as the Board of Directors and hereafter in the
Articles of Organization as the Board of Directors and hereafter referred to as
the Council) composed of the Executive Committee and from twelve (12) to sixteen
(16) other members. The number of members elected to
serve on the Council shall be determined by the Council."
and that (a) the PC must annually tell the Nominating Committee how many
candidates to put forth and that (b) the Nominating Committee will "normally"
submit to the PC two candidates for each position:
Quote: "The Council shall notify the Nominating Committee of the offices and the
positions on the Council to be filled in the pending election. The Council shall
also instruct the Nominating Committee as to the number of members to be elected
to serve on the Council for the ensuing three years. The Council will also
notify the Nominating Committee of any subsequent vacancies that may arise while
the Nominating Committee is still conducting its business. The Committee shall
normally submit at least two nominations for every office or position except
that, at the discretion of the Council, a single nomination may be submitted for
the office of Secretary. The Nominating Committee shall strive to ensure
diversity on the Policy Council in terms of geographic representation, sex, and
other factors deemed
representative of the Society at large."
Should the PC elect to follow option number two, it could instruct the
Nominating Committee to provide it with up to four more PC candidates (i.e., a
maximum of eight) and/or to provide it with a second candidate for each open PC
position.
I leave it up to the Council to decide on the best course of action.
Cheers.
Mike Radzicki
Past President
PS - As a caveat, I'm not entirely sure that the quotes above (taken from the
Society's web site) are from the most recent version of the Society's
Constitution. Someone (Ed Andersen has volunteered to keep the Constitution up
to date) needs to check this.
From Bob Cavana on March 4,
2007
Motion to extend voting time for slate of candidates
hi all.
i am happy to second Deborah Campbell's motion:
Moved that we extend the voting time period for the slate of candidates by two
weeks. There is active discussion on the forum about the slate. Due to the time
it takes to conduct discussion asynchronously, as well as the issues of
usability expressed by members who we want to have a voice, the issues need to
be understood by all and the discussion completed before voting closes
i think Deborah has raised some excellent points that require closer
consideration. Or as Mike R. has suggested we might need to add a couple of
people to PC to give the right 'balance'.
this is particularly critical this year, as it is our 50th anniversary of SD.
however, i am not now on Policy council, so i am not sure if my 'seconding' is
constitutional?
all the best,
Bob
Bob Cavana
From David Andersen on March
4, 2007
Motion to extend voting time for slate of candidates
Dear Members of the Policy Council:
I have just seconded Deborah's motion for a number of reasons (I hope that I did
it correctly). First, I think that there are a number of issues that have been
raised about the slate and I hope we can all find the time to feel good about
the work that has been done by or nominating committee while addressing these
issues. (I have read Mike Radzicki's posting on the work of the nominating
committee this year and based on his comments I will continue my vote to support
the current slate. But I welcome the chance to have further discussion.)
Second, I welcome a chance to use our electronic system a bit more. A number of
persons have worked hard to give us the forum to hold discussions and we now
have a chance to use that forum to hold such a discussion. If we have a topic to
discuss, we owe it to ourselves to use the tools available to discuss that
topic.
I realize that there are good and pressing reasons to vote against extending the
discussion. For one, I understand that we have to get back to the membership
with the slate of officers under a strict timeline from our by-laws. Also, we
had an open period of discussion (that drew little comment) and we should stick
to our rules of discussion.
All that said, I am in favor of extendintg the conversation if it can lead us in
a productive direction.
By the way, I am uncertain about the wisdom of posting this message on the open
e-mail as opposed to just making the second within the polilcy council. Forgive
me if I have opened a rats nest here...
Best,
David Andersen
Motion to extend voting time
for slate of candidates
Dear Members of the Policy Council:
The March issue of the System Dynamics Newsletter is a vehicle we have used to
notify our membership of the slate of candidates. The Newsletter was scheduled
to be placed in the mail on Monday morning, March 5, to act in accordance with
the condition in Policy 7--nominations made by the Nominating Committee are to
be published in a letter mailed to our members during the first quarter of the
fiscal year. I will hold the mailing pending the resolution of this issue. Best
regards, Roberta
DeborahCampbell
Dear Colleagues,
I feel that it is very important to respond to several people's comments about
the process of the PC accepting a nominated slate of new members.
Let me begin by saying I applaud all that the nominating committee has done in
their work for this slate. It is obvious not only from Mike's description, but
also from the comments that Jim L. made on the PC forum that the pool of
candidates the nominating committee used to select a slate from was diverse.
