Andreas Weigend

Leading Behavioral Marketing Expert; Former Chief Scientist, Amazon.com

BIG IDEAS

• The Social Data Revolution
  Through the use of personal and networked technology, individuals around the world are creating and sharing massive amounts of data with one another (C2C), businesses (C2B), and even the world (C2W). The lowered barriers for production and plunging costs of connecting to one another has ushered a new revolution.
  
  Historically, the technology to move energy led to the industrial revolution and changed the way we produced things. The technology to move bits led to the information revolution and changed the way we produced knowledge. Today we live in an age where people are connected globally and the immediate cost for the individual to connect online is almost negligible. The ease of data creation and the feasibility of global sharing with universal access have brought us into the social data revolution.
  
  Andreas works with organizations to understand the deep questions that are beginning to emerge: What does it means to own data in an intrinsically networked world? What are the trade-offs individuals want to make? How are customer expectations shifting? What remains constant in these rapidly changing technologies? Understanding and applying the principles of the social data revolution empowers companies to leverage relevant data created and shared by individuals.
• The Unrealized Power of Data
  In an economy where attention is increasingly becoming scarce, recommendations from friends creates much higher relevance and increases our attention to products. Companies need to realize the power of social data and must evolve their data strategy to participate in the revolution.
  
  Aligning our thinking to the social data revolution presents an exciting future. Companies will move beyond collecting implicit data left behind by a customer to creating and sharing rich and live data explicitly. Companies that understand how to create meaningful interactions will empower customers to create and share data as well as manage the risks and trade-offs involved to dramatically improve their businesses in the social data revolution.
• From Me-business to We-business
  As the world gets more social, companies will begin to evolve from me-business to we-business where even data about our relationships with others are being created and shared. Technologies and platforms such as blogs, Wikis, Facebook, Twitter, and even our inseparable mobile phones have empowered us, both knowingly and unknowingly, to share vast amounts of data with more people with such efficiency that we often take it for granted. Not only is the data more useful, it is also significantly more robust. The network effect driven by these new tools dramatically increases the accuracy of the data as well as the richness of the insights derived—while it’s easy to falsify data about ourselves, it is not as easy when others are commenting who you really are. Companies that understand how to encourage customers to create and share useful data will ultimately benefit both parties.

SNAPSHOT BIO

Andreas Weigend studies people and the data they create. He works with companies that are eager to discover and tackle the pertinent questions and to develop strategies to realize the untapped power of data. His clients include Alibaba, Best Buy, Goldman Sachs, Lufthansa, Match.com, Nokia, Priceline.com, Singtel, Thomson Reuters, the World Economic Forum, as well as exciting startups around the globe. Previously, as the Chief Scientist of Amazon.com, he helped build the customer-centric, measurement-focused culture that has become central to Amazon's success. Since 2003, he has been teaching Data Mining and E-Business at Stanford and The Digital Networked Economy at Tsinghua in Beijing.

Andreas also shares his insights at top conferences, such as the World Business Forum 2009 in Milan and the World Innovation Forum 2010 in New York. Known as a lively and engaging speaker, his main goal is to challenge the minds of his audience, helping them understand the irreversible impact the Social Data Revolution has on people, business, and society. He also gives speeches and workshops to the world’s most innovative firms that combine cutting-edge ideas with his expertise on behavioral economics and vision for consumer-enabling technologies.

Andreas received his undergraduate education in Germany and Cambridge (UK), and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in physics. His career as a data scientist combined with his deep industry experience across information-intensive organizations allows him to successfully bridge the gap between academia and industry. Andreas lives in San Francisco, Shanghai, and on weigend.com.

A Closer Look at Andreas

FOCUS AREAS
What's on Andreas's current research agenda?

Andreas expertise arises from his academic background in computer science, machine learning, cognitive science, and behavioral economics and has been honed for the real world through his consulting experience. He spends a great deal of time researching the following areas:

• Personalization and Recommendation:  Delight the user and create true loyalty based on perceived value.
• Hypertargeting and Discovery:  Leverage new data sources (intention, attention, location, etc.) to dramatically improve response and monetization.
• Metrics and Measurement:  Base decisions on data, not gut beliefs.
• Incentive Design:  Create interaction and community. Use a systemtic approach when designing incentive schemes.
• E-business, Me-business, We-Business:  Learn from Amazon.com for e-business. Learn from craigslist for me-business. Levage the social graph for we-business.
• Marketing in Web2.0:  Understand the drivers of viral marketing asocial media: customer serivce is the new marketing!

ENGAGEMENTS
How have other organizations utilized Andreas's expertise, and what's ahead on his schedule?

Andreas works with some of the most brilliant entrepreneurs and executives around the world, helping them to leverage the staggering amount of data created by web and mobile device users. He helps his audiences understand the underlying principles of the consumer data revolution, and teaches them how to derive actionable insights from these principles.

Andreas presents his ideas and insights in a variety of formats including:

Consulting
With a unique combination of insights from academia and extensive industry experience, Andreas works closely with innovative organizations and is able to provide frameworks, relevant examples and concrete stepping stones for businesses in areas ranging from data strategy (both external and internal across multiple touch points) to collective intelligence. Organizations Andreas has advised include:

• Social platforms (MySpace, match.com)
• Digital devices (Nokia)
• Travel (Priceline, Lufthansa)
• Commerce (Amazo, Alibab, Metro Group)

Speaking
Andreas has shared his vision on the new consumer data revolution at events including:

• Fortune BrainstormTECH
• IBM Almaden Institute: "The New consumer Data Revolution: Who Pays Whom?"
• O'Reilly's Web2.0 Expo: "Data - Your New Competitive Advantage"
• Digital Life Design: "The Future of Digital China"

Teaching

• UC Berkeley/Hass: Marketing in Web2.0 (MBA)
• Standford: Data Mining and e-Business (Statistics)
• Tsinghua/INSEAD (Executive MBA)