George E. Danner

Bio [2003]
George E. Danner is Principal and Founder of Industrial Science, LLC, a consultancy specializing in applying quantitative methods and simulation modeling to highly complex business problems. His particular specialty lies in agent-based simulation modeling, Monte Carlo simulation, System Dynamics, Game Theory, and Real Options. George has twenty years of experience in corporate strategy, including both operational and financial analysis, across a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, transportation, and financial services. Prior to founding Industrial Science, George was a leader in the US National Strategy Practice of Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, based in Houston, Texas, USA.

George has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science in Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Project Title
Industry Analysis Using NKS

Abstract
Study the dynamics of industries, as defined by firms within some identifiable cohort, such as banking, telecommunications, or airlines. Simple programs will serve the abstract mechanism for representing industries as models.

Favorite 3-color Cellular Automata

Reason: What does "interesting" mean? We think here that it means behavior that is complex - that is, we are able to produce complex results from very simple rules applied on simple initial conditions. Complex in our case implies that we achieve outcomes which are not reducible beyond its original, atomic specification.

In keeping with the spirit of NKS, we must set up a "laboratory" of sorts for conducting our experiments. These will be computer experiments in Mathematica. The laboratory should allow us to try many different variants of simple programs and observe their behavior.

Additional Information
Danner, G. "NKS in Business: Applications and Implications." Presentation at NKS 2004, Boston, MA, 2004. [abstract]