A member of the SDS, 22 August 2008

I have noticed while following the threads of the SD mailing list that the point of views are very different. This is true about any population sharing some common interests. It is not specific to the SD people. This means that SD people are interested in the field in very different manners. This makes communication very difficult and misunderstanding is the general rule.

I do not think most of the people dealing with the SDS are not against any new initiative as long as it does not necessitate their involvement. They have just other motivations.

Academics learn their life in a very different way than a consultant.

Joined the very interesting SD review paper from Coyle and Exelby. I do not know if now such a paper could still be published in the SD review. But is still proves that there was once a time where there was some thinking freedom in the SDS.

It summarizes the huge abyss between Academic SD and practical SD.

There is truly always a difference between Academics and practitioners in any field. But the problem with SD, is that there seems to be only academics and very few practitioners. To the point where one truly wonders if there exists any practitioners at all apart from sponsored studies.

One must accept things as they are. It is very easy to make a model that does not require to be used and SD academics seem to be very satisfied by what they are doing and you will not change that. After having read most SD text books, I am mostly relying on my experience now.

…

So I wonder: are your models realistic and have they been already used? How did you happen to build such models? The features of the model look so impressive that it looks even incredible. What language are you using? Are they mostly event driven, with lots of exogenous data and few feed backs like discreet models (it looks like because they are very disaggregated) or are there many feed backs generated by endogenous policies.

I cannot make any comment on the models and their usefulness. To make comments, I would ask the people that are using them. It is true that if the models can be practically used, they are fantastic.

…

About Kim [Warren]'s strategic initiative. I think that it is useless to have unrealistic dreams. It would be much better spending time to understand why SD is so poorly used. But as I wrote, SD academics are not really bothered by that. I consider the initiative as childish and not serious.

About econometrics and SD, I consider that econometrics is much more simpler than SD. SD tries to understand why things happen, econometrics studies the data only.

Michael J. Radzicki, 10 February 2008

4. Most, if not all, of the systems/problems you have modeled have already been modeled by others. This does not mean that your models are the "same," but rather that you should consider collaborating with those who have built similar models and have similar modeling interests. For example, you might consider collaborating with the health care special interest group of the SD Society.

### Nobody, until now, has ever suggested that the systems modeled by me have been previously modeled in a system-wide and detailed fashion by others. Professionals in those systems (the future users) have stated that nothing comparable exists. As regards my professional models (ie excluding the academic economic policy project) the opportunity to collaborate with anybody has not arisen. Perhaps you do no appreciate how isolated is a SDer in Australia. Nobody else here is doing what I am doing. There has been no opportunity to undertake the economic policy project. That needs funding and a team.

5. My personal view is that every researcher/consultant should be an "expert" in at least one area and an "expert" in utilizing at least one tool. For example, a person might be an expert in supply chain management as an area and in using SD as a tool. When talking with managers who have supply chain management problems, this person would utilize his/her knowledge of supply chains and rarely, if ever, mention SD (if asked, he/she might simply say that he/she uses "simulation" for analysis). When talking to SDers, on the other hand, this person would discuss SD. My feeling is that you need to focus on your domain knowledge when you talk to decision makers and avoid discussions of the tools you employ in your analyses.

### It was said within the Australian air force that I know an air force as a system better than almost anybody in uniform. That results from modeling and thinking about the system. I recall that Ken Cooper in the Ingalls article never mentioned SD. However, I am not solving individual problems. Moreover, I am a developer, rather than a consultant. I am providing modern decision support for all or most of activity and resource control, planning, budgeting and accountability etc in an organisation. I have to explain and justify how I really can do that. The way of explaining usually takes the discussion towards the unique advantages and benefits of the techniques.

Weldon to James Lyneis (then president of the SDS), 15 February 2008

I have contacted several of your SDS colleagues during the past few weeks. Three short discussion papers have been distributed (including to you), that have described the present situation for SD and made proposals for growing the SD field in future. The third paper dealt with the macro-econometric orthodoxy, as a precursor to a future paper about my project BEST OFFER; an endorsed serious alternative approach to macroeconomic policy formulation.

