When sociologists meet computer scientists

Kara here from the Kara Golden Show. If you're not using ironclad for contracts, you could be leaving millions on the table. Ironclad's AI instantly surfaces what matters. Renewal dates, pricing terms, and obligations, so you can act quickly before opportunities slip away. That's why they're trusted by great brands like OpenAI, Loreal, Salesforce, and so many others. Find the savings hiding in your contracts at ironcladapp.com/podcast. Well, good morning, Jan. Record. I guess it's afternoon for you. We have two of the most illustrious guests. These two most illustrious guests we've ever had on our show, joining us today. That is true, but it's also very simple because we only had like what, five episodes, so being the most illustrious guest doesn't mean a lot. And the other guest was Brad Greenwood, and that's not illustrious at all so. But now these are the real deal. We have, in no particular order, Brian Pentland, from the great United States, who's an organizational routine scholar. And we also have Will Vanderost from, I guess, the Netherlands and Germany, who is, and we discussed this last time, the third most cited computer scientist ever, and I know Herb Simon's number one. I don't know who's number two, but so that's incredible. So welcome to our show, Brian and Will. So just to give you a background as to why we invited you to the show, we were talking about these, you know, and really the way record brought it up is we have organizational scholarship and they study routines and processes. We have computer science, and they study routines and processes, and then somewhere kind of in the middle is this information systems discipline that also has some folks that study routines and processes. And we think that they're kind of coming together now. Brian, you're perhaps instrumental in this. So why don't you start talking to us a little bit about, all right, are they coming together? And why? Like what's going on? Let's start with a little background. Well, I sure hope so. I mean, you know, I come from the organizational side, so I can remember in you know, in graduate school, I think, wow, this routine stuff is really interesting. I should study that. And then I don't know, it must have been 10, 15 years ago, I said, holy smokes. There's this whole other research community over there that's doing like the best work methodologically. And the organizational world doesn't know anything about it. And it's just like these two separate islands. And so literally is separated by an ocean, right? One is in the US, the other is in the Europe, you know? I guess that's true to some extent. Yeah, but I mean, there's people that do both all over, but certainly the the center of mass, I guess, for the, you know, for process mining has been in Europe. But, you know, to your question, I think that there's enormous opportunities and and I think people are just waking up to say, hey, wait a minute, you know, there's the tools and the research questions could be, you know, cross fertilized. Now from your perspective, because you want to use process mining, but here's Will listening to all this and Will, you're thinking, yeah, that's all fine, but they can maybe use our tools, but I can't actually learn anything from the organizational people there. They're kind of in my way. That's completely right. No, no, I think in these discussions, we always think of the different disciplines as something that is stable. So today, I had a long meeting about Pi-shaped computer scientists. It was very interesting. After T-shaped, you had now a Pi-shaped, T-shaped means that you're very strong in one discipline and have a broad interest. Now they talk about Pi-shaped and that you have like two legs, two strong legs in two different disciplines. But I think people underestimate is that why is that a Pi-shaped? Oh, like Pi, the symbol. I was thinking of Pi like that you eat. So that is now the new part of the T-shaped. And I think these words are often used to try to bring people together from different disciplines to create something new. What I think is, what I see as important, we like to think about disciplines as things that are stable, but they are not stable. I was in the Netherlands. I did my studies from from 84 to 88 in Einthoven and the computer science curriculum started there in 82. So I was in the second or third year given and the curriculum that I had has very little to do with the curriculum that people would study today. So we like to think about things as being stable. So for sure, computer science changed a lot. I think one of the major changes that we are witnessing now is the transition from, let's say, being purely model-based or creating models, creating systems, etc., to more data driven. We are teaching here classes in data science and machine learning and these are the classes that are taken by thousands of students. The real theoretical courses are taken by just a few. So this field is transitioning and I also hope that in organizational sciences there will be something similar that with availability of data, it will become more interesting to actually use the data and to do a real empirical work. And I feel that that is something that could bring the disciplines together. So can I can I jump in here because well, I know you for like 15, 16 years now and I remember you were back then I would have said you were real theoretical computer science is very strong on formal algorithms on proving them and so forth and now you come out and say look it's a lot about data science and want to play with data and I always thought that was a turning point in how you saw things like empirical research. I always felt that in the beginning and I mean the early 2000s that was not something that would concern yourself with and now it sounds like you're saying look you know these things come together I can't do computer science without data and I can't do data without computer science is that what you're saying? Well well if you look at my own development and I think yeah you see that also