Unfortunately, as Jim said in his post, when one woman declined to accept the
offer, it was an unintentional oversight that another woman was not asked from
their pool of candidates. In spite of the good work of the committee, I don't
think this is an oversight that we can afford, considering the low
representation of women on the PC we will have next year if we accept this slate
as is. It will take us nominating three new women on the slate next year to make
up for this loss and to continue our progress in increasing the number of women
on the PC. My previous experience on the nominating committee informs me that
this could be a difficult charge, especially in regions outside the US and
Europe.
That said, I am alarmed at the number of people who have expressed concern about
going back to a candidate and telling them they will not be brought on the
council this year and we would like to consider them for next year. (There is no
reason we have to tell them explicitly why, though I don't see a problem with
that either. "To ensure the ongoing diverse representation of the PC, we have
chosen a different make up of the slate." Or some such.)
But my issue is this: What is the purpose of bringing the slate to the PC for a
discussion and vote if we are not willing to make a change?
The Policy Council is charged with ensuring the slate satisfies all the criteria
before continuing on to the membership approval process. Let's be sure we
discuss whether it does before we move on. And not be hesitant to make it meet
our criteria if it does not.
Deborah
PeterHovmand
Bob Cavana's point about the idea
of adding members to the PC seems like a good idea in that it would increase the
social networks that folks can tap into and draw on for nominating members to
the policy council. One of the constraints is how many people members of PC know
who would be good for the PC, willing to serve, and reflect the diversity of the
SDS. Adding new members with more diversity would not only bring more diversity
to the slate, but expand the potential social networks used in recruiting PC
members in years to come. In contrast, losing representation of women on PC will
make it more difficult to recruit and retain women in the future. The question
is then really about whether one wants to deal with this issue today, or
postpone it and deal with one that is more difficult later. It's also important
to remember that SDS is not the only organization making efforts to increase
diversity. For example, IEEE has made strides in increasing the number of women
while overall membership has declined.
Peter
Bob_Cavana
hi all,
in addition to the suggestions above, regarding potential female candidates for
policy council in 2007:
(1) Kim van Oorschot (The Netherlands, suggested by Henk Akkermans - Ozge Pala
already on PC)
(2) Dr Susan Howick (Uni of Strathclyde, Scotland, suggested by Brian
Dangerfield)
i would like to suggest:
(3) Dr Susanne Tepe (School of Applied Sciences, Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology, Australia - Susanne is an active contributor to both the SD & ANZSYS
communities).
it may be that the Nominating committee have already approached one of these
members. in which case i would recommend that both of the others be appointed to
the Policy council this year (subject to agreement by the Nominating committee).
if not i would suggest the NC select 2 of these suggestions - or other
suggestions?)
admittedly this would give us 6 new members of PC this year (retaining the 4 new
members who have agreed to stand on PC). however, as Mike R. has outlined for
us, this is acceptable in our constitution [6 could be a 'one' off - as is our
50 year celebrations!]
this would certainly provide us with a means of addressing the 'gap' that
Deborah has drawn our attention to, and in addition it would be sending a loud
message about the 'future' of SD, compared with the male dominated environment
of SD that existed at the beginning of our history 50 years ago.
Bob
Bob Cavana
DeborahCampbell
From Krystyna Stave:
I tried to second [Deborah's] motion but [my email was rejected by the
Listserv.] I am frustrated as well with the setup of the on-line forum. I don't
use such forums/fora on a regular basis, so the structure always confuses me.
I agree with [those who propose] that there should be at least one woman on the
slate. Waiting until next year does not seem satisfactory if there are women
candidates available, which it seems there are.
BobEberlein
This is the ruling of the president
on the motion to extend voting. As
the chair of the meeting it his his decision to determine what is, and
is not, out of order. I will post, in a separate message, the one
procedurally correct recourse that can be taken to reverse the vote.
Bob eberlein
2007-3-5 10:00 (Beijing time)
Dear All,
I did pay attention to Deborah C. 's "I apologize for being unable to
tell from some of the names ... are any of the proposed slate of new PC
members women? " on Feb. 27 while she posted and "...to...recruit one
of these other female candidates to replace one of the men listed ..."
on March 1 (But, I supposed, it’s unreasonable.), etc.
I do agree with the comments from Jim L.(on Feb. 28 and March 2),
Andreas G. (on March 2), Khaled W. et al. and the explanation with
suggestion by Mike R. dated 2007-3-4 8:36.
Facing the current controversy I think,
1. We have to let the voting proceed as scheduled on the slate of
officers because we just can't image anything allows a vote to be
interrupted.
2. Making a new Motion to consider "Appealing to the Society's
Constitution and note that the PC can consist of up to 16 members" (From
Michael Radzicki on March 3, 2007) in order to increase a female PC
member for next year ASAP.
All the best,
Qifan Wang
BobEberlein
Hi Everyone,
I had the pleasure yesterday of reading Robert's Rules in order to understand
exactly how to deal with the issue of the nominating committees proposed slate.
