From the Editor

Welcome to the second issue of The Connector. Whatever your interests, we think you'll find something useful in this issue that you can immediately apply to your work.

In this Issue

• iThink applications:

  Consultants and business analysts will enjoy reading the article by Loucopoulos and Prekas on how they've been using iThink to improve logistics planning for the upcoming 2004 Olympic Games in Greece.

  You will also find Bill Harris provides a great example of how you can use the iThink software to build a business plan with colleagues prior to implementing-and how this was much easier to do than with a spreadsheet.

• STELLA Applications

  
  Andrew Ford, Professor of Environmental Science at Washington State University, will publish a regular column called STELLA Surprises. He'll use this column to provide simple tips-developed by Andy and his students-that anyone can use to improve the effectiveness of their STELLA or iThink models to build and communicate understanding.

  David Hamilton, a Waters Foundation Systems Thinking/Dynamic Modeling Coach, will describe the use of pre-built STELLA models in high school physics and Rob Quaden, a Waters Foundation Mentor will share some thoughts on the use of STELLA in sciences and math.

  Researchers and educators will enjoy the column by Dennis Ward from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in which he describes the outcome of an HPS workshop. Afterwards, researchers and educators in their network were better able to conduct research, develop educational materials, and even create games to promote a better understanding of the environment.

• For those of you interested in education, there's a description by Dr. Dean Goodwin
  Director of Environmental Education at Kimball Union Academy who has experienced, firsthand, the benefits of applying Food Chain in his classroom.
• Story of the Month by Steve Peterson will focus on the tough situation that the government of Turkey is in regarding its support for the war against Iraq. These monthly stories are just used to show how stock and flow mapping can be used to understand any complex issue and are not meant to be a political statement or position. We pick current events of interest as a way of educating our customers.
• Systems Thinking Puzzler is another feature of this issue. In addition to providing a solution to last month's problem, a new problem is described.

We at HPS hope that you enjoy this issue - - we certainly had fun putting it together! On another note, this issue marks my final issue as editor of The Connector. I, along with Steve Peterson, have established independent consulting practices. Steve and I will be collaborating often-both with each other and HPS. Although we will have separate offices, we'll all still be working in partnership to ensure that together we can address all HPS customers' needs. My new email address is chris.soderquist@pontifexconsulting.com. You can email Steve at steve@evans-peterson.com. Please stay in touch!

Future issues will be edited by Zahed Sheikholeslami, Vice President of Product Development and Training. I wish you great success Zahed!

Please send your comments or articles to connector@hps-inc.com.

Take care,
Chris Soderquist