There appears little prospect that those concerned will wish to act on my proposals, or to take an interest in facilitating a project that could capture economic policy for SD. The problem frankly is the academic mindset, perspectives and attitudes. Overall they appear comparatively uninterested in doing what is necessary to grow the SD field.

That growth must come mostly from the professional areas in which I am engaged. That runs counter to academic self interest. It is then unsurprising that accidie and lack of interest are being encountered.

The problem therefore is that the SDS is controlled and run mainly by academics, whereas what needs to be done is by and large of low priority to them. That problem has led, over a long period, to the very poor present situation for SD.

On the positive side there is currently a window of opportunity for SD in US economic policy. Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson are under the gun and they clearly do not have many of the answers. The new systems approach underlying my project BEST OFFER could supply many of those answers, even in advance of the modeling. However, I as an individual would never get past the Fed and Treasury gatekeepers in order to put the case to those gentlemen.

You, as president of the SDS, probably could reach Messrs Bernanke and Paulson. I therefore request that you give consideration to doing that, for purposes of requesting a meet. It could lead to a significant coup for SD. On the other hand you may not be able to carry your SDS colleagues with you on the initiative, at least initially.

James Lyneis (then president of the SDS), 23 February 2008
(Responses by Weldon at ‘###’)

I have now finally had time to review your various emails and discussion papers in detail. Let me give you my reaction and suggest some concrete steps for moving forward.

First, I think most if not all of us would agree with your assessment about the lack of awareness and relative lack of impact in the business and public policy arenas. Certainly there are success stories, but we need to do more good work, and we need to increase the awareness of that work among business leaders and public policy makers. The question is how best to do that, and what role can the System Dynamics Society (SDS) play.

### In my discussion papers I have explained that scope for action by individuals such as me is severely limited. Initiatives need to be taken collectively, at least initially. That means the SDS.

As you may be aware, the SDS has undertaken an initiative to develop a strategy for expanding the field. No doubt the issues you raise will be one, if not the most important, of the issues that the Strategy Development Committee will look into. I have passed your materials on to that committee. The contact information and charge of the committee can be found in the upcoming Society newsletter, sent to all Society members.

Let me now address your specific proposals and how I suggest that we can move forward. …

However, we can and are doing more to advertise the achievement of practitioners of SD. We have two initiatives that attempt to communicate achievements – the first of these is an initiative to have a section on our web site that tells success stories. We have invited submittals that communicate how SD has been used in the real world to achieve positive impact for businesses and/or public institutions. The second initiative is our biannual “Applications Award. This is a Society Prize for the best “real world application of system dynamics conducted within 10 years of the submission deadline. The best application will be based primarily on demonstrated measurable benefit to an organization through the use of system dynamics. The award winner receives a citation at the conference and in the System Dynamics Review, along with the opportunity to present a paper if warranted.

Concrete Step.1. Given the applications hinted at in your discussion papers, I would urge you to take advantage of both of these initiatives, and in particular the applications award which will be offered again in 2009.

### The main problem at the moment is lack of acceptance of new SD applications by potential users, because SD has not been adequately promoted. The situation is far beyond the control of individual SDers in the international street. The same situation prevents these SDers from posting success stories. The above initiatives are thus of very limited relevance to me.

As an aside, while I think these initiatives are worthwhile, they are grossly inadequate for creating awareness among decision makers in the “real world. To do this, practitioners need to write articles for publications read by these decision makers. We, myself included, have not been willing or able to do this. This is one of the biggest shortcomings of the field and if you are able to move forward in this direction that would set an excellent example.

### I did write an article about one of my applications for the relevant trade journal. No interest was generated. Owing to the unfamiliar and complex nature of such applications (from the viewpoint of unfamiliar potential users), this option is far-less attractive than may be supposed.