in the development of the field I have three phases in the way that I worked. I started off as a purely model based person right I thought that if we make models and we prove properties over models that models have certain properties then if we do that the world will be better right that that that was first and that's that was beautiful to do and I think it gives a strong basis. Then I had to face where I was very much let's say systems oriented. I thought okay if we put these models in workflow management of BPM systems and if these systems are good enough I think think about the workflow patterns and y'all etc then the belief was okay if these systems are good enough then everything will be okay right and of course that was also an oversimplification because the way that that people work and that organizations function cannot be captured in a very simple model and also we we easily neglect the fact that what is in SAP and how it survived what was that it can handle all of this complexity and that led to the transition of being more data driven of course at the beginning of my career I could not have done anything meaningful related to data because it was simply not there it was no data yeah absolutely so for me I think in my case you can clearly see that transition I think you see that in other researches but what I think will be much more spectacular is let's say the people that are studying now they cannot believe people that just make statements without being supported by some form of data or some form of evidence so is there an analogy Brian is it similar to the organizational signs of things so I don't think I were necessarily transitioning obviously from model the system to data I always thought there were there were they sort of very theoretical philosophical guys and then there were the empiricists you know isn't that I mean that's still true you know there's certainly people that are interested in theory for its own sake and but I think what's happened is that the the possibility like my own training was in ethnography you know observational fieldwork and participant observations so it's very empirical but it's very local you know you study what's happening here now you know and and and and and so I think the the thing that to me is really exciting is is being able to capture process you know processual phenomena across a much wider scope of time and space you know well in ethnography you're dealing with real big data right so you were actually the first big data because if you think of an ethnography think of all this stimulus when you're doing an ethnography oh yeah well yeah that's everything it literally is in front of you whereas if you're doing say process mining you're just looking at timestamp traces of a very small subset of things right so it's much smaller data than an ethnography in one sense right I suppose so yeah oh well yeah I mean sure I mean that so but I think the thing about the back yarns question the so the the disciplinary opportunity is to say well now what's happening you know more broadly in an organization over time what's happening in a larger field and to do it with something that's not just you know interviews you know surveys or or something but actually what's happening I mean that's the the sort of mining and discovery part that it's just crucial you know but can I like look you both come out and say look it's a wonderful thing that these disciplines are converging we you know we have data and it speaks to both cams and you know we're changing our views etc and everything becomes interdisciplinary we're all being pie shaped and I I think that's all you know frankly that's a bit of bullshit and you know the reason is some of us are pear shaped yeah come on I want to bring up the first comfort verse here don't don't distract me with your body so you know they're not pear shaped you have kind of broad shoulders you know you're more square on my screen let me get back to this show this entire interdisciplinary stuff this sounds wonderful and key notes and it's a wonderful thing to put in editorial statements and missions and all these sorts of things and we do this in our training and the reality is it's not being done and I'm not even sure it can be done you know for for example one of the reasons is that we we may do interdisciplinary research maybe because the the phenomena you know this is saying the phenomena do not live in the disciplinary silos that we invented to study them yeah okay fair enough but they're you know we're still writing papers that go to one journal that goes that is being read by one audience so and I know what I'm talking about because I was trying to do empirical research 20 years ago in process management and sent them to the same conferences that will would go and I would get them back with a comment that we don't know I want to see this stuff here you know so and I don't think that has changed all that much so while it's nice that it's all possible and the opportunities exist I think the reality so let me give you before we let Brian and we'll speak what I'm hearing is this you try and do anything with process mining and say an organizational journal or whatever you'll be booted out fairly quickly no one's interested in this stuff and they'll they'll actually beat you up on all the stuff underneath because it's not something they're familiar with and then you try and include any sort of organizational routines ideas in say the BPM community they'll be like what are you doing here you don't need this you know I hope I solve a real-world problem cut this yes about an extensive performance right so so we claim they're coming together but if your name isn't Brian Pantland it's not coming together yes like earlier talked about pie shapes and I think with all people of the two legs one is thick and the other is it's thin yeah that's very difficult to change I think also if you look at a real let's say top researchers they are often money disciplinary there are very few examples of let's say people that are really pie shaped and are successful in