4/7/15
New Tools Beget Revolutions
ANALYTICS LAB
ACTION LEARNING SEMINAR ON ANALYTICS,
MACHINE LEARNING, AND THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
Erik Brynjolfsson
MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy http://digital.mit.edu/erik Information Session
April 7, 2015 Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
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Copyright © Erik Brynjolfsson
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Big Data is a Management Revolution
Big Data is a Measurement Revolution
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Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
“I think we, as an industry, do a lot of talking... We expect to have
open dialogue. It’s a culture of lunches.
Clickstream/Page views/Web transactions
Web links/Blog references/Facebook
Google/Bing/Yahoo Searches
Email messages
Mobile phone/GPS/Location data
ERP/CRM/SCM transactions
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), Bar Code Scanner Data
Real-time machinery diagnostics/engines/equipment
Stock market transactions
Twitter feeds
Wikipedia updates
Etc….
Amazon doesn’t play in that culture. [It has] an incredible discipline of
answering questions by looking at the math, looking at the numbers,
looking at the data. . . .
That’s a pretty big culture clash with the word-and-persuasion-driven
lunch culture, the author-oriented culture.”
-  Madeline McIntosh, Random House’s President of Sales &
Operations
à “Nanodata” and “Nowcasting”
Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
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Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
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Examples of Projects
A-Lab Overview
§  15.S06: ‘Analytics Lab: Action learning seminar on
1. 
Prime Share of Wallet (Amazon)
2. 
Big Data as a Service (Amazon)
3. 
Sales Projections for Chemco (Capgemini)
4. 
Finding the Next Watson Use Case (IBM Watson)
5. 
Multi-channel Consumer Profiling for eCommerce (WOOX)
Find new ways to differentiate customers for increased sales
analytics, machine learning and the digital economy’
Develop demand forecasting of value to Amazon’s retail vendors
ú  Instructors: Professors Sinan Aral and Erik Brynjolfsson
ú  Meets Tuesdays, 4:00pm-5:30pm in September & October, plus half-
Sponsor challenge: “Beat our (multiple regression) sales prediction model, using the
same data”
day matching workshop in September and half-day final presentation
session in December (dates TBA)
  No regular meetings in November or December.
Case chosen: compliance by financial institutions with federal regulations
ú  Based on success of inaugural course in 2014, expanding class size to
60 students
Provide more segmentation and profiles of potential customers for WOOX’s high quality
headphones
§  Project Oriented
6. 
ú  Proposals from organizations affiliated with the Initiative on the Digital
Predicting New Product Adoption for American Apparel (Zensar)
Sponsor challenge: “We may have people with experience, wisdom, and opinions,
predicting sales of a new line of jeans. Can we do better with analytics?”
Economy (IDE)
  E.g. Google, Amazon, IBM Watson, GE, Brooks Bell, Microsoft, GE, Thomson
Reuters, BMW
http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/15/fa14/15.S06/
Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
Copyright © 2014 Erik Brynjolfsson
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Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
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4/7/15
Guest Speakers from 2014
How to Apply
§  In class lectures by:
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Foster Provost (NYU Stern)
Jeremy Howard (Enlitic)
Michael Karasick and Jay Bellissimo (IBM Watson)
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Brooks Bell (Brooks Bell) and Chris Hall (Imagitas)
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§  Selective admission
ú  Open to Sloan MBA’s, EMBA’s, and other MIT graduate students
§  Final presentation session judges:
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ú  Applicants complete a questionnaire, available May 1
Andrew McAfee (MIT, Sloan)
Tod Loofburrow (MIT, Sloan)
Marta Gonzalez (MIT, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering)
through May 7 on digital.mit.edu/a-lab
ú  Notifications of admission decision will be sent in mid-May
ú  No bidding for 15.S06 is necessary
§  Plus optional session in conjunction with Conference on Digital
Experimentation (CODE), which included:
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Susan Athey (Stanford),
Esther Dyson (Edventure Holdings)
Eric Horvitz (Microsoft),
If you are interested, please contact:
Susan Young <[email protected]>
Senhil Mullainathan (Harvard),
Hal Varian (Google), and others
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Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
Sloan courses with analytics content
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15.034 Metrics for Managers: Big Data
and Better Answers (Doyle)
15.060 Data, Models, and Decisions
(Bertimas, et al)
15.062J Data Mining: Finding the Data
and Models that Create Value (Welsch)
15.071 The Analytics Edge (Bertsimas)
15.074J Predictive Analytics and Statistical
Modeling (Welsch)
15.075 Statistical Thinking and Data
Analysis (Rudin)
15.096 Prediction: Machine Learning and
Statistics (Rudin)
15.320 Strategic Organizational Design
(Malone)
15.339 Distributed Leadership Workshop
(Ancona, Malone, Orlikowski)
15.376J Media Ventures (Pentland,
Bonsen)
15.377J Linked Data Ventures (BernersLee, Kagal, Rae, Sturdevant)
15.561 Information Technology Essentials
(Malone)
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Closing Thought
15.564 IT Essentials II: Advanced
Technologies for Digital Business in the
Knowledge Economy (Madnick)
15.565J Digital Evolution: Managing Web
3.0 (Madnick)
15.567 The Economics of Information:
Strategy, Structure, and Pricing
(Brynjolfsson)
15.569 Leadership Lab: Leading
Sustainable Systems (Senge, Orlikowski)
15.570 Digital Marketing and Social Media
Analytics (Aral)
15.571 Enterprise Transformations in the
Digital Economy (Ross)
15.575 Economics of Information and
Technology in Markets and Organizations
(Brynjolfsson)
15.576 Research Seminar in IT and
Organizations: Social Perspectives
(Orlikowski)
15.578 Global Information Systems:
Strategic, Technical, and Organizational
Perspectives (Madnick)
15.579-15.580 Seminar in Information
Technology (Madnick, Malone, Orlikowski)
“Technological progress is going to leave
behind some people, perhaps even a lot
of people, as it races ahead.
But there’s never been a better time to
be a worker with special skills or the right
education, because these people can
use technology to create and capture
value”
The Second Machine Age, p 11.
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Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
The Initiative on the Digital Economy
Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
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How to Apply
§  Selective admission
ú  Open to Sloan MBA’s, EMBA’s, and other MIT graduate students
ú  Applicants complete a questionnaire, available May 1
through May 7 on digital.mit.edu/a-lab
ú  Notifications of admission decision will be sent in mid-May
ú  No bidding for 15.S06 is necessary
If you are interested, please contact:
Susan Young <[email protected]>
Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/ide
Copyright © 2014 Erik Brynjolfsson
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Analytics Lab: digital.mit.edu/a-lab
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