First I would like to say that the revised rules do not completely address
electronic formats and, in fact, mandate that procedures for these formats be
adopted into the bylaws. I will try to produce a document that addresses this
that we can adopt at a future meeting and thus remove any ambiguity.
There, however, absolutely is no way to interrupt a vote in progress. What can
be done is referred to as "Recalling a question." This is a motion to revisit a
completed vote. It can be made as long as no action has been taken on the motion
and withing a specific (but unspecified) period of time. This motion must be
made by a voting member who voted to carry the question that is being recalled
(in this case voted yes for the motion). The motion can be seconded by any
voting member.
If a motion to recall the question is made and seconded no action may be taken
on the original motion. Debate procedes according to the standard rules for any
motion.
Anyone considering making such a motion please consider very carefully the
consequences. This will put off our announcement of the slate of candidates by
appproximately three weeks. Since noone who voted on the original motion has
indicated they would change their vote, and I know I would not, it is likely
that the motion to recall would fail. So we would be left with the same slate
but with a delayed announcement.
The President dictates how long action on a motion should be deferred, and the
window kept open for a motion to recall the question. I would suggest that 24
hours is an appropriate amount of time.
Bob Eberlein
Packer
(Also put this on the listserve)
I just want to give my view on the nominations issue, and am using the listserve
since it has a better chance of reaching everyone.
In short, I favor of recalling the motion for reconsideration and amending it to
be more gender diverse (at least one woman). As with most important issues,
delay leads to future practical difficulties and more importantly can invoke
dynamics of resentment, lack of commitment, distrust and ill-will into the
future.
I see the key factors supporting recall as: our stated commitment to gender
diversity (after enthusiastic acceptance of the diversity study), the recognized
lack of balance on the council, and the fact that the electronic meeting
difficulties have hampered timely and quality discussion. So I think we owe
reconsideration and change to ourselves and our sense of "doing the right
thing."
Finally, I need to say I am impressed by Deborah's unyielding commitment to
something she believes in and her ability to keep the issue grandly alive! This
takes courage.
Dave Packer
JamesThompson
[sent to listserv]
I do not consider the current situation as needing recall of the motion and
strongly oppose the suggestion to do so.
In my view, we have an institutional responsibility to do our job within the
confines of normal procedures unless we believe that irreparable harm will be
done, such as discovering a fact that compromises a nomination. That is not the
case here. The current situation is that a slate of nominees has been proposed,
seconded and voted on. None of the nominees has been found to be undeserving or
in any way compromised. In a nutshell, there is no offense.
The Society’s Policy Council turns over in part each year, and the issue is best
addressed in the next voting cycle. In the coming year, there is time to
consider which process, if any, needs amendment.
KhaledWahba
i am so confident if we put the
facts that we so for reached through our discussion in this forum in the front
of the candidates, i believe one of them will be more than happy to help solve
the problem and to give up his right for next round. This is just a thought!!
From my side, but without forgetting the facts of taking into consideration all
what said in this discussion, in the future.
VII) The Next 50 Years
I am attaching Qifan Wang's draft for discussion on the
next 50 years in the field. Though this is actually a report, it seems easier to
have it posted at the beginning of this discussion thread. Discussion on this
technicaly opens on the 29th, but feel free to make comments anytime.
Attachment: Next50Year.doc (59.00
KiB)
BobEberlein
Qifan - thank you for posting your
thoughts.
While there are many things you have written taht I agree with, I think there is
an overemphasis on the role of the Society in actually engaging in different
actvities as opposed to facilitating them. This is definitely true with respect
to work that is not in English, and even people without a working knowledge of
English. The central office just does not have the infrastructure to be
multilingual.
Having said that, there may be more we can do to help the non English speaking
world to gain access to system dynamics principles. Certainly that is the intent
with the structure of Chapters - which allow lots of people who are not in the
Society proper and who may not be able to work in English to be engaged in the
Chapter. We could, for example, take advantage of the chapters to include
sections of our website in different languages - and encourage the Chapters to
add such content.
This may actually be related to the idea of a more popular publication. If there
was something short and problem focused it might be possible for Chapters to
translate that. This could be done with only modest effort by, for example,
asking the SIG to put together a few short articles in turn publishing these on
the Web.
We need to do things with pretty minimal resources and I think you are right to
point out that our website can be a very powerful platform for obtaining
leverage. We have definitely started moving in that direction, but you are
right, there is much to do.
JamesThompson
I read Qifan Wang’s paper with a
view to enabling the development of system dynamics methodology over the next 50
years. In that context, the Society’s principal goal should be, in my view, to
provide opportunities for the free exchange of ideas that contribute to
development of the methodology.
The activities recommended by Qifan such as expanded Web site capabilities,
including multilingual pages and better access to publications, are likely to
help. Increasing access to system dynamics conferences for persons of all
nations and economic means is likely to be even more generative.
