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June 20, 2006
Vince Barabba, Named To Market Research Council Hall of Fame
Vince Barabba is a member of the Ackoff Center Advisory Board. He is a former General Motors
Executive and Market Insight Corporation Chairman.
New York City, NY,
June 16, 2006 – Vince Barabba, former General Motor’s executive and current
chairman and co-founder of Market Insight Corporation, today has been named to
the Market Research Council Hall of Fame. Mr. Barabba was honored
today with an award presented at a luncheon ceremony at the Yale Club in . The Market Research Council
Hall of Fame was established in 1977 to recognize outstanding members of the
market research profession. He was inducted to the Market Research Council Hall
of Fame for his contributions in the field of market research and his leadership
in major public and private enterprises that has led to significant societal and
business contributions.
Mr. Barabba joins a
distinguished list of past Hall of fame inductees including: George Gallup,
Marion Harper, Jr., Arthur Nielsen, Jr., David Ogilvy, Frank Stanton and Daniel
Yankelovich. Coincidentally, Barabba and these six other professionals are the
only individuals to have received both the Marketing Research Council Hall of
Fame award, and the American Marketing Association’s Parlin Award, two of the
highest recognitions in the industry.
In accepting the award,
Vince Barabba said, “Although the market research profession has contributed
greatly to the betterment of our society, changing societal and market
conditions require us to take a hard look at what has worked in the past and
determine whether it is still sufficient. We must, as many of the previous
recipients of this honor have done, create new and innovative research methods.
In doing so, we can continue to make contributions to a dynamically changing
future that we, and all the consumers of our services are now
facing.”
"The Market Research
Council is delighted to welcome Vince Barabba to its Hall of Fame," said Ed
Keller, President of the organization. "His many contributions to the theory,
practice and management of market research make him a highly deserving honoree.
He joins a list of giants in our field, and deservedly so."
About Vince
Barabba
After retiring from GM
as General Manager, responsible for overseeing Corporate Strategic Planning and
the Business Decision Support Center, Barabba founded with Richard
Smallwood the Market Insight Corporation. Prior to working at GM he twice
served as Director of the United States Bureau of the Census and is the only
person to have been appointed to that position by presidents of different
political parties. Between his government service and GM assignments he served
as the Manager of Market Research for the Xerox Corporation and as the Director
of Market Intelligence for Eastman Kodak. As a founder of two companies –
Decision Making Information (now WirthlinWorldWide, a part of Harris
Interactive) and Market Insight Corporation – Mr. Barabba has leveraged his
experience in collecting and delivering market information to build
highly-prized marketing research businesses.
Mr. Barabba is the
author of two books, Surviving
Transformation (2005 Oxford University Press) and Meeting of the Minds (1995 Harvard
Business School Press). He is also the co-author of Hearing the Voice of the Market (1991
Harvard Business School Press) and the 1980
Census: Policy Making Amid Turbulence (1983 Lexington
Books).
Posted by ACASA on June 20, 2006 at 01:19 PM in ACASA News | Permalink | Comments (1)
June 15, 2006
Thinking about the Future and Globalization
Forum 2006 keynoter, Dr. Russell Ackoff, discusses his thoughts on the issue of global development at the occasion of his receipt of the Tallberg Foundation / Swedbank Leadership Award.
So much time is currently spent in worrying about the future that the present is allowed to go to hell. Unless we correct some of the world's current systemic deficiencies now, the future is condemned to be as disappointing as the present. My preoccupation is with where we would ideally like to be right now. Knowing this, we can act now so as to constantly reduce the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Then, to a large extent, the future is created by what we do now. Now is the only time in which we can act.
I have found widespread agreement among governmental and organizational executives that their current state is more a product of what their organizations did in the past than a product of what was done to them. Therefore, our future state will be more a product of what we do now than of what is done to us.
If we don't know what state we would be in right now if we could be in whatever state we wanted, how can we possibly know in what state we would like to be in the future? Furthermore, statements
of where we want to be in the future are usually based on forecasts of what the future will be. Such forecasts are inevitably wrong; we cannot identify all the significant changes that will occur in our environments between now and then.
It is for this reason that so many plans are never completely implemented; they are dropped when it becomes apparent that the forecasts on which they are based are false. I was once told by a public planner that only two percent of the public-sector plans produced in my country were ever completely implemented for this and other reasons.
Download ackoffstallbergtalk.pdf
Posted by ACASA on June 15, 2006 at 02:46 PM in Interesting | Permalink | Comments (1)
Is systemic thinking enough to explain networks?
Like a true philosopher, Ackoff draws on the evolution of scientific thinking since Renaissance to build an understanding of why we think the way we think or in his words why we hold a particular "world view", "a concept of the nature of the world" or "theory of reality". The essay makes for interesting reading as a whole, though at moments I thought that he had indeed taken certain liberties in terms of development of his arguments.
To read this article, click on the link: Is systemic thinking enough to explain networks
Russell Ackoff's Response:
Of course parts of a system — e.g. departments of a coporation — can compete with each other. The reason for redesign is to eliminate such competition and have all parts collaborating. Competition between parts is evidence of bad design.
A network is not a system. The telephone network is not a system but AT&T is. A network, unlike a system, has no essential parts. If a link breaks down — say Phila. to NYC — then one can go through Tranton or Newark, Etc.
Russ Ackoff
Posted by ACASA on June 15, 2006 at 02:15 PM in blog post | Permalink | Comments (3)
June 09, 2006
Eclectic university degree teaches managers 'people smarts'
Test pilots and astronauts, according to author Tom Wolfe, have the right stuff.
The University of Pennsylvania's Center for Organizational Dynamics, according to Larry M. Starr, has everything else.
"We own the other stuff," said Starr, who has been the center's executive
director and the director of Penn's Organizational Dynamics Graduate Programs
since 2002.
By other stuff, Starr means the things that managers need to succeed besides knowledge of their profession and industry, which can be easily obtained.
It's the other stuff that can get managers and organizations into trouble if they don't know it. And helping them get a grip on it is what the center is all about.
"What do you do if you're already a manager and you realize that, 'I'm managing other accountants or other people and there are all these silos?'" Starr said. "Where do you learn the other stuff, the partisanship, the politics, the social side, the bringing-people-together component?"
Since 1977, managers have been coming to Philadelphia to learn those important soft skills from Penn's organizational dynamics program.
To read this article, click on the link: Eclectic university degree teaches managers 'people smarts'
Posted by ACASA on June 9, 2006 at 04:24 PM in Announcements | Permalink | Comments (0)