that sense and that has to do probably with publication effects funding etc etc but on the other end that that's why I said earlier and I strongly believe that that disciplines themselves are changing and perhaps a new discipline will emerge right so if you if you look in the German setting for example Wirtschafts Informatik is a recognizable job profile like my second son wants to study that he's 16 years old and he thinks this is something that I would like to study you could argue that that is interdisciplinary in some way so fields emerge because there there is a profile of something that people would like to study because they can see the jobs behind it and then it can be in between two fields if you think of something like bioinformatics it would be very similar okay it's a profile that people study and they can imagine these are the types of jobs that we'll have and then it will be like that automatically or people do it because they think that they can get wonderful grants to do particular things as I think that is driving people I think it's not related to that foundational one is in one discipline because the disciplines are changing all the time as well so there are still people that get emotional if a computer science education does not have a course on compilers in my view it's completely irrelevant right that's the the same as my first lecture that I had to teach in Eindhoven was database systems too where I had to explain how a hard disk was being built with seek time and rotation and latency etc etc at that point in time I already thought it was completely irrelevant right so disciplines are changing and I think this happens much more than we like to think you think so that it happens more than we that it lets on well but very slow very slow but just compare curricula just compare so Jan mentioned early the BPM conference I talked about the transition that I experienced look at the papers in the community it made exactly that transition it did but you know we got an answer now if you would try to submit a paper on a new modeling technique or something like that you will be killed three times right that that is true but sorry Brian you wanted to say something before I bring it to a different well engineer I mean as I as I heard your question it was about publishing research right and and you know I mean I have a couple anecdotes I remember we submitted a paper to the journal organizational research methods that was based on a process mining kind of thing and the reviewer said you know there's no data like this you can't I've never seen data like this so obviously this paper was first lessons to be rejected wait they can't be what they said what do you mean how can they say there's no data like very closely like they're saying I have never seen data that like a time stamp event log and so consequently your paper which uses that kind of data can't have any relevance for organizational research that was their logic it was like well since this is you know it was like I don't know where you got that crazy data but we're not publishing it in our journal so I've heard of people say you know disco pro-em you know don't use this because we can't we we don't understand it I've heard reviewers say that to friends of mine the church right then it's like well if you don't understand it neither do I but I want to use it because it has these cool patterns right but so what were the other stories yeah but to Jan's quest point is that there's going to be a community of people who are not edge it's foreign if they're not educated they don't get it and so if you know in order to make inroads and get the other get both legs working you know you've got to have people who say okay yeah I've heard of that I know something about it or editors you can say yeah I'll find a reviewer who can help me with that so that you you get the different perspectives in but I think that the real thing and this now gets to to wills thing about the discipline changing is you know realizing that there's a research problem that we have that can draw on a method that we have I mean so to me the thing that I'm just you know feel like I'm just getting started on is you know routine dynamics as network dynamics right that just that idea that okay you know stuff patterns of actually the change or don't change you know they can have a lot of a nurture or or some but then can we bring network science you know and apply that and it all boils down to ways of analyzing event logs you know creating graph structures and you know taking time into consideration because that's the risk if you're turning it into a network is that now you're going to eliminate time and turn it into just cross cross sectional pattern comparison but anyway so but it's changes but slowly because you got to build up the competence and the reviewer base to be able to that's actually two topics I wanted to bring up so number one is okay it's changing slowly what have we got to do if you want to see this elsewhere I mean we're talking about process processes from the computer and the organization science because that's you know where we know you guys and we have a little bit of understanding of that but it would apply to other things as well right you could think about I don't know other other cross discipline or stuff but the key thing is okay why is it changing now what do you think I mean I have some some theory about why we see these movements why we have will and Brian here in the same window talking to one another and why we we start going to the same conference and so forth why this is happening now and you have you know why not not why not 10 years ago I mean the process mining is what like 15 years old and even the data you know we have lots of it now but we also had it 10 years ago and the podcast for example will I mentioned your keynote at the European conference in Newtrade and I looked it up it was 2013 yeah so in Newtrade you gave this this conference on on I call it the things you can do with process mining and I was sitting and I knew it already but I was you