REPLY SD Impact on National Government Policies (SD6178)

[System Dynamics Mailing List]

Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>

In an effort to gauge at least a piece of the invisible part of the
field here in the UK, the UK Chapter recently tried searching for anyone
claiming to teach anything SD-related in University courses of any kind.
[We wanted to find any lonely souls out there who might welcome the
chance to be part of a wider community]. We found quite a few mentions
of SD, e.g. as small elements in wider OR programs or coverage in
technology courses of various kinds - almost all at Masters level. There
were also some odd-balls, e.g. in medicine and astronomy. But
disappointingly the search did not identify a large hidden part of the
SD ice-berg, at least not in academia.

There may be much bigger ice-bergs in public policy and business
consulting but I have only anecdotal evidence - and as this discussion
has already highlighted, locating those icebergs is not easy.

I don't know if there is an easily organised way of tracking
media-mentions of SD, other than in academic journals, like the tracking
that Corporate communications departments do to identify the level of
awareness of their companies and products. Aside from being just
interesting to know, it would probably only be worth doing if the
Society or SIGs felt there was something valuable they could do with the
information to publicise the field's contribution. 

Otherwise, Jack's suggestion to just get on with it [if I paraphrase
accurately] seems right.

Kim
Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>
posting date  Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:25:22 -0000