Moving on to your second proposal(s) related to your economic model. There seem to be two ideas here: one is our helping you to hook up with an academic institution, and the second our helping you approach policy makers such as Paulson and Bernanke. As regards introducing you to an academic institution, the SDS would not feel it inappropriate to do so and in fact I see that we may have already done so indirectly from the correspondence with Mike Radzicki and Paal Davidson. In fact, these would seem to be the two best places for you to contact, along with the State University of New York at Albany. But WPI would seem to be the best fit, as the SD group there is in the Social Science Department and heavily into economics. Based on my review of your discussion paper, I had the same reaction that Mike Radzicki had, leading to the second suggestion.

Concrete Step 2: Provide some more details on your economic model so that people like Radzicki can evaluate it for possible support at WPI. I know that Mike and others at WPI would be very amenable to setting up an economic policy research effort around an SD model, and have done so. If you have something to contribute I’m sure it would be well received. There may be other SD centers interested, but WPI has the economic focus and expertise.

### I have approached Professors Ackermanns, Andersen, Davidsen, Radzicki, Richardson and Vennix. Paal Davidsen stated that he lacks the resources. I copied his response to you. Otherwise, only Mike Radzicki has expressed even potential interest in hosting project BEST OFFER. My recent correspondence with Mike is appended to this email. When completed the paper about BEST OFFER will be offered to Mike as a confidential IP, to be protected by a NDA. The project is apparently the only serious alternative to macroeconomics since WW2. The SDS might consider whether any other venues, academic and professional, could be interested in hosting BEST OFFER.

### Mike did offer to put me in touch with a contact of his who can lobby for and market SD applications. So far, however, I have heard nothing further.

### In my discussion papers I explained that project BEST OFFER will not be welcome in any macroeconomic department or faculty. A management science environment would be preferable.

As regards approaching people like Paulson and Bernanke, this might be done if we have something concrete to say. If we just go in with “we have a better way of addressing economic policy issues,” if we can even get in the door, we will be shunted off to staff to compare methodologies with the results you have noted. What’s needed instead is specific policy guidance. If we can show them simulation runs that forecast the consequences of current stimulus initiatives, and why they (presumably) will not work or lead to unacceptable secondary consequences, and then show them something better, we will get in the door and be heard. So my next suggestion.

### I could provide specific and reasoned policy guidance now, based on the systems rationale of the new policy approach, that would enable the Fed and the Treasury to begin to improve their policy effectiveness now. The SD modeling has not yet been undertaken. One purpose of approaching Messrs Paulson and Bernanke now would be to interest them in sponsoring the modeling, as the means of giving permanent effect to the necessary systems approach. Waiting until the SD modeling has been undertaken would lose a valuable current opportunity. You may be unduly pessimistic about what could be achieved now.

Concrete Step 3: Use your economic policy model to demonstrate the impact of alternative policies along the lines noted above. If your model is not, as I suspect, set up for the US situation, then do the best we can with a hypothetical situation as similar to today’s issues as we can. If you can provide an analysis along these lines, we can work to set up a meeting.

### See above. I can provide now a qualitative analysis of a) why contemporary approaches will not work, b) a new systems approach that would work, and c) why that is so.

Finally, let me also echo Paal’s suggestion that the SDS may not be the best place to promote your work. In particular, I agree that contacting the consultancies with SD practices makes a lot of sense.

### I have previously contacted consultancies. Their invariable response is: 'We do not market third-party products. It may be possible to use your software in particular consultancy assignments'. Nothing has followed from such contacts.

And in the end, it may be appropriate for the SDS to spin off a more commercial organization – as you note, the SDS is primarily an academic professional society.

### That is a very good idea. I hope that it may be followed up soonest, as a priority.

Weldon to Doug Samuelson, 10 April 2008

There is nothing wrong with the SD techniques. Failure lies squarely at the door of the SDS.

Weldon to Leona Eggleston, 10 April 2008

Your remarks, about inadequate marketing of SD, are relevant to views recently put to the SDS.

Please refer to the attached short papers, whose proposals have been batted down into the dust by the SDS.

