On the edge of our seats….The Black Swan approacheth

The 21st Supply Chain Resource Cooperative meeting is kicking off tomorrow morning.   If you couldn’t make this one, that’s a shame…but you need to think about the next eventin December…different theme, different students, different projects, but always, always projecting ahead on topics that are pressing, real, and on the leading edge of the supply chain agenda that industry is faced with…

This meeting is no exception.  In fact, it is the largest attendence at a meeting that we have had in a number of years.  This is not a coincidence.  A lot of people have been hard at work to make this happen:  for one, Steve Edwards – Identifying speakers, and developing the theme:  he handed this idea to me after reading some of the fascinating literature on Black Swan Events (we’re giving away the book to all speakers as a gift!)…the months of planning by Susan Clark, who was diligent in ensuring that we were on schedule, who was devoted to planning the reception, the event, the painstaking detail…, all of the students frantically putting together their final presentations by the deadline….Dan Hanback and his team from CAT sending over hispresentation slide by slide, because the file was too large….Phil Priest from GSK, pulling together the idea over sushi…I could go on…

I get excited just thinking about what I will learn tomorrow!   If you can’t join us, then it’s already too late by the time you read this.  We have an incredible group of speakers, student presentations, undergraduate poster sessions, and face to face conversations that are about to take place.  You should come to the next one, because I guarantee that you won’t find a similar forum where people can share openly the challenges, insights, and learning that they have developed around supply chain issues that are current and in their face…my job is to keep track of these issues, and ensure that NC State University provides that forum – and we do it on a regular, predictable basis.  HOW?  By ensuring that students interact with the best and brightest in industry, as well as our top tier faculty (who all have REAL work experience), to bring together an interactive forum that is unmatched in any academic environment that I am aware of…

Oh, one more thing….

The newly appointed Chancellor of NC State University, Randy Woodson, visited the SCRC building today.  We talked about students, about learning, about interaction with the community, about named internships (e.g. Gabe Ives, our current Duke Energy Graduate Student Intern), applied research, and about the importance of developing people, and providing the facilities, environment, culture, and means for individuals to interact with industry in a “medical school” environemnt.  By this I mean, Peter Drucker’s quote, that business schools should have followed the medical school model, meaning that students and physicians work on the patient, and if you can’t bring the patient to the classroom, the classroom has to go to the patient.  We live and breathe this every day, (just ask our students!)

I left the meeting enthused, rejuvenated, and confident about tomorrow.  Hope I can get to sleep tonight!