Certainly the Society can help in a variety of ways to encourage growth of
sectoral interests such as applications within environmental and economic
sciences. And perhaps as things go, there will be a day when geographic chapter
conferences become more powerful attractions, eclipsing even the Annual
Conference.
As the details enumerated by Qifan suggest, enabling development is a function
of small steps that accrue in importance. Some will be more helpful than others
and each step taken is an opportunity for learning.
XI) Organizational Committee Formation
During the summer a small committee (Henk Akkermans,
Deborah Campbel and Dave Packer and me) met to discussi organizational issues
for the Policy Council. Henk's notes from that discussion are attached.
We have not followed up on this - ironically the committee's performance is sort
of a microcosm of the entire PCs performance.
Time is short, and many of us are overcommitted, but we do need to change
something. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Attachment:
2006MeetingFormats.doc (31.50 KiB)
hakkerma
Different modes of
communication for different roles of the Society
Hi Bob and others,
Actually, the file you attached is not my writing, but probably your own notes
from the meeting we had. What I did send you later on was a bit of homework
regarding the following: A point that was raised during our meeting with Deborah
and David was that we should recognise that the Society and its Council perform
multiple different roles, and that those different roles should be supported by
more than just one (plenary council meeting) or two (idem+ electronic meeting)
format. For instance, there should be small-group meetings for new ideas, and we
should definitely stick to the formal voting process for stuff like signing off
last year's Accounts.
The academic in me looked for the correct reference to this theory and found it
in a book by Mintzberg [H. Mintzberg, Structures in Fives: DesigningEffective
Organizations, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1984]
Mintzberg's point is that you can standardise stuff like accounting much more
than, say, innnovation and so you process for doing accounting should be
different from the innovation process. My idea of the matrix (in your meeting
notes) was that we should map the different potential communication formats that
we have with the different roles the Council has to fulfil.
To be complete, Mintzberg distinguished five different "systems of flows", or,
in our terminology, business processes:
* the flow of formal authority, supported by e.g. the accounting infrastructure;
* the flow of regulated activity, supported by e.g. ERP systems;
* the flow of informal communication, supported by e.g. electronic mail;
* the flow of work within a set of work constellations, supported by e.g. design
management systems; and
* the flow of ad hoc decision processes, supported by e.g. a decision support
system
Hope this helps,
Henk.
BobEberlein
Hi Henk,
Thanks for posting this - I guess my disorganization is showing.
Packer
Hi Bob and Henk....I think the
issues we we going to deal with about PC effectiveness are even more serious
now. Hope we can reconvene at some point and remind ouseleves what the issues
are.
Thanks, Henk for your message, which lays out the issues and is a good start.
And thanks even to Bob for being concerned.
The failure of the electronic meetings to evoke quality discussion certainly
tells us something important add, along with the dysfunctional aspects of the
summer meeting, which prompted setting up our activity, both add to urgency of
recognizing that there are systemic causes for this (not busy or lazy or
disinterested volunteers) and dealing with them.
Let's try to convene before the summer meeting with the intent of continuing to
develop ideas and some specific improvement proposals for that group.
Dave
DeborahCampbell
Yes, let's. Thanks Bob for nudging us about this -- it had completely slipped my mind.
Jim Lyneis
Since I'll be running the meetings
next year, I would be interested in hearing what others thought was
dysfunctional about the meeting last summer, and how it could be improved for
the future.
It seems as if the PC is involved in a number of activities:
1. Reviewing financial and VP reports, approving as needed. If things are
running smoothly, then there need not be much discussion of this.
2. Selecting conference sites. Normally, there would be some tasks related to
this at both the Winter (choose site for 2009) and the Summer (review
preproposals for 2010) meetings. Since we had a good pre-proposal for 2009, we
made a conditional acceptance last summer, and approved via electronic vote in
December. Hence, nothing on this for the Winter meeting. But there could be next
Winter, and we should have a discussion around the 2010 site this Summer.
3. Other PC business seems to be more ad hoc -- things that come up which people
are interested in, or sometimes a problem that requires study and resolution.
For example, the climate neutral issue, the success story repository, the
discussion about accredidation/licensing, etc. all came up because someone
expressed an interest in the issue. It seems as if sometimes these lead
somewhere, and sometimes not, perhaps based on whether or not there is someone
or some group with the interest and energy to pursue the issue.
Sometimes a problem or potential problem arises that could warrant action. I
would place the affordability (society and conference), tiered fees, multi-year
budgeting all in this category. I would consider these potential problems, as
while they affect individuals they have not yet created a problem for the
Society as a whole. Nevertheless, they should be addressed. Again, whether or
not these get addressed seems to depend on the interest and energy of
individuals.
