Decision Science News

FIND THE WONDER IN A NUMBER

The story goes that British mathematician G. H. Hardy was visiting the great Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan in the hospital. According to Hardy:

I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. “No,” he replied, “it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.

Regardless of it being a logical fallacy, DSN belives that aping the habits of the great can make one great. Sometimes. So head over to a site where you can learn fasincating facts about numbers and perhaps end up the next Ramanujan.

The site is called coolnumbers.com and is run by Wharton’s Pete Fader a man of both both decision science and marketing. (Now that’s a cool combination.)

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS OFFERS DECISION SCIENCE POSITION

There is a Lectureship or Senior Lectureship in Decision Sciences/Operational Research at LSE, but hurry because the closing date for receipt of applications is 18 August 2006.

The Operational Research Group has been established at LSE for over 50 years and has an international reputation in Decision Sciences, Mathematical Programming, and Public Policy. The Group is one of the core groups within the new Department of Management being created at LSE. This position is part of the significant development of research and teaching with new appointments of leading scholars in management. We are looking to appoint an outstanding candidate with research interests in applying Decision Sciences, to join a flourishing group with a unique masters programme in Decision Sciences.

The successful candidate will be able to teach decision analysis, including Bayesian statistics and probability theory, or operational research modelling, on the masters programmes in Decision Sciences and Operational Research, and on the undergraduate degree in Management Sciences. Further details about these courses can be found on the OR Group’s website at

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/operationalResearch

There is an opportunity for the appointee to collaborate with the established research programme in research centres at LSE such as the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, the Centre for Healthcare Systems Analysis and the growing research opportunities the new Department of Management will offer.

This is a tenure track appointment from January 2007.

For a full application pack, please see the instructions of how to apply at

Click to access WebCoverLetter%20for%20Lectureships.pdf

The job description and further particulars of the post are at:

Click to access LEC_05_61fp.pdf

ESCALATION

One time DSN host and all around smart person Dan Gilbert has a typically well-written and insightful piece in the New York Times op-ed section:He who cast the first stone probably didn’t. It’s a topic that doesn’t get much play in the Judgment and Decision Making literature, which is strange because retaliation is a decision.

Photo credit

DECISION SCIENCE NEWS MEME HITS WSJ, SLASHDOT, AND DIGG

DSN reported just two weeks ago that the habit of Netflix procrastination–recently put forth by two DSN writers in Harvard Business Review–found its way into a Newsweek blog.

This week, we report that the same idea has now made the Wall Street Journal Online and picked up by news ranking sites Slashdot and Digg.

DSN is happy to be making the news that is making the news, but next time a little credit, please.

JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING

History is made as an entirely online (and for the time being free) journal titled Judgment and Decision Making launches its Volume 1, Number 1. Things seem to be off to a good start, with a solid editorial board and a first issue featuring some heavy hitters.

Decision Science News, which ran an exclusive interview with Editor Jon Baron before the project was launched, wishes the journal the best.

CATCHY NAME GIVEN TO NETFLIX GUILT

In July 2006, DSN writers Dan Goldstein and Dominique Goldstein described in a Harvard Business Review article titled “Profiting from the Long Tail” a behavioral phenomenon in which Netflix customers let highbrow movies sit around unwatched while lowbrow films get watched and returned right away. They use as examples “The Seventh Seal” vs. “Meet the Fockers” and draw an analogy to neglected gym memberships.

Skip ahead 6 weeks and Newsweek blogger Brad Stone has called this “Netflix Guilt” in a recent blog post. Chez Stone it’s “City of God” vs. “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and the gym membership analogy … remains a gym membership analogy.

Jet back to 1999, before Netflix even existed, and the highbrow / lowbrow film choice problem is examined in an article by decision researchers Read, Loewenstein, and Kalyanaraman.

ADDENDUM: This just discovered a few hours after the original post. In 1994 academic blogger Henry Farrell called this “The Netflix Fallacy“. Discoveries, discoveries in the long tail of cites.

REFERENCES:

Goldstein, D. G., & Goldstein, D. C. (2006). Profiting from the long tail. Harvard Business Review, 84(6), 24-28.

Read, D., Loewenstein, G., & Kalyanaraman, S. (1999). Mixing virtue and vice: Combining the immediacy effect and the diversification heuristic. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12, 257-273.

Thanks to Prof. Suzanne Shu for the find.

photo credit.

CENTER FOR THE DECISION SCIENCE REBRANDS

Former Decision Science News home The Center for The Decision Sciences at Columbia University launches its new clean look and feel and a tidier URL: decisionsciences.columbia.edu.

Stop by and have a click. While there, listen to these nice audio interviews with Elke Weber and other decision researchers on the BBC.

JOB MARKET TIME FOR THE MARKETING MARKET

Every year hundreds of marketing grad students go to AMA summer educator’s conference seeking the chance at, well, employment. Good news: employment will be offered again this year. Be sure to get those packets in by July 4th and read this if you like advice (I don’t, but to each his own).

This year’s conference will take place August 4-7, 2006 at:

Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers
301 East North Water Street
Chicago, IL 60611

Call 1-877-242-2558 for reservations. If you can’t get in to the hotel, try to get one nearby as you’ll need a place to decompress between interviews. (Oops, sorry for the unsolicited advice.)

ADVICE AND TRUST IN DECISION MAKING / CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND BOUNDED RATIONALITY

June 29th and 30th 2006, just down the street from DSN headquaters, ELSE will hold two-day conference on advice and trust in decision making packed with good speakers from around the world. The program is online and if you decide to attend registration seems straightforward.

June 23rd and 24th, also in London, DSN will be at another ELSE conference, this one on Consumer Behavio(u)r and Bounded Rationality.

2006 Behavioral Decision Research in Management Conference

DSN recommends that scholars and journalists interested in decision making make their way to the Behavioral Decision Research in Management conference this Friday and Saturday in Santa Monica. It’s a small conference, but of the highest quality.

The setting can’t be beat and organizer Craig Fox promises some surprise entertainment. Here are some ways to enjoy the area.

Of particular interest is the Friday morning session “Amos Tversky’s Contribution to Behavioral Decision Research”

Conference Web site.