Complexity and Social Networks Blog

« 311: The Next Wave" - Harvard online event 11/13/08 | Main | Social Media vs. Knowledge Management »

17 November 2008

Pentland on Honest Signals on November 24

FYI, for those of you in Boston, you should note that Sandy Pentland will be talking about his provocative new book, Honest Signals: How They Shape our World, on November 24 (details below). Note, also, that MIT Press has offered a 20% discount to readers of this blog, through the end of this year. Just go the MIT Press site, and provide the discount code: PENTLAZER.

Honest Signals

November 24

Taubman-275 (Room subject to change)

12-1:30pm

Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland
Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Co-Director, Digital Life Consortium
Faculty Sponsor, Next Billion Network and EPROM in Africa
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How can you know when someone is bluffing? Paying attention? Genuinely interested? The answer is that subtle patterns in how we interact with other people reveal our attitudes toward them. These predictive patterns seem to be biologically based "honest signals," evolved from ancient primate signaling mechanisms, and we find that they are major factors in human decision making in situations ranging from job interviews to first dates.

By analyzing these signals using data from electronic ID badges and specially-programmed smart phones, we can create a "gods eye" view of how the people in organizations interact, and even `see' the rhythms of interaction for everyone in a city.

---

Professor Alex ("Sandy") Pentland is a pioneer in organizational engineering, mobile information systems, and computational social science. Sandy's focus is the development of human-centered technology, and the creation of ventures that take this technology into the real world.

He directs the Digital Life Consortium, a group of more than twenty multinational corporations exploring new ways to innovate, and oversees the Next Billion Network, established to support aspiring entrepreneurs in emerging markets, and the EPROM entrepreneurship program in Africa. He is among the most-cited computer scientists in the world, and in 1997 Newsweek magazine named him one of the 100 Americans likely to shape this century.

Posted by David Lazer at November 17, 2008 4:19 PM

.
• Business (3)
.
• Citizen Relationship Management (18)
.
• Commentary (7)
.
• Complexity (2)
.
• Current Trends (50)
.
• eGovernment (21)
.
• Events/Announcements (75)
.
• Innovation (14)
.
• Internet (20)
.
• Knowledge Sharing (20)
.
• Methodology (33)
.
• Networked Governance (19)
.
• Networks in political science (5)
.
• PNG Working Paper Series (6)
.
• Powerlaws (4)
.
• Reviews (2)
.
• Simulations (1)
.
• Small group networks (3)
.
• Small Worlds (2)
.
• SN in the news (72)
.
• Social Capital (4)
.
• Social Computing (13)
.
• Social Finance (2)
.
• Social Networking Platforms (12)
.
• Social Psychology (2)
.
• Social Software (25)
.
• Societal Networks (40)
.
• Technology (37)