know I was mind blown and you basically just came out and said look this is this is this is event data and I have lots of it because you added from the entire Dutch country basically and these are the things you can find out right and this is 10 years ago and it still took another 10 years and we still only getting started so you know why why is that yeah so so so like I could tell another anecdote right beta from the brand was the first of my students starting a process mining company future a process intelligence this is over 15 years ago so I've been working on this since the late 90s he worked on prong before then he started his own company this was also built in into the into the software of palasatena in 2009 I gave at the Gardner BPM conference I gave a keynote on process mining and that was the same year that the company of beta from the brand for future and present intelligence won the the Gardner cool vendor award so we had my keynote we had the Gardner cool vendor award and I thought yes we are there right there was also a report of Gardner after this and it was like it was exactly what John said so it's amazing that this is possible let's stop whatever we are doing we are just going to do this and then I thought okay my my job is done but it didn't happen yeah so somehow yeah people change slowly sometimes I think people need to be forced to change I think if you look at effects then you can see there was first a research then there were the tools first with like like like plexicon yeah future of present intelligence very close to my chair then also loneliness was founded in 2011 there was also not an immediate success if you look at their first versions of the software it was it was very very primitive what you've seen in recent years is that because of the success of of companies like solones people get greedy right and then you have like a snowball effects at that now suddenly there are over 35 process mining companies everybody is doing it not in the US but here in Europe yeah not in the US this whole time you're talking everything is happening in Europe why isn't there process mining in the US what's happening there I don't understand this why was there no BPM research in the US I don't know what's the answer like BPM and at the University of Georgia we taught them BPM and we actually taught them some process mining stuff and this is big data analytics we should be this should be part of every big data analytics curriculum right and and no one knows about it no one knows about there was a guy who came over I forget his name but he went to Deloitte and he was a partner do you know this guy will and probably yeah he was trying to push process stuff in the US and I for a number of years and it just didn't take the traction but I think these things will come but I think these regional differences are not that unusual I would say so if I look at the entire history of the BPM conference if I look at like you can also look at a field like Petrinet research right that that was strong in Europe then for a short while it was something that was done a lot in the US like like I always like to talk about the first work for management systems they were developed in the US by people like like Skip Alice and Mike Zisman and they were using petrinets to do that and it all altered there were many people around that time and then it kind of disappeared and in Europe it continued and there are these regional differences like like one of the things that I find fascinating which is kind of opposite which completely disappeared is that there were the business workflows that were in Europe and there were the scientific workflow people that were all in the US they were not in Europe and why was that the case my hypothesis that is that there were lots of grants kind of in that field in the US creating that whole community that then disappeared afterwards so it's a pity but it's not unusual I would say so here's my here's my theory on what's happening now I think what's happening now in this entire idea of disciplinary convergent really comes down to a couple of key individuals that have you know a particular standing or reputation within their community and they are the ones that step aside to the other ones you know Brian for example you've you've started frequenting the BPM conference for a number of years now so what's that like for the last three four years you invited to give a keynote at some stage but you also submitted paper then though so you reached out so to speak yeah and it will you you you actually you know spoke out publicly sort of what I made earlier embracing data which not all computer science is like yeah it says someone saying look at critical data is important and so forth so I think it it falls down to some of the actions and some of the words by certain influential center figures and the disciplines and if that's not happening then it could be that the topics are aligned or the methods are aligned or you know whatever else is a great opportunity but if it doesn't come down to certain individuals at the core of their their all disciplines and then nothing is happening can you agree I think sort of things are inevitable you just do not know what the speed is at which table up I don't think so I always think that yeah it's much more social it's not an inevitable below in the valley I think it really always comes down to certain people that have a high standing in their respective science communities and that people look up to and that people follow and so forth I see so many you know younger scholars and there's so look up to everything that a certain that certain people say do tweet you know and always think that these people don't even know how important they are informing the next generation of scholars yeah like I want to hear what Brian has to say because I look up to him not you and so what do you what do you have to say on this well that's all that's all very you know weird I mean so yeah I'm what you're sort of espousing is the institutional entrepreneur which makes sense you know someone