I am a Professor at The Wharton School. For research updates and papers, see my Wharton Faculty Page and Google Scholar Page.
Blog Title
Marguerite Yourcenar wrote, “Nothing is slower than the true birth of a man”.
Poiesis refers to making something that did not exist before (which sounds operational) and to birthing ideas from concealment into the light of the world (which sounds artistic). The blog was born in a period of crisis, and writing is a salvific process. I write about my eclectic interests covering…
Operations – The Science of How (Retail, Health care, Platforms, Revenue Management and Pricing, Manufacturing, Outsourcing, Productivity, etc),
Work – Our Future (Automation, AI, Future of Work, and Academic ephemera),
Life – Its purpose and discontent (Essays and notes on Culture, Books, Films, Travel, Asia – particularly China and India).
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Why this blog?
This blog is an open exercise to document my learning efforts and grok concepts in life. One goal is to house ideas that cannot be easily converted to academic research articles & classroom teaching.
Of course, there is a certain level of futile vanity. This is a pad to scratch my writing itch. I enjoy the misery of the writing struggle. I am constantly trying to come up for air, seeking that gasp of absolution from my past writing. Through writing, I am trying to improve my own thought process, learn the music of words, and somewhat philosophically, examine purpose in my life.
Odds and Ends
- I subscribe to Fallibilism.
- One doesn’t learn much from people with opposing beliefs, compared to what one learns from people with orthogonal beliefs (i.e., people who care deeply about or know a lot about something you don’t care about).
- Operations Research is often thought of as a design problem (i.e., how the world should work), but it is an underrated way of explaining how the world works.
- Fiction (especially, Science Fiction) is often undervalued in its influence on scientific thought and progress. On a related note, much of pervasive Scienticism can be understood by the paucity of cross-pollinated knowledge.
- I am fascinated by the confluence of Art and Science. (See C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures).
- We live on one sample path, and we must make the best of it. I hope to write on all issues with a distinct perspective based on my own experiences.