News + Events

Kirgistan's Pravda publishes a report listing Santa Fe Institute among the world's top higher education programs.

The discussion about privacy is changing as users take control over their own online data. While they spread their Web presence, these users are not looking for privacy, but for recognition as individuals -- whether by friends or vendors. This will eventually change the whole world of advertising. The current online-advertising model will become less effective, even as it gets increasingly sophisticated.... This approach (called behavioral targeting and already in service by ad networks that track users through so-called tracking cookies) undercuts traditional online publishers, who employ content to lure users and to sell adjacent ads....This does not mean that traditional online advertising will go away, just that it will become less effective. Value is being created in users' own walled gardens, which they will cultivate for themselves in real estate owned by the social networks. The new value creators are companies -- like Facebook and Dopplr -- that know how to build and support online communities.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - EBay said on Tuesday it is cutting fees it charges people to offer items for sale and raising standards at the online auction website. In a move aimed at staving off increasing competition from the likes of Google and Craigslist, eBay is trimming fees it charges aspiring sellers by as much as half. This is the first time eBay has offered incentives and discounts to sellers since it was founded in 1995 by (Santa Fe Institute Trustee and) French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar.

(Santa Fe Institute Trustee) Michael Mauboussin says that as computing power grows and networks unleash the wisdom of crowds, the unique value of experts in making predictions and solving problems is steadily narrowing. This trend, “the expert squeeze,” doesn’t necessarily mean that expertise will become dispensable, only that organizations must change how they use experts.

December 17, 2008 / SFI External Professor Daniel Rockmore and colleagues created the “partition decoupling method” (PDM) which combines the partition scrubbing method and the hierarchical spectral clustering method. The PDM would be used for decomposing the correlation networks of the markets. The end result would reveal interdependencies in the network components. This information would be useful in risk management and portfolio construction. It could also be used with complex systems other than the financial market such as the brain or political orientation.

SFI President Geoffrey B. West, "Innovation and Growth: Size Matters," and External Faculty Duncan J. Watts, "The Accidental Influentials," are both featured in the Harvard Business Review's List of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007.

"The Difference - How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies" by SFI External Faculty and University of Michigan Professor, Scott E. Page was released January 15, 2007. In this landmark book, Page redefines the way we understand ourselves in relation to one another by revealing that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality. Page changes the way we understand diversity - how to harness its untapped potential, how to understand and avoid its traps, and how we can leverage our differences for the benefit of all.

" More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, " by SFI Trustee and Business Network Member Michael Mauboussin was named one of Business Week's "Best Business Books of 2006. " Mauboussin, of Legg Mason Capital Management, writes, "You will be a better investor, executive, parent, friend, or person if you approach problems from a multidisciplinary perspective." Click here to read the full article. "More Than You Know" was distributed to Business Network Members in June 2006.

SFI Trustee and Chairman of the Board Bill Miller, of Legg Mason Capital Management, was highlighted in a recent November issue of Fortune Magazine. The article, "The Greatest Money Manager of our Time," noted Miller's close affiliation with SFI regulars such as Prof. Murray Gell-Mann, SFI President Geoffrey West, Norman Johnson, and SFI Trustees Joy Covey, Gary Bengier, Jim Rutt, and David Weinberger. Click here to read the full article.

"The Cambrian Age of Economics" in the July 20, 2006 issue of The Economist mentions SFI External Faculty Rob Axtell and Joshua Epstein.