CCB JOB OPENINGS
The Center for Complexity in Business has a number of student research positions
available and a post-doctoral research fellowship opening. Read more about
these positions on our new "Jobs" page for information
on how to apply.
CCB News
Director Rand discusses the
relationship between Social Media, Mobile Commerce, and Retail
In a recent
online
episode of Smith Business Close-Up, Center for Complexity Director Bill Rand
spoke about how e-commerce and social media have revolutionized holiday shopping
and the way consumers make purchases throughout the entire year. Specifically,
with the rise of mobile and tablet-based commerce, it's become easier than ever
to shop from anywhere at any time while still incorporating tips and advice from
friends and retailers through social media. Smith Business Close-Up is
co-produced by the Robert H. Smith School of Business and Maryland Public
Television focusing on the latest thinking in business management featuring
in-depth interviews of key industry thought leaders.
Joint Survey Results
Announced
The CCB, Teradata and
Mzinga today announced the results of a
recent industry survey exploring the use of social technologies and big data
analytics in business. This survey of more than 500 participants reveals
that though many companies are using social technologies and interested in
analytic technologies, few of them are really analyzing the data produced by
these technologies in a sophisticated manner. Almost half of those surveyed feel
that they are not using social technologies to their full potential and only 12
percent are using them on a day-to-day basis. It seems that more education on
the use of these technologies, such as that provided by the MS in Marketing
Analytics, are needed.
Survey Results
For additional information about the survey results, tune in on August 8th, 2012
to a
webcast hosted by Teradata, Mzinga and the CCB.
Director Bill Rand
Awarded
DARPA Young Faculty Award
to Examine the Use of Social Media
Rand was award a
DARPA Young Faculty Award for his proposal "Intelligent Interfaces for
Social Media: Monitoring, Modeling and Engaging in Online Conversations." The
objective of the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) program is to identify and
engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic
institutions and expose them to Department of Defense needs as well as DARPA’s
program development process. This research award will cover two years of support
for multiple graduate students.
CCB hosted Digital Marketing
Analytics Roundtable - Sponsored by
Teradata
Complexity science can shed valuable insights into digital marketing analytics,
and the CCB hosted a roundtable in downtown Washington DC on June
21st, sponsored by Teradata. Connecting the dots between the CMO and the CIO,
this roundtable examined the powerful new abilities of digital marketing
analytics, the barriers to successful implementation and the future of marketing
analytics. The roundtable featured speakers from a wide variety of
industries and from different slices of the marketing analytics chain. Visit the DMAR web
page for more information. or contact
Carol Cron, Manager for the Center for Complexity in Business.
CCB
receives funding to encourage undergraduate research
The National Science Foundation has awarded the CCB with a new round of funding
to continue the Research Experience for Undergraduates component of its
Diffusion and Ranking in Digital Social Media research project. Previous REU
students for the CCB have published papers at conferences, conducted their own
research projects on Amazon's Mechanical Turk, and developed complex databases
setups with advanced web interfaces.
Big Data: The Next Big Thing in Data
Analytics
When it comes to use of large data sets and data analytics by companies, Smith
School marketing department chair P.K. Kannan finds there is frequently a
disconnect between the data collected by companies and the analytics those
companies need. It requires time and expertise to reorganize data into
marketing-analytic solutions; as data sets grow larger, it will take better
analytical techniques and some novel, bottom-up approaches to make the best use
of this information. Teradata's goal is to turn huge volumes of information into
front-line actions that give companies a competitive advantage. The Smith School
is partnering with Teradata to host a roundtable in June 2012. In 2013 the
school will launch a new
MS in marketing analytics, designed to create the
business-savvy analysts needed to interpret ever-larger collections of
information.
CCB Director Bill Rand Spoke at the
Big
Analytics 2012 and
NetSci 2012
Center Director Bill Rand spoke on the power of complexity methods to help
understand the complex world of social networks. At Big Analytics he examined
how the power of running analytics on Big Data makes this possible and at NetSci
he discussed the economic implications of the new understanding made possible by
social media analytics.
CCB Used Computational Model to Predict Super Tuesday Primaries
CCB Researchers, David Anderson and Anna Devlin, in collaboration with Director
William Rand used an advanced computational model based on linear programming
and discrete choice modeling to make predictions about the results of the 2012
GOP Super Tuesday Primaries. The model correctly picked 8 out of 10 of the
states, and more closely matched the electoral results than the best polling
data available. The
full press
release
with exact predictions can be found here.
CCB Announces Research Paper Repository on SSRN
The Center for Complexity in Business is pleased to announce a new repository of
papers hosted at the
Social Science Research Network. The repository currently
hosts a dozen papers covering topics including agent-based modeling, viral
marketing, data simulation, and diffusion. The repository can be found at
this link.
CCB's 3rd Annual Complexity Conference
On Friday, October 14 thought leaders from academics and industry gathered at
the Ronald
Reagan Building in Washington, DC for the
3rd Annual Complexity
in Business Conference. This conference strives to be the
intersection for complex systems and business.
Rand Appears on Smith Business Close-Up
On August 18, 2011 CCB Director Bill Rand appeared on Maryland Public
Television on Smith Business
Close-Up talking about diffusion in Social Media,
which includes such popular platforms as Facebook,
Twitter, Linked In and You
Tube. Smith Business Close-Up is co-produced by the Robert H. Smith School
of Business and Maryland Public Television. The television segment focuses on
the latest thinking in business management, and features in-depth interviews
with Smith School faculty and other members of the school’s community of
business leaders.
Center Director Bill Rand Featured as FT Expert in Summer 2011
Assistant Professor Bill Rand was featured
twice during the summer of 2011 discussing Social Media. In the
July 28, 2011 edition of Financial Times,
Professor Rand appeared as the expert of the week, offering definitions on five
terms heard in today's business news. His definitions were focused in the
field of diffusion of information across social media platforms.
CCB Awarded Federal Highway Administration Grant
The CCB and Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Lei Zhang
(Principal Investigator)
have been awarded a
grant from the FHWA, to apply
agent-based modeling and simulation to analyses of
driver behavior and
transportation systems management, and in providing insights for FHWA capital
investments.
CCB Receives Research Experience for Undergraduates Supplement |
Research Details
The National Science Foundation has awarded the CCB with funding to continue the
Research Experience for Undergraduates component of its Diffusion and Ranking in
Digital Social Media research project. This project explores the use of social
tagging on Amazon.com, Twitter, and other social media, in order to understand
how preferences are shared, and influence is spread, across networks.
Center Faculty Awarded NSF Grant
|
Research Details
CCB Researchers William Rand, Louiqa Raschid, and Yogesh Joshi have been
award a three-year grant from the CISE division at NSF to study the diffusion of
information and ranking of authority in social media.
Center for Complexity in Business awarded grant by Google and WPP Marketing to
study the
transition of newspapers to the online world
