Isn’t it funny what you remember?
1987: Operations Management, RIT, NY. I can picture the classroom perfectly. I can even hear the professor’s words clearly, yet I can’t recall his name. “If you remember nothing else from this class,” he said, peaking our interest. We grabbed our pen and paper, sure that it would be on the next exam.
He continued speaking with such conviction and painting such a vivid picture, that sure enough, over 20 years later it’s still fresh in my memory.
And yes, it’s all I remember from the class.
He described the following scene: a young boy running through a neighborhood, obviously in a frantic hurry, yet pushing his bicycle. A helpful neighbor yelled out, “Why don’t you get on the bike?” he asked. The boys reply.... “I don’t have time!”
Yes, this is the lesson of operations management in a nutshell.
It sounds so obvious from the perspective of the neighbor and certainly from a comfortable classroom environment. “Ridiculous,” we thought to ourselves, “who would run a company that way?”
I often think of this professor. He must have been an adjunct, knee deep in the messy reality of the business world, unprotected by the ivory tower of academia. I think of him and smile, as I try to convince potential clients, “There’s a better way! Climb up on the internet. It’s incredibly fast and effective. It can get you where you want to go. Relax, enjoy the ride, it doesn’t need to be that much work!”
And before you think me arrogant, slinging arrows from my own ivory tower, let me make this confession: we recently discovered the power of online advertising and blogging , and we’ve just climbed up on the internet with a new, more informative and optimized website (www.furnishweb.com).
The name of our company... Internet Databases!
We’ve been so busy helping everyone else, we hadn’t taken the time to help ourselves. Which reminds me of another story a teacher once told me about the cobblers kids....
Sorry, I’m regressing.
Signed,
Your helpful neighbor, Allison Welch