has I don't know if it's yeah if it's sort of you know near somebody else I certainly have actively been trying to do this you know for the reasons I said before I just think there's a huge opportunity but the roadblock a roadblock so for me personally you know it's like when I flip open you know one of Will's papers and I'm seeing Lemma's improves I'm thinking okay this is a high barrier to entry you know someone who's not trained that way you know I can I can slag my way through if necessary enough to get the idea and but it's a lot of people would say that's just a foreign language I can't cope right and so there's this big wall there and and that's true even of I mean leaving out the formal stuff just with you know a more complex quantitative model you know it's a struggle right and so that's where the sort of having people trained and trained and more trained that's a thing also sequence stuff frankly is a whole it's a whole different beast you know if you're talking about sequential and and and dichronic kind of phenomena it's you can't just fire up data and do your simple regression or a you know even your sort of normally kind of metric methods are not yeah you know dinner fly right so there's a there's an actual scientific question of how do you model dynamic networks you know it's not a simple thing so not only that Brian but there's no dependent variable that's obvious right and you've been with this ever since your sequential variety yeah that's just yeah that's just because I'm lame and I don't have a good you know that's where the industry connections really help it's like having you know but so having a dependent variable like you know quality you know faster better cheaper quality time cost you know any that doesn't work with routines as well right it works with trivial routines right we want them to be more efficient so we get that but but then if there are exceptions you know you want to handle the exceptions then if there are other right so there's a lot of if it's an innovation process right yeah of any sort that involves any type of creativity in it right there's no you can't just say more efficient right so there's no dependent variable that's obvious when you look at processes well I can't imagine that's true I mean that's certainly you know because it is speed quality cycle plan stuff so here's one that I'm super yeah but that's the operations that's the trivial stuff right you're coming up with these ideas like you're coming up with ideas like drift like sequential variety right there are these these concepts around the patterns and the movements of those patterns right that that I think are the where it's at now I think you know well let me let me give you an example of the thing that we're actually just now sort of hot on the trail so it may take a year or two to get this done but so here's the so this is an example of using process mining sort of and timestamped event logs but not trying to discover models okay so what we're doing is using our electronic health record data and looking at how how synchronized the actions are by which we mean like take 10 minute times time moving time window and see are people basically working at the same time or not and the metaphor we like is like it's it's like an EKG for the clinic and is the heart pump pump pump pump pump pump pump and what we find is that the synchronization has a big influence on on the visit time so the time of visit or you know length of stay if it was inpatient is one of the like holy grail dependent variables in all of health care you know it's a hugely important because it governs you know how many people you can see and what it's going to cost yeah right so and this synchronization thing is the thing that people have not that we're aware of really looked at that much and so far we're seeing that you know it's not a huge effect but it's you know it's like how about that so so we're playing around with things like that that are you know because I think your your question is right on point is like he can spin up new you know new concepts but who cares unless there's some outcome you know so yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and and I want to go back to my original you know because I had this idea where I think Brian you know you and I've talked about this in the past organization it's it's hard it's difficult for a number of reasons but organizational I as people can use process mining in the sense that when we start to learn these tools some of us can maybe start using them in our research and and we can maybe import them and and get them accepted right the other way you know will I don't think you need us for anything do you I mean other than consumers of your stuff right you just uh you're like all right it's nice that they're using our stuff but we don't really need any ideas or any of their contribution to our field right well partly I think that is true uh and I like I'm much more influenced by applications in industry I would say than other sciences right I I and I like like if you are a core process miner you are in this beautiful position when you talk to I don't know a car manufacturer you talk to an airport you talk to a hospital they have processes you analyze their process and while doing that you get lots of brilliant new ideas on on how to to do that what is of course important if you look at an educational point of view that I feel that it is very important to embed uh process mining in order curricula and Brian I just talked about the the lemmas and the theorems in my paper but I think my papers are extremely easy to read uh but are you I'm gonna say that's true but that does not hold for all uh you have a manifesto paper I think it's easy to read I read that one right that's like process mining for real dummies so that's about my level but but uh uh that's exactly the reason why let's say cooperation between disciplines is important to also embed these types of things let's say in settings to explain to people like another example would be and I'm now referring a bit more to the which of