Perhaps there needs to be some more formal mechanism and accountablity for
addressing ad hoc issues. For those that the PC thinks warrant study and action,
then an individual or committee (which could be the relevant VP and committee)
should be appointed, with a deliverables and follow-up. Perhaps the President
should be in charge of monitoring these ad hoc committees and pushing them
along, and transfering status to the next president.
As for this Winter's meeting, the lack of participation could be explained by
not much discussion needed on the administrative side, no conference issues, and
either no pressing ad hoc issues or no progress on these issues by the group in
charge. I think that's the case on the success stories, Society model, fee
structure, multi-year budgeting issues. I'm not sure why the Climate Neutral
issue has not generated much comment, especially from Justen -- I do not recall
seeing his ideas and proposal on these posting, but I did have a long exchange
with him about this last fall and he had materials and arguments in favor.
So, I'd be interested to hear others views on this meeting, last summer's
dysfunctional meeting, and how we can improve the meetings.
Jim
DeborahCampbell
Jim and all,
Bob's notes are jogging my memory of our discussion last summer. As I remember
it, there were several issues that we discussed, all of which we thought might
be addressed by making our meetings and meeting forums more targeted and
effective.
1) We (the PC) are responsible for the strategy of the SDS. Several people
expressed concern both in and out of the meeting last summer that we are not
spending enough time thinking strategically. Because we have not developed a
long-term strategy, it is difficult to resolve issues that come up because there
is no policy guideline (strategy) context in which to evaluaute them. So we do
address issues (when we do) on an ad hoc basis that would be better addressed in
the context of a specific strategy.
It is clear from the discussions that are ongoing on the SD listserve that
members of the SDS feel we are without a strategy and that we need one.
Strategies cannot be developed in a room with 30 people brainstorming and
contributing to their creation without some professional or well-planned
facilitation. They can definitely not be created on an electronic forum like
this one. (This was one of the key "creative" responsibilities we have that is
not well-suited for electronic forums. Creative work needs face-to-face time.)
An additional thought was surfaced about strategy development: perhaps it is
difficult for us to develop long-term strategy when we tacitly assign this task
to our president and our president is only in office for a single year. It seems
as though our strategy waxes and wanes with the president, and as such is only
short term. Maybe it would be more appropriate to assign a long-term committee
to develop a strategy proposal with PC sign off. Then we would have to figure
out how to make it last for more than a year, and how to evolve it over time. A
strategy development process needs some serious thinking through in my view.
2) We take an enormous amount of time at each summer meeting discussing the
details of each conference site proposal (e.g. costs for AV, hotel room costs,
taxi prices, etc. -- real details). We questioned whether this was the best use
of this roomfull of people's time. (Calculate how much these people might cost
as consultants... the price is staggering.) It seemed to us in our discussion
that a) if there was a specific strategy for conferences some of the decisions
would be more straight forward and b) many of the discussions could be better
had by you and a small team/committee of people (which we know you don't have
right now) and then just the high level information passed along to the rest of
us. The committee could deal with the detail in a more effective manner, and
then the PC would have more time available to deal with more strategic issues.
3) Accountability. I agree with Dave Packer that there is a systemic issue here,
though intertwined with the fact that we are all busy. And perhaps expectations
of PC members have not been set that active participation throughout the year is
expected. I like your idea of assigning PC members to VPs. Yet, I also know that
you can lead a horse to water ... so there needs to be some accountability that
everyone who is on the council works on something and that it actually gets
done.
I have lots of ideas and opportunities for interesting work in my role, but I
find it extremely hard to work on them alone. The issues are time, diversity of
input, and plain old commeraderie. Others may have similar or additional issues
in getting things accomplished without a committee. I think every VP should have
a committee (unless they don't want it) to support them. And I agree with your
suggestions for ad hoc issues -- that they be assigned to a committee and VP.
But prior to that we need a strategy, so that the VP and her/his committee can
prioritize within a strategic context if they are unable to do everything on
their plate.
JamesThompson
I wonder if we could arrange a Web-based meeting (Vyew, Skype, or plain old telephone) to get a sense of what is important and over what time period. Even if only half of the officers and PC members participate, it would help to focus energy where needed. Or am I off in dreamland?
XII) Society Strategy Model : Jim Lyneis
I'm not sure why my name is
attached to this. I believe that Mike was keen on doing something about this
during his tenure, and I do recall offering to participate. However, I don't
believe that anything was done.
I have an agenda item to work with David Andersen on multi-year budgeting, and
think my time would be better spent on that. If anyone has other opinions, or an
interest in pursuing this, let us know.
XIII) Dues Structure : David
Andersen
I am not sure that David agreed to lead this discussion
but we have talked about a multiple tier dues structure. Selecting to defer this
discussion till the strategy model has been more completely explored might be
appropriate.
