Uncategorized
The Argument for Live Content
Yesterday, I argued that the future of content would be Live, Limited, and Surprise. Arguing that the future of content is Live is both the easiest and most difficult argument of the Live Limited Surprise trio. The problem is that we often see live as unscripted, and think of, say, reality TV as live content.…
Read MoreLive Limited Surprises will Dominate Content from 2020 Onward: An Introduction
Consider the types of content currently popular on the web, Netflix, and TV: music, sports, video games, and celebrity content. I’m predicting that the current model of content creation is a relic of a technologically underpowered era. The enabling technologies and ideologies needed to fuel the live, limited surprise are currently here.
Read MoreOn Virtue-Positive Operations
As usual, a disclaimer: there is probably plenty of research in this area that I am completely ignorant of. This is literally a random idea I had 2.5 hours ago while walking along the river. Yes, the .5 is there for pedantic purposes. As I write this blog, Lyft has already gone public, and Uber…
Read MoreOn Video Game Analytics and a Neuroscientist Perspective
Note: This blog was previously published as part of the 2018 INFORMS Annual Conference. It’s the last day of the conference, the day where often new members make their first INFORMS presentations. Many of us know someone whose training is not in ORMS per se, but whom we’d enjoy seeing at the conference because of…
Read MoreRethinking Well-Known Concepts
Note: This blog was first published for the 2018 INFORMS annual conference. When we attend INFORMS, we usually we learn new things about what we already know, or experience new concepts for the first time. But I had an interesting experience in a TIMES session that made me think of another type of learning. Sometimes…
Read MorePeak Analytics and Novelty
Note: This blog post was originally written for the INFORMS 2018 annual conference. Suppose for a moment, that your favorite sports team has completely adopted analytics. Your (American) football coach stops giving the inefficient running back so many carries. Your mediocre basketball center no longer dominates the ball for post-ups, instead serving as a willing passer…
Read MoreThe Seductive Long Tail of the White Whale
Originally posted September 2, 2011. In The Long Tail, Chris Anderson uses the “long tail” as a statistical property to suggest that businesses can make a lot of money by selling items that only a few people want. Given the ease of selling items online, eventually a near-complete inventory of all a human being desires…
Read MoreMoneyball, UPS Delivery, and the Magic of Better
This article was previously published in October 2011. I am moving past blog archives to this site. Recently I watched the movie Moneyball, and thought about what it might mean for quantitatively-minded people. (Note: For the purpose of simplicity, I’ll temporarily pair together quantitatively-minded and operations research, although not everyone in one group would claim…
Read MoreMy Personal Debt to John Nash
Why did I even take Economics as a freshman engineering major at Youngstown State? It was a sort of happy accident, but there I was, surrounded by business majors, in Microeconomics*. I remember that the first textbook chapter tried to summarize many key concepts of Economics, doing its best to sell the field to often…
Read MoreTechnology in the Classroom: Blessing or Bane?
Originally published May 1, 2012. After about a year or two of teaching at the Saunders College of Business, I decided to make a new rule for my class. I banned personal technology (cell phones, tablets, and computers) from my classroom except during approved groupwork sessions. I’ve been in some excellent discussions about this, and wanted…
Read More