INFORMS Marketing Science 2011 – Day 2, 3, and Reflections

For a complete running commentary, see Dr. Dann’s twitter stream, or run a search for mktsci2011.

A few points you might care about.

The problem with communication flow between academia and industry is not an academic problem. They’re doing just fine, and it certainly appears as though the money is flowing. The problem is on the practitioner side, and our ability to understand, interpret, and attempt to derive some value from their efforts. It would be great if bigger and more meaningful bridges could be build between industry associations and their associations. There would be benefits on both sides for a subset of both. So long as each side understand the terms of the relationship, very, very good things would come out of it. This is an ongoing effort.

Selection bias. The purpose of sampling is to explore a very specific line of inquiry on a sample of people by way of a survey methodology. For the survey results to be accepted as valid, and for the math to really make sense, those opting in to respond ought to be representative of the whole population. Of course, the great problem is that it’s nearly impossible to be absolutely certain that your sample is reflective of the population at large. There is a check. But it’s not perfect. In the end, it’s a wicked problem that applies to social in a very specific way.

Marketing Science is challenging because the underlining black boxes is dynamic. At least in Chemistry the pH scale is the same in 1989 as it is in 2011, and will be in 2090. Same scale. Not so in the Marketing Science. You can finally get a model up and predicting, and the world shifts right from under you. It’s that shifting that I find just awesome.

There was a lot of inspiration here, and a lot of tangential thought that I’m looking forward to. Several mysteries are afoot.

I thanked Dina Mayzlin for her contributions to our community.

I thanked Iyengar for his contributions to our community.

Meeting both of them were highlights. They’re extremely friendly have excellent presentation styles.

The conference will be held in Boston next year. For me, it’s a short walk, Porter flight, and a subway ride in. I hope to see more people from industry there to shake push it along.