A short answer: less than $4/month. Data brokering is a multibillion dollar industry to collect, analyze and sell your personal information. Would you rather sell it by yourself? Tom Brewster @ BBC put his information on EBay including “one month’s worth of browsing history, posts from Facebook and Twitter accounts, three email addresses in frequent use and 10 photos.” It is a no-go. Only 31 viewers in 7 days. Later, he did manage to sell his data from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to DataCoup for $4 a month. It’s an interesting experiment on the data privacy issue. Read more at: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140509-how-much-is-your-facebook-worth
Why you should talk to more strangers
If you’ve ever been on a subway or public bus, you know the rules. Don’t make eye contact, stay as far away from other people as the space allows, and for the love of God, don’t talk to anyone. But what if the rules are wrong? Behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder approached commuters in a Chicago area train station and asked them to break the rules. Read about what happened here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/26/opinion/sunday/hello-stranger.html?smid=tw-nytimes
30 million people use this social network … and you’ve probably never heard of it
“We Heart It” has 30 million monthly active users. Most of them are teenage girls. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/05/07/30-million-people-use-this-social-network-and-youve-probably-never-heard-of-it/
New App Helps You Avoid “Friends”
A new iPhone app called Cloak is marketing itself as “Incognito mode for real life.” The app is essentially a map that uses location data provided from social media friends on Foursquare and Instagram to show you where your “friends” are located. The app doesn’t seem to provide any services that aren’t already available through Foursquare or Facebook’s new Nearby Friends feature, but it does differ simply by marketing itself as an app for avoiding your friends. What do you think; is social media making us more anti-social? Read more at: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/04/the-antisocial-media-app.html
SONIC member Lindsay Young starting in August 2014 as post doctoral scholar at University of Chicago
Starting in August, Lindsay will be joining the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE) at the University of Chicago as a Postdoctoral Scholar. Under the leadership of Dr. John Schneider (MD, MPH) CCHE is dedicated to eliminating HIV transmission by utilizing social, sexual and other risk networks to identify 1) pathways of HIV transmission; 2) how behavior and influence are transmitted through these same networks; and 3) how these networks can be leveraged for integrated prevention interventions. Lindsay will be engaging in research activities that include analysis of data from men having sex with men (MSM) networks and other network interventions in South Chicago and South India.
Noshir Contractor will be a co-Principle Investigator on a $8.7-million NIH grant titled “Multilevel Influences on HIV and Substance use in a YMSM Cohort”
This will be the largest comprehensive study of young men who sleep with men ( MSM ) recently launched. The multidisciplinary study will include psychologists, physicians, virologists, developmentalists, network scientists and statisticians from Northwestern University, Oxford University and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Dr. Brian Mustanski—director of the IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University—will lead the study. For more, click here.
Emmanuel Lazega to present in the SONIC Speaker Series
SONIC Lab is proud to welcome Emmanuel Lazega, who will present a talk on Tuesday, April 29, 2014 (9:00am) in SONIC Lab in the Frances Searle Building room 1.459. All are welcome to attend. To schedule a one-on-one meeting with a SONIC speaker please schedule a time at bit.ly/SonicSpeaker (april 28, from 10 am to 4 pm).
A Spinning Top Model of the Dynamics of Advice Networks
We argue that a spinning top model is a useful heuristic for intra-organizational learning in advice networks. This model proposes that a stabilized ‘elite’ shapes and preserves accumulated knowledge in an organization that overall experiences high turnover and systematic job rotation. We test the model by analysing the structure and dynamics of advice networks among 240 judges in a Commerical Court. Applying the model helps identify an endogenous process of increasing then decreasing centralization of the network over time. It raises questions about the maintenance and stability of its pecking order and about relationship between organizational learning in such an institution and joint regulation of markers.
About Emmanuel Lazega
Emmanuel Lazega is a professor of sociology at Sciences Po, Paris. He is a member of the editorial board of Social Networks. One of the focuses of his research is on collective learning in intra- and inter-organizational networks. In this area, he has published Micropolitics of Knowledge, New York, Aldine-de Gruyter (1992) and The Collegial Phenomenon, Oxford University Press (2001), as well as specialized papers theorizing collective learning based on empirical analyses, conducted with colleagues and doctoral students, of advice networks in various professional social settings. His publications can be found here: elazega.fr
Noshir Contractor presented SONIC research as part of the A. Watson Armour III Research Seminar Series at the Field Museum, Chicago on April 23, 2014
For more information click here.
SONIC was pleased to co-host 6th Annual International workshop on Network Theory
SONIC was pleased to co-host (with the ANN and NNSI) the 6th Annual International workshop on Network Theory in Los Angeles on April 10-12, 2014. The theme for this year’s workshop was Social Networks in Governmental and Nongovernmental Sectors.
The tweets and links to resources discussed can be found here.
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld to present in the SONIC Speaker Series
SONIC Lab is proud to welcome Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, who will present a talk on Thursday, April 17th, 2014 (9:00am) in SONIC Lab in the Frances Searle Building, room 1.459. All are welcome to attend. Please email Nancy McLaughlin to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Professor Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld (April 17, from 10.30 am to 4 pm).
Stakeholder Alignment in Complex Systems: Lessons from Alignment and Misalignment in Geoscience, Biomedicine, and Air Transportation
The capacity for science to make progress on core societal challenges requires new forms of institutional agility, yet the track record for public-private partnerships, strategic alliances, consortia, and related multi-stakeholder initiatives is mixed. This talk presents data from several collaborative efforts targeting major societal challenges: the Biomarkers Consortium at FNIH advancing personalized medicine; EarthCube, led by the NSF creating a cyberinfrastructure for the geosciences; and Aircraft Noise and Emissions, contributing to the Next Generation Air Transportation System on environmental matters. Among key findings presented are new insights into the ways that internal alignment within each institutional stakeholder is a necessary precursor to producing the collaborative structure and processes that are needed for success.
About Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld is a professor and former dean in the School of Labor and Employment Relations (LER) at the University of Illinois, where he also holds a joint appointment in the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). He is an award-winning author who has co-authored or co-edited ten books and over ninety articles on high performance work systems, transformation in labor-management relations, negotiations and conflict resolution, economic development, and engineering systems. His current research is centered on stakeholder alignment in complex systems – a foundation for institutions in the 21st Century. Joel was the 2009 President of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA). Prior to coming to the University of Illinois, Joel had a joint appointment in MIT’s Engineering Systems Learning Center and MIT’s Sloan School of Management, as well as appointments at Babson College and Michigan State University. He has extensive experience leading large-scale systems change initiatives with public and private stakeholders in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, England, Iceland, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Poland, Spain, South Africa, and the United States. Joel holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Relations from MIT and a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.