David Andersen
I do believe that this is an
important and good idea. I have not done any background and work up on this
issue and that work should probably be done before this issue comes up for a
vote.
I had always thought that a tiered Dues structue could also be linked in some
way to conference fees. But I am not sure if linking all these issues would
"make the best the enemy of the good", leading to not much at all getting done.
DeborahCampbell
I think a tiered structure for dues is important. In
talking at length with Qifan about it last year, it was clear that we need
something like this in China. I don't know if it is logistically possible to
have different structures in different parts of the world, but this could be
ideal, to address the large financial differences between global
regions/countries.
I do think trying to do both dues and conferences at the same time might slow us
down ... perhaps it is best to do one first, learn from it, and then apply the
learning to the next. Since conferences are our most important income, it woulds
seem to me to make sense to "experiment" on dues first.
JamesThompson
| posted on 2-3-2007 at 16:24 |
|
Other Professional Society Dues structures
It would seem that we could do some high-level data
collection on dues policy of other professional-academic societies to salt the
discussion with the experience of others. Looking only at societies with
international membership might be the most fruitful initial perspective.
XIV) SD Success
Story Repository : Bob Eberlein
What is the appropriate format for allowing people to
post and comments on things like this?
BobEberlein
Bob Cavana has resigned as the chair of the membership award committee. We need
to reconsititute this committee.
Bob_Cavana
new chair & committee
hi all,
i have stood down from this committee in order to (hopefully!) better focus on
my other SDS roles as a managing editor of SDR & as a member of the Dana Meadows
student paper prize committee.
also as the previous VP (at large, 04-06), i had the pleasure, along with the
other members of the Wiley Sponsored Membership Award committee (Graham Winch,
David Lane & Scott Rockart) and with the help of Roberta Spencer in particular,
of establishing the award.
however, i now think new 'life' is required to get the memberships into the
growth phase.
i am not sure how this should be done, but perhaps there is a role for the VP
(membership services) and VP(chapters) to take over the responsilities.
particularly since the WSM award is given to new members from 'developing' parts
of the world, to help build up membership and hopefully participate in chapter
(or new chapter) activities.
perhaps also there is a role for new Policy Council members to take
responsibility, particularly those from 'developing' countries. it is a great
opportunity to get new members who can not afford the normal or current student
fees.
finally i would like to thank the WSM committee members & Roberta for there
assistance in getting this scheme established.
many thanks,
Bob Cavana
DeborahCampbell
Could someone on the committee please describe what is
entailed in awarding these memberships? As VP Member Services, I do think it
makes sense for me to be involved. Yet I did not know that there was a committee
(for some reason I thought Bob C. did this alone), and I don't have any idea
what the process has been.
Also, what do you see as the opportunities for the future? You have been
involved, so you know what improvements might be helpful.
Once everyone on the PC knows what it entails, perhaps several people would like
to step up to the new committee positions.
Thanks!
Deb
Roberta L. Spencer for Qifan Wang
From Qifan Wang Re: Bob Cavana continuing as
Committee Chair
Dear Members of the Policy Council:
In my role as President of the Society, I affirm that Bob Cavana will continue
as Chair of the Wiley Sponsored Membership Committee until the summer meeting
when a new chair is appointed. Bob Cavana had resigned this post but has
graciously offered to continue in this role until this summer. Recently there
have been a number of inquiries regarding the program and there is a backlog.
Bob Cavana will deal with these.
Sincerely, Qifan Wang
Posted by Roberta per Qifan:
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:09:58 +0800
From: Qifan Wang < >
To: System Dynamics Society < >
Hi Roberta, ... please help post it to the PC Discussion Forum ASAP. Qifan
Roberta L. Spencer
WSM Committee Members
David Lane, Scott Rockart and Graham Winch have all stated they are happy to
help and are willing to continue on the Wiley Sponsored Membership Committee
after the summer meeting.
Roberta
AldoZagonel
Ginny Wiley has asked me to contact all of the chapter
representatives and request their annual reports for the Boston Conference.
Would you like me to include information regarding the WSM Award?
Aldo Zagonel
Assistant VP - Chapters Activities
E-mail:
Tel. (505) 284-6773
Motion to Reconsider Approval of PC Slate
Moved by Ginny Wiley and Seconded by Deborah Campbell:
I would like to move to reconsider the motion to approve the slate
of officers proposed by the nominating committee. I initially voted
"YES" but am very concerned that we continue the discussion,
which is critical to the health and future of the society.
BobEberlein for Qifan Wang
2007-3-6 12:30 noon (Beijing time)
Hi All,
A motion to Reconsider the reconsider the approval of the slate of
officers presented by the nominating committee has been made and
seconded. To expedite discussion on this motion I ask that the
discussion and vote take place via the email list and that the Secretary
of the Society archive that discussion for inclusion in the minutes of
the Winter Policy Countil meeting.
