Marketing Seminar

Speaker:

Professor Thomas P. Novak
Denit Trust Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing
Co-Director, Center for the Connected Consumer
George Washington University

Abstract:

The Internet of Things (IoT), comprised of billions of smart devices representing trillions of interactions, has the potential to generate entirely new consumer experiences. In this paper, we develop a computational social science framework, grounded in assemblage theory concepts, to extract the shape and structure of consumer experience from the language of IoT interactions rendered as structured text. Our multi-stage framework uniquely integrates methods from computational linguistics (word2vec), unsupervised machine learning (t-SNE), and computational topology (topological data analysis) to: 1) identify and visualize the structure of the segments of consumer experience based on the similarity between IoT interaction events, and 2) for any given IoT interaction event, discover similar events that can further exploit current use and help explore new uses. Because the results are extracted from the actual interactions consumers engage in when they connect devices and services together, in the language in which they connect them, our framework can help consumers expand their use of the IoT and help marketers better target their marketing and communications programs and product and business development efforts.

* This is a 3-hour workshop.  The first section is offered by Prof. Thomas Novak and the second section is offered by Prof. Donna Hoffman.

Marketing Seminar

Speaker:

Professor Donna L. Hoffman
Louis Rosenfeld Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing
Co-Director, The Center for the Connected Consumer
George Washington University School of Business

Abstract:

The consumer IoT has the potential to revolutionize consumer experience because consumers can actively interact with smart objects. In order to successfully interact with smart objects, e.g. trusting them to make decisions on our behalf, it is imperative that we understand how they experience the world. An obvious process for understanding object experience is human-centered anthropomorphism. Yet, anthropomorphizing smart objects presents a number of obstacles to understanding how they are likely to impact the world going forward. We argue that understanding object experience should be from the perspective of the object. We develop an approach based on assemblage theory to interpreting consumers’ interactions with smart objects. Our approach involves a trio of “alien phenomenology” tools including ontography, metaphorism, and carpentry that involve both qualitative and computational analyses to render object experience accessible. Our approach can provide marketers with expanded opportunities to improve product design and development efforts and support better marketing communication programs that communicate enriched value to consumers. More broadly, we believe our approach can lead to a better understanding of smart objects as AI becomes ubiquitous.

* This is a 3-hour workshop.  The first section is offered by Prof. Thomas Novak and the second section is offered by Prof. Donna Hoffman.

Marketing Seminar

Speaker:

• Dr. Alexander Isakov
  Postdoctoral Fellow
  Yale Institute for Network Science
  Yale University

Abstract:

Negative (antagonistic, or enemy) connections have been of longstanding theoretical importance for social structure. In a population of almost 25,000 adults interacting face-to-face in isolated villages, we measured over 100,000 positive and 15,000 negative ties. Here, we show that negative ties exhibit many of the same structural characteristics as positive ties, including a skewed degree distribution, reciprocity, and degree assortativity. We then exploit this large sample to develop and enumerate a complete taxonomy of all possible triads consisting of the expanded relationship set. Consistent with balance theory, enemies of friends and friends of enemies tend to be enemies; but, in an important empirical refutation of classical balance theory, we find that “the enemy of my enemy is more likely to be my enemy”. We also explore higher-order (community-level) results. Thus, negative ties, though uncommon relative to positive ties, play an important role in social structure.