William B. Rouse's newest book is People and Organizations: Explorations of Human-Centered Design (John Wiley, published June 2007). Rouse identifies and discusses the people who operate, maintain, design, research, and manage complex systems, ranging from air traffic control systems, process control plants and manufacturing facilities to industrial enterprises, government agencies and universities. The focus is on the nature of the work these types of people perform, as well as the human abilities and limitations that usually enable and sometimes hinder their work. He also addresses serendipity and how unforeseen connections and distinctions enable innovative approaches to problems as well as solution concepts.

People and Organizations is Bill Rouse's 25th book in a 28 year period. It integrates 40 years of research, engineering, management, and consulting for a wide range of research sponsors and corporate clients. Commenting on the integrative nature of this book, Bill noted, "In retrospect, at least, all the pieces of this puzzle fit together quite nicely. However, as this work was pursued, there were many serendipitous insights and tangents that led to some of our best results. Looking backward, the patterns are clear, but looking forward, they were by no means as apparent.*

Dr. Rouse is Executive Director of the Tennenbaum Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Professor in the Institute's College of Computing and Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. He has held faculty positions at several other leading universities and has founded and led two innovative software companies. He is the author of hundreds of articles. Among his other recent books are Enterprise Transformation, Organizational Simulation, and Essential Challenges of Strategic Management, all published by Wiley. Dr. Rouse is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the IEEE, INCOSE, INFORMS, and HFES.