We will continue discussion on this motion till Midnight Albany time on
Thursday, March 8th. At that time voting will commence. Votes should be
sent to the Society Office < > to be tallied.
Voting will remain open till Midnight Albany time on Saturday, March
10th. The vote should include your name, your position on the policy
council, and Yes, No or Abstain. A Yes vote indicates that you want to
reopen the motion to approve the slate put forward by the nominating
committee, a No vote means that you would like the approval of the slate
to stand.
Please note that to send a message to this list you will need to first
compose and send the message to < >. Shortly
after that you will receive an automatic response from the listserve.
You will need to reply OK to that message for your message to be posted.
As I will be traveling during this time(it has been postponed for more
than 2 months and I must not arrive after March 10,2007), and also am in
a very different time zone from many of you, if any intervention is
required by the chair of the meeting Jim Lyneis and Mike Radzicki will
be taking on this task with me.
Qifan Wang
President
JamesThompson
Jim Lyneis asks (on the listserv) for categories and quotas
to narrow the nominating process.
There are likely to be some for whom that would be appealing and some that would
find it unappealing. I fall into the latter group but think a discussion over
the next year on the topic of quotas, goals and guidelines would help future
nominating committees.
For the current year, I will vote "no" on the motion to reconsider and support
efforts to study the nominating process going forward.
Jim Thompson
Climate Neutral Conference
This is a motion by Ali Saysel
For the annual conferences of the society, it is possible to offer a
carbon-neutral flight alternative for the participants. For this purpose, I
propose that the Society should implement a module from an organization (for
example www.myclimate.org) for a fee of around 1500 USD to calculate carbon
off-sets and demonstrate its commitment to ecological sustainability.
Notes on Supporting Material : This motion originates form Justus Gallati a
society member who can be reached at Further
information is available at "myclimate" web site.
BobEberlein
This issue has been raised before.
I think it is fine to explain the issue to people and provide pointers to
resources to address it. I don't think it makes much sense linking ourselves up
with any of these orginazations formally. We really need someone to identify the
web sites and organizationa that can improve sustainability and make this
information available as part of the conference info. If Justus wanst to compile
such a list that would be great - but I think we should definitely vote no on
this motion.
Bob Eberlein
Packer
Interesting idea, but without much fuller discussion of goals, alternatives, impacts, etc. I am unable to vote on this at this time. Dave Packer
DeborahCampbell
I agree with Bob E. at this point. I'd like to learn more about it, provide members and conference attendees with the information they need to do this, and monitor the response.
AliSaysel
I have been in touch with Justus as
well...
If we want to offer a climate neutral alternative for the participants (I think
we would like that), we have two alternatives:
1. Link yourself to an organization - that is what we are voting for
2. Suggest a couple of alternatives on the registration material.
The advantage of 1 over 2 is that, te society can know the total carbon offsets,
% of carbon offsets and can develop some targets for future conferences as well.
It gives the chance for long term monitoring of our impact and encourages the
participants to join. If we follow 2, information evaporates and we never know
the overall impact of our conferences. Once the information is not salient, it
is less encouraging for the participants.
For my part, I like option 1, because it is encouraging and demonstrates a
stronger commitment for the part of the society.
On the other hand, the investments ropmoted by such organizations (eg. myclimate)
are within the CDM classification.
Officer PC Member Pairing
This thread is to discussion the pairing of Officers
with PC Members - Mike Radzicki will lead the discussion
Anyone who wants to volunteer to help an officer please do so here - I am pretty
sure we can all use the help.
DeborahCampbell
I have a question about AVPs -- do
they need to be PC members?
Also, for any support, be it committees or AVPs, if no PC members step up to
help the VPs or committee chairs, what do we do then?
I personally have found it very difficult to make significant progress forward
without others involved. I need to find a successful way to get more people
involved. People that I know will actually take action and work with me.
BobEberlein
Hi Deborah,
I can see no reason that AVPs can't come from anyplace. The original idea was
that we could engage the PC members more fully have a broader base of experience
for managing governannce, and get help today. If we get non PC members that
achieves 2 of the 3 goals (unless they are already experiences in which case we
get 1 of the 3 goals but we get it really well).
I think perhaps the thing to do is to provide some official recognition of AVPs
- they could for example be listed along with Officers. We would not confer any
voting rights, but that may not matter to people who just want to help out.
Since the presidential appointment process did not take perhaps any Officer
should be able to appoint up to 2 AVPs for themselves - then someone simply has
to mentioned that they would be willing to help and they can be on board.
Let me ponder a motion to that effect.
