Advancing The Science of Networks in Communities
On January 11th, SONIC lab presented some of its current activities as a part of the Web Science Trust network. These presentations are available online as webinars. To view the videos, follow the link: http://bit.ly/xlADAx. To download our introductory slides click here
SONIC lab director Dr. Noshir Contractor was interviewed on 3 Comms – Commerce, Communication and Communities. MYRA School of Business, India. Watch the full video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SySMmpgSe0
On Monday, February 6, from 9:30-11:00 a.m. Dr. Edward (Ned) Smith will be giving a presentation in room 1-483 of the Frances Searle Building on the Northwestern University Evanston Campus. The talk is entitled “Identity and Network Activation”.
About the talk
In his talk Ned will focus on his research on Identity and Network Activation. Using a dynamic cognitive model of network activation, Ned and his colleagues experimentally test two com peting hypotheses on the link between identity and network activation. On one hand, affirming people’s power might enable agency. On the other hand, if such power affirmations conflict with people’s more stable status characteristics, this could create tension. These hypotheses were tested experimentally by priming people at varying levels of status with power
(high/low) and social change (significant/none) and asking them to recall their social networks. Results suggest that stable, confirmed identities, and not feelings of power, are the foundation from which people can exhibit greater network responsiveness.
About Ned Smith
Ned Smith is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business prior to joining the faculty at Ross in 2010. His research focuses on the construction and consequences of organizational identity, with an emphasis on financial markets. He draws on sociological and network theories to develop and test new identity-based models of organizational behavior and investor decision-making. He also studies how people mentally construct their social worlds -i.e., their social networks- according to situational and environmental variations. Ned’s research has been published or is forthcoming in leading journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Management Science, and Organization Science.
The flyer for the talk can be downloaded here.
“One team achieved an almost perfect score. When we looked at the composition of this team, we found it was the only one that did not consist entirely of engineering managers. In fact, it included the general manager, his administrative assistant, and one of the non-technical support staff. And when we looked at the strategy this team used to solve the problem it transpired that it was the administrative assistant who suggested the approach that allowed the team an almost perfect score.”
The business of software: The Difference Engine
Observations on cognitive diversity and team performance
Communications of the ACM
Vol. 55 No. 1, Pages 33-34
10.1145/2063176.2063191
Attention all web scientists, please visit the ACM Web Science website to submit your papers, abstracts and research. This year’s ACM Web Science Conference will be held in Evanston, Illinois. Videos of last years conference, held in Koblenz, Germany, can be found on the left side of the ACM homepage.
Noshir Contractor presented Using Multi-theoretical Multilevel Models to Understand and Enable Communities at the Workshop on Network Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, on January 11th, 2012. This workshop is part of a special year on network science organized by the Indian Institute of Science Mathematics Initiative in conjunction with the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, Mumbai. For more information, see: http://www.icts.res.in/
SONIC lab PhD researcher Ryan Whalen will present a paper titled “Modeling annual Supreme Court influence: The role of citation practices and judicial tenure in determining precedent network growth” at Complenet 2012. The paper offers a unique way to understand and analyze the development of legal citation systems. Subsequent to the conference, the paper will be published as part of a Studies in Computational Intelligence series book.
Noshir Contractor was featured on Chicago’s ABC affiliate WLS-TV in a story titled “Canine Connections” about using social media to support local community efforts such as finding lost dogs. See http://bit.ly/noshwls-tv
Professor Joe Konstan of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Minnesota and friend of SONIC was in November elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Congratulations, Joe!