informatic scene uh most computer scientists find it completely uninteresting to study SAP and to learn about all the different table names and all the other that they think it's like a complete waste of time at the same time I realized that it is very important that people that know about these things that are teaching these courses are somehow embedding process mining in these courses and combining it with the knowledge of these types of systems to do things that really have an impact in industry because if you just have a process mining tool and that's all you have and then people have to do everything themselves it's not going to work so so in process mining that there is this saying that I've said many times is that if you do your first process mining project you're spending 80 percent of the time on data preparation understanding the data asking the questions and only 20 percent on analysis so this 80-20 rule is showing that it is not enough to just have like say people that build the software you also need need to have more so you answered this question you well Brian you were going to say something but you answered the question you said it's partially correct but then you went on to say yeah they need our stuff Brian go on I'm sorry well in that 80 percent of understanding what's going on I mean that's where the where managers and organizational behavior people and like why is it that no one uses this table the way it was designed and you know what's happening here that that causes this unexpected friction like those so that it's in practice so you know well when you're talking about working with you know hospital and the airport and a car manufacturer I mean those are opportunities you know tremendous opportunities to learn stuff right huge and and it makes perfect sense that you know but I would guess the stuff that you learn a lot of it would fall under sort of the organizational managerial issues somewhere in that 80 percent it's like for sure that's the case but but it often like these applications also trigger new scientific problems as I said so I think like you talked often about sequences I hate sequences I think the whole world is partially ordered while we are talking here my secretary is doing things and the order in which we do that is completely irrelevant so I'm a partial order person that's like my religion and my belief and you can see that by doing applications you find out that these things that you always talked about that they actually are super important so so a nice example is that we are now doing mining of the curriculum here so all the students that study at our university they flow through the curriculum and many are inactive and disappear right I think many universities have had this problem and you then see that that is making a sequential model doesn't make any sense you need to think about the partial orders because otherwise you are focusing on the way that the order in which exams are being scheduled is determining the sequence and that's completely complete nonsense of course yeah it's not a question go for it then I'll go for it so so with declarative mining like I've been sort of trying to read up because we talk about partial ordering I mean the idea that there's going to be constraints in an overall process but the order is otherwise flexible right is that and that captures at least to some extent the idea of partial ordering that the declarative well partially like like that is the traditional way in which you would program things and I think that that's not good the traditional way in which you would program a procedure you would say okay now I have done that and then I have a choice am I going to do that or that and then I go through a loop etc etc I think that is that is completely flawed if you start looking at processes right right that that doesn't work so then you need to take the perspective that in principle things happen in a certain order but that order may be less relevant right so if you look at and many people do not understand that but if you look at the notion of petrinets a petrinet without any places is also a petrinet so petrinet without any places is the petrinet where all the activities that are in the net can happen in any order at the same time as many times that you want so petrinets are extremely isolated extremely concurrent and then you start you take this this well view anything can happen and then with places you can add constraints right and that's very similar to and that's very similar to to let's say the declare models that that we use that they are there you then use logic to express these constraints that if I do that then I after that I need to do that but it's very similar to adding places so I think many people have an incorrect understanding of what is declarative if they consider something like petrinets very procedural as a kind of opposite which is not so guys I want to I want to bring it up a little bit back to the the question about the disciplines per se I thought it was really interesting that it will you came out and said oh I'm not really sure what I need IS for and I was thinking about that too because I wanted to jump to the defense and I got nothing so Brian jumped in and said oh look there's a there's a role in the 80% for the for the organization to understand that to know what the managers are doing and so forth and the IS side I'm not I'm not sure what we bring to the table I'm not really sure it's a little bit the glue I get that pooh but neither here nor there so I guess the question that I have is you you talked a lot about the the German bitch of informatic yeah well and my observation is that where that started from was really close to the computer sciences right so it was sort of like applied computer science was in equivalent to IS in a way right but I think it moved away and I think the entire field has moved very close to the organizational side and even further away from software engineering and computer science and many many schools and in our field very few papers are really close to the software