When I speak of customers, I do not mean to imply that everyone should be interacting directly with users and doing immediately applied work. There is an interesting tradition at Boeing, and probably other companies as well, in which everyone has a customer whose needs one should meet. The point at Boeing is that not everyone builds airplanes, and a device of a chain of customer relations between an oneself and the purchaser of the product is useful to help keep focus.

I think this interesting mindset could create a valuable sense of community in mathematical programming if we were to adopt it. It is always a good idea to keep in mind who will use our research and how they will use it. This leads to a better understanding of the state of the art and points to good research questions.