Posted by Reilly Atkinson on April 14, 2001 at 01:02:35:

In Reply to: Re: New in KM - familiar with Cynicism posted by Jack Vinson on April 12, 2001 at 16:26:41:

Jack -- I'm coauthor of two books, and quite a few papers and articles on models. My experience suggests that Michael Schrage is not on target. The whole point of building models is to help in understanding -- true in science, social science, economics and business. Given the looseness of the idea of model, one could argue that PR, advertising and WebSites, pitches to customers and clients, annual reports are virtually models or are highly dependent on models. There are
plenty of circumstances when vanilla is appropriate and good. And, of course there are the really dumb models -- market share above all, for example.

Further in dealing with explanatory models -- sales forecasts, models of consumer behavior, and so on -- whether there are any ruffled feathers is totally irrelevant. The key is: does the model work. Often models that fulfill their initial purposes will be termed a great success. The community of people who work on and with models deserve a better success criteria than ruffled feathers. How about big bucks stemming from astute models?

Sorry to be testy, but I really bristle when much of my work and that of my colleagues is trivialized by a few cute adhominum comments - particulalry when such comments are simply not true.

Regards,
Reilly Atkinson

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Follow Ups:

• Re: New in KM - familiar with Cynicism Jack Vinson 12:40:35 04/16/01 (1)
  • Re: New in KM - familiar with Cynicism Reilly Atkinson 14:19:34 04/16/01 (0)

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