engineering the computer science side of things and I always think that's a pity yeah I always think that's a pity but would you would you agree that we've seen the shift that it became more and more of an entire business school topic where very few people you know know the fundamentals a little on the difference between procedural and declarative modeling I think we lost a lot of people in that discussion so so so I think if you look at historically if you talk about information systems and I know the Dutch setting of course from from much longer information systems in the Netherlands would always be embedded in computer science if you look at information systems in the US it is not it is typically not yes so so you see a big divide there so in Europe information systems which have informatic I completely agree that that started basically from let's say applied computer science and then moved on I think what had a bit of a killing effect is that for for many young researchers that want to do a career for them it is very important where they publish right and what I see is that IS field has been highly influenced by okay there are a few top journals that you have to publish in and that's very important and the moment that there is a lemma right it would be rejected immediately or something like that so I think that that transition was probably influenced by the point that you made in the beginning of the effects of journals on the other end I would say that in Germany you could argue that there are many different flavors of which are informatic there are yeah like like I'm I'm one of the editors of the Beza Journal and the Beza Journal used to be called the informatic and I think it still has this transition of being in the middle I think so yeah it's very diverse in a very good way that you know you have a highly diverse set of papers that come through that from very technical very formal to very organizationally right you sort of at the other half right it's sort of half a sociologist but you're also in IS in a way right you I always thought of you that you're sitting neither he nor there is it exactly that's why I mean Scotland today no yeah no yeah I'm very marginal I'm not in any of those you know communities really I've always felt like but I mean I think Will's exactly right that in North America in the US universities there are a few top tier journals and that defines the club you know if you're in those journals you're in the club and you get to say you know I'm an IS person and if you're not in those journals then you're like well we're not sure what you are you know and and I I just have tremendous problems with that that just doesn't I mean I get it I understand why that's true but it it doesn't seem to like it it doesn't seem to encourage interdisciplinary thinking or well that's what I meant in the big collaboration across yeah that's what I meant in the beginning that the reality is like I always think of interdisciplinary this is beautiful little tweet that says my best friends are interdisciplinary and I think that's just a wonderful pun that that sums it all up it's a wonderful thing to spy a blah blah blah but the next morning I'm gonna sit down I'm gonna worry about that paper from that one journal that is highly regarded in my field so and that's the issue because what is a journal well it's a conversation and there are certain people who edit the journal there are certain people who target the journal and there are people who want to and like any good conversation you want to listen before you interject right so you need to read you need to write to those people and and this is my assessment record of the situation we have here I think will is in a conversation and he is so deeply in this conversation as a matter of fact he's perhaps the top voice in a conversation right around process mining and there are certain problems and there are certain issues that they focus on and he's doing a great job in that conversation I would argue Brian has never been in a conversation he's he's kind of talked to himself he's grabbed people from it even as early as stuff he was bringing you know it's like this strange kind of voice that was talking to himself and Martha Feldman and then a few of us were listening to him but we didn't know what to and he always and that's why he's a catalyst he's pulling this process he wants to make his argument better he wants to get more disciples more minions because he sees something that the rest doesn't right I think will he's got his minions right he's got his his conversation going I think Brian's career has been trying to get a very important conversation going and he's now I think the 20 2016 org size special issue was really in many ways I would argue as one of your fans right as kind of like okay this is your your your conversation that you started is now a real conversation and there are people who are doing it without you and and they're going to continue this right so it so it happened that's my assessment record of the situation but we're running out of time I want to do two things before we end and you tell me one is I want will and Brian to give because so many young researchers listen or podcasts have been getting emails from them I want advice to young researchers what absolutely and and then the other thing I want to do is I want to be serenaded by Brian because he's got a guitar and I think he should say to us so so those are the two things there that was is that a good way to wrap things up do you think all right so why don't yeah let's start uh who it will why don't you start and then Brian you'll finish and then wrap us up with some some song with a beautiful melody yeah so so so my advice to young researchers would be to to completely ignore whatever journals or whatever publications strategy whatsoever that's not I think at the end the things that you would like to have is some form of impacts right you would like not to write a paper so that it can be published in a journal that is prestigious you should want to write a paper because you really