Weldon to Doug Samuelson, 11 April 2008

The overall reason for doing nothing is that the SDS is controlled and run by academics. They are not interested in the professional side. President Lyneis, who comes from the professional side of SD, is unlikely to get much real support in his quest to 'grow the SD field'. Growth would have to come mainly from the professional side. I sense that Lyneis himself was surprised at how negative was the response to my proposals from his colleagues.

I append a few emails. Some of the senior people would not enter a dialogue, and all were very quick to close their doors to a SD project that I wish to undertake.

I was under no illusions at the outset as to how poor is the SDS situation. Even then, however, I came away disappointed. I had expected that even the SDS would show some interest in a new approach to economic policy formulation for which SD is the technical vehicle. SD has been excluded from economic policy for the discipline's entire duration. With one exception the SDS people showed no interest. That exception is too resource-strapped to host the project.

They have so far shown no imagination in the direction that the SDS could be transformed into something more worthy of the techniques.

Weldon, 19 July 2008

In late 2007 I submitted to the academically-controlled SDS specific proposals about several specific professional SD applications, under the heading of developing the international influence and coverage of SD. I noted that gains in SD's position, from the existing parlous situation, must come mainly from the professional side. The applications concerned could deliver significant, even spectacular, gains in SD's position and prospects.

Ensuing SDS unresponsiveness to these proposals calls to mind the contemptuous manner in which SD itself has been excluded from international economic policy by the macro-econometric orthodoxy for the past half century. Ending that situation was one of my proposals.

Academics currently controlling the SDS have been and remain uninterested in, and indifferent to, needs and opportunities on the professional side of SD. This is in marked contrast to what happened in the econometrics community. It has been very successful in melding the aspirations and needs of its academic and professional cohorts. (I also suggested that the SDS should research how the econometrics community was so successful, and emulate that success. My suggestion was ignored).

I am in little doubt that nothing is likely to be achieved under existing SDS auspices. If there is positive leadership from the top in regard to what needs to be done, I am unaware of it. I also note nascent murmurs in these pages about forming a breakaway SD association. What about 'The Professional System Dynamics Association' (PSDA) as a name?

There is a debate in these pages. However, it appears relatively unfocused and unstructured. Does the movement for promoting professional SD development have an agreed and specific set of aims? Or a program? Or a convenor? Or a deadline? Etc.

It is also often difficult to identify the flecks of gold in postings under the heading 'Society Strategy Development' from the sheer weight of self-indulgent (even metaphysical) verbiage. Specific (bulleted) proposals and arguments are needed, in an atmoshere of professional self-discipline, focus and structure. A deadline (certainly before the end of 2008) should be agreed. Proposals need to be collated.

If proposals for professional development are not accepted by the SDS (again by a deadline that will need to be agreed), what happens next? Will the initiative simply fade away, or will specific steps be taken to form a breakaway SD association? How and when will that be done?

Professionals can be sure that the SDS will remain inactive and unresponsive on these issues for as long as possible. They are confident in relying on the initiative to simply fade away. After all, nothing has been done in fifty years.

Weldon, 21 July 2008

From Lyneis down it has all been excuses and reasons why nothing can be done. Hence my total lack of confidence in the SDS.

Kim Warren, 23 July 2008

Jim [Lyneis]'s reply is extensive and includes a number of specific positive steps?

Weldon to Kim Warren, 23 July 2008

Apparently quite extensive and positive? Yes. Meaningful and useful? Not at all. The whole purpose and effect was to deflect from Lyneis and the SDS responsibility for doing anything, and to steer the matter into what were revealed as dead ends. Whether Lyneis knew or cared that they were dead ends is of secondary importance.

I followed the advice to approach the international firms, in both Australia and the USA. Result? Nothing. The Americans did not even respond. It needs to be understood that generic professional SD decision-support models are actually a threat to those firms. These products could take a lot of consultancy work away from them. Given his background Lyneis should (must) know that.

My overtures to the SDS and the SD community, about finding an academic home for an endorsed alternative approach to economic policy formulation, have put one or two lordly academic noses well out of joint. All doors to SD academic economics strong points are now apparently closed against me. I refer to the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the USA. Those concerned are out for themselves, not SD.