Jim Lyneis
I still like the idea of pairing with PC members, but
would not rule out pairings outside the PC if no PC members were interested.
I tried this as VP meetings (informally, I guess, since there was never any
formalization of the role). But, it did not seem to work out as the person I
paired up with did not really have the time to get involved.
It seems as if that might be a generic problem -- all of us are busy, and unless
we sign up for a specific duty (VP for something) it seems difficult to get
regular participation. Perhaps if this is a good idea we should make it a
requirement of being a PC member -- they must each be paired, formally, with a
VP.
Jim
JamesThompson
Jim Lyneis' idea of pairing PC
members with a vice presidency at the time of nomination makes sense to me.
A PC member may want to pair with more than one vice presidency over her/his
term to diversify experience or lose an undesired pairing. So I'm less inclined
toward AVP because it more strongly implies hierarchy and ascendancy than
pairing.
Future Conferences
This thread is for discussion of future conferences
beyond what has been reported - Andreas Größler will lead the discussion
AndreasGroessler
Conference 2010
The policy council's decision was to try to have a
conference in Asia in 2010. Currently, there are some talks with potential local
organizers in order to receive pre-proposals.
AndreasGroessler
Information in forthcoming
newsletter
The forthcoming System Dynamics Newsletter will contain
a short summary of the process of conference site selection. Anyone interested
in organizing a conference can, of course, also contact me or join the potential
conference hosts meeting at the Boston conference in the summer of this year.
hakkerma
Hi Andreas,
If you could use some help, I would be quite eager to offer assistance in
establishing a conference in Asia in 2010 or thereabouts. Firstly, because I
think it is important that SD enlarges its footprint in Asia, secondly because I
will be assisting in setting up an OM conference in Tokyo in 2008, and thirdly
because I have some Japanese language ability and great appreciation for Asian
culture.
BobEberlein
Lupina Prize in Health Care
Dynamics
The Lupina foundation has made a grant of $10000 (cdn)
per year (probably for 3 years) to fund a price in Health Care Dynamics. We need
to form a committee to define the way this will work. Their current thinking is
the first award would be at the 2008 meeting, though they are flexible and I
think we should consider awarding the price at a different time.
BobEberlein
Just to clarify this the prize
money would be provided annually with the expectation that the funding would
continue for 3 years and possibly after that if it was successful.
I would like to think of the possibility of using this to fund a prize in
"Health Care Dynamics" that reaches outside the system dynamics community -
perhaps even use some of the funding to advertize the prize. This might be a
good way to grow awareness of the field and support the notion that good science
does not need labeling.
Roberta L. Spencer
This is really great news and very
generous of the Lupina Foundation.
If it is helpful for the planning of this new "Health Care Dynamics" award, the
link for the System Dynamics Applications proposal and details is located at:
http://www.systemdynamics.org/PolicyCouncil/NewAwardDetails.htm
The System Dynamics Applications award was originally proposed in March 2003.
This year is the first time we will be receiving nominations to make this award
at the Boston conference. Perhaps people from the Health Policy Special Interest
Group could be invited to be on this award committee.
JohnSterman
The Lipinia foundation award is
great news -- what is the history? What are the expectations of the foundation?
Who are the main people involved in getting this to happen?
Seems to me that (1) Jack Homer and Gary Hirsch, as the leaders of the health
SIG of the society, ought to be involved in the conversation about how to
structure an award process; (2) that Bob is right the prize should be widely
publicized and structured to include any work on health dynamics regardless of
modeling method; (3) that we still need to consider carefully whether there is a
sufficient flow of excellent work (not just stock of past work) that can sustain
a quality award.
John
BobEberlein
I know Peter Warrian from a Vensim
workshop and I think you may also know him. He started the Lupina Foundation and
is interested in encouraging work in Health Care Dynamics. I think they are
fairly flexible in how the reward gets structured. They do not want to be part
of the selction process, but would like to make sure that the process is one
they agree with.
This is not an endowment - it is an annual prize tentatively funded for 3 years.
If there is nothing worthy of a prize I agree that a prize should not be given
(both in general and in this case). However, the idea is not to reward existing
work but to encourage new work so it is the stock of good ideas, not the stock
of good work, that we are dealing with. I also think that by spreading the net
wider than we traditionally have with our awards we can capture both more good
work and more attention.
It definitely makes sense to get the health care SIG involved - they should be
reading this but I will send an email prompt to Jack and Gary.
BobEberlein
For more about the Lupina Foundation go to http://www.lupina.ca/
JoelRahn
In principle, this sounds good for the Society and for the Lupina Foundation (and for the U of Toronto, with which the LF is closely associated). Lets agree to leave a discussion of the guidelines for awarding the prize to the prize committee and let the PC ratify its results. Funding 'good ideas' vs funding 'completed work' gives me pause.