believe in the ideas and you want other people to build upon these ideas yes so so so that would be my advice you typically can only do that if you do that for me it's easy to say right for young researchers much more difficult but you have to realize that you can only do that you can only get such a position if you are building to do it for the long term so so young probably remembers when I started to talk about process mining uh but it took and I know everybody think it's great right but 10 years ago uh everyone thought it was a crazy it was very difficult where the hell will you ever get that data from that's what I was thinking so my advice would be forget about where you publish focus on what what you want to do and what you think has impact oh Brian what do you think yeah well I think that's great advice no I mean I would say I mean it crystallizes kind of it's slightly different way of saying the same thing which is you know try to find uh try to find a story that or uh I think in terms of stories but try to find a problem that you feel you can continue working on right and that that so and it's very important I mean this is kind of an MIT thing actually it's a funny thing so I will sometimes help phenomenon driven that's where you get your PhD yeah that's my background and and so we always used to think you know think of ourselves as phenomenon driven so I was interested in I don't want that address but the advice is you know find a phenomenon that seems important that's going to have some kind of impact have some kind of audience and it's not about finding the particular journal you know and this is really unorthodox thinking I mean what Will said is completely not how our graduate students think like oh my god you know I like yeah because I don't want to stress that part that is all fair and it's nice and it's also idealistic because the reality that I see is that maybe the students come in they have that aspiration and they're really I really think they do and then they get the supervises and the social list of age journals and here's uh you know we need to get seven out this year and next year before because otherwise you won't get your PhD and that as far as I've seen it is that is completely transdisciplinary we've seen that in IS of course I remember computer sizes faculty that I work with and they said oh you need four points or five points and there's a a point merit scheme for getting your PhD so like I like the advice but we also got to realize that's not only up to the student it also speaks a lot to their advice they want to get tenure yeah exactly right it's a broader structure that also needs to change to make that happen they want to get a job in the first place they want to just even get a job at all yeah our students just say I need to have a paper in one of those a list journals or I don't know what to make the cut yeah so it's it's uh um yeah and then the intersection of a meaningful thing and an a list publication it's just that's the key I think a list publications it's easy Brian for you to say this because you're you've published more ASQs than I think I've published papers right and and uh you know I think that there's this there's this uh you know they're the prestigious journals and they're tough to get into and that's how you get tenure deans in the US count in business schools journals right so so that advice is great for uh I actually gave different advice in yesterday I was talking to two junior people and I said if you learn and this is just in what I know in information systems uh if you learn a method you can get published right if you're really good experimentalist good account of matrician that sort of thing and there are people who know their method and get data sets and publish a ton uh if you follow a phenomenon you might get that first one or two papers on blockchain or whatever and then you get a lot of citations right but the people who have the impact over time are the ones with an idea right and and and to get and that idea is and you really need to understand what's going on with the idea where it's and that's the hardest part and and you know sometimes even if and idea by itself without the method without the the other parts the phenomenon is is nothing right so you have to put it all together without the idea you don't get the international reputation and I think both will and Brian you both championed an idea an original way of looking at an issue and then fought for it and it has reached fruition you know that I've seen in the last since I've been an academic right so I would argue that's your key to success yeah but but I would like probably if I look in the computer science field right and be perhaps we are in a luxurious position at this point in time it is not a problem at all to find a job right it is not difficult at all perhaps it's too too easy yeah so I think in our field there is the possibility to just follow your ideas be good at it convince people that your ideas are important I think that's very well possible and if I look in the let's say the broader BPM community I see incredibly many young talented people that do not care so much about this and are extremely successful I would make it more positive than had that like in the end you want to want you want to do if you stay in academia if that is your goal it's better to do something that you like otherwise it will not be a session experience Brian you want to take it do you still do doctor decades stuff everywhere do you new YouTube my day job yeah my day job has been very consuming right but I've been learning to play drums during the pandemic which is but take us out Brian thank you very much I'm just going to sing this one little phrase just no no just one little phrase out of one song just see things from a process point of view once you realize that every moment is brand new all you've got to do is find the rhythm and the rhyme in the endless stream of moments as you're thrown through time bye everybody all right bye gentlemen that was really great thank you very much will and Brian