Some facts

– there are 4000 delegates at Informs
– there are over 4000 papers
– it takes me 10 minutes to walk from the exhibition hall to the auditorium
– there are 4 floors with talks happening with about 40 rooms on each floor (and the talks I want to go to never seem to be next to one another!)

Informs is a huuuuuuge conference! My feet hurt and my brain is completely fried, idea overload! The talks have been so inspiring you walk out of each buzzing with new concepts to research and new ideas to try. I am in ORMS heaven!

The hang outs

Then there’s the social events. The women in OR lunch was inspirational, the winter themed reception crazy fun. Best bit was I got to hang out with some of our academic users and chat simulation. (I promise none of your feature ideas will be forgotten, one in particular is definitely on the 2014 road map, watch this space!)

My biggest take away?

Operations Research is changing the world and how decisions are made. Of course I always believed that, but Informs reminds you of the scale of the difference we make.

From creating the best evacuation plan after a flood to maximize the lives saved, to helping patients manage their diabetes via prediction tools based on diet, to making product pricing a science, to helping target vets likely to become homeless before it happens. OR is driving our economy and saving lives.

Informs makes you very proud to be part of the OR world.

And now to bed

Looking forward to heading home for some rest, but looking forward even more to Informs 2014.

Laptop hibernated, iPad off, thank you and good night Minneapolis!