The particular direction in which Lyneis sought to steer me on the economic policy matter immediately ran into aggression and evident resentment on the part of a person who regards himself as the big cheese of SD economics. He certainly wanted the project disclosed to him, but, as an experienced person, I judged that the likelihood of receiving support from him was too low to justify the risk of doing that. The issue was clinched when he made an undertaking that was not carried out.

It is difficult to imagine a single project initiative that would do as much to further the cause of SD internationally as an economic policy project that will replace macroeconomics and capture policy for SD. Yet the role of the SDS and its associates in this and related matters has been negative and questionable at best. They are supine and uncooperative: part of the problem, not of a solution.

The four generic commercial SD products would also do much to advance the cause of SD on the international street. SDS inaction and neglect during the past fifty years is responsible for the very poor situation there for promoting such products. Yet the SDS now shies away from innovative proposals that could begin to reverse that situation.

Kim Warren, 24 July 2008

There seems to be a misunderstanding in this John - there is no 'they' at the Society who do things that others think they should. All [apart from admin office] are volunteers trying to do their best for the field in the limited time they have. None of them have the power to mandate that other organizations must change their ways and adopt SD's views - especially groups as powerful as the mainstream economists who have dominated public policy for decades. All any of us can do is do the best work we can, show it works, and then seek to influence by publicity and persuasion.

I guess you refer to the economics interest group as being those who rejected your overtures and were only in it for themselves. Like you, I was a newcomer some years ago, and though my ideas were somewhat at odds with the 'big cheeses' of SD, I found them open to listening to anything that I could demonstrate would work. All I had to do was [a] show that I understood how to do SD properly and [b] show the implications of applying it in the ways I chose to the issues I chose. No-one has ever tried to reject or exclude something I did that was even half-baked useful, and at every meeting I see lots and lots of half-baked ideas that the more experienced folk try their best to guide, support and publicise. Much of it turns out to develop into truly fantastic work [e.g. just listened to someone who persuaded the WHO to totally reverse an ill-directed policy towards eradicating polio, at a cost of >$1.2bn, in the face of tough opposition from economists].

You may by now regard me as just another of the big cheeses who are probably out to obstruct and denigrate your work. The reality, whether you wish to believe it or not, is that we all want as much success for everyone doing SD as they can possibly get, and to harness all their positive energy into taking the field forward that they can spare. If I worked in your field and could help I would do so. What I can at least anticipate with some confidence is that the Society strategy will include a determined effort [requiring people's time and money] to aggressively promote any and all good and useful work done by SD professionals - yours included. if we get some positive recognition 'out there', we would hope that doors will open, and potential users come calling on us all.

That said, we clearly face big challenges, some of our own making - especially the need to bring practitioners into the system and harness their energy too. If the Society has somewhat failed on that in the past, it is due to less-than-optimal policies, rather than deliberate perversity. One tip I would offer is that people may just disagree with our views because they disagree with them - it is not necessary, and from my experience in SDSoc likely to be wrong, to assume it is for personal dominance in a zero-sum game.

Weldon to Kim Warren, 24 July 2008

I am disappointed that you are in complete denial about the facts that I laid before you. Clearly you are unable and/or unwilling to take the reality on board. As long as you and others continue to purvey, and to believe, the official line about heroic SD volunteers struggling manfully etc etc -- no progress can or will be made.

The situation with SD is attributable to personal and collective failures and omissions in the SD community (including the SDS) over a long period. My contacts and attempted initiatives have caused those factors to exhibit themselves. There is no indication that anything will be better in the future. Indeed, all indications (including your response) are that things will remain the same.

In communications I have underlined the situation in terms of comparisons and contrasts with the great success achieved by the econometricians. For a long time I have reluctantly accepted the following working hypothesis:

SD is technically greatly superior to econometrics. Overall, econometricians are greatly superior to their techniques. With SDers the opposite is true.