8-9 November 2012, Workshop on Information and Decisions in Social Networks, Cambridge MA, U.S.A.

During the last decade, it has become clear that network interactions have a much larger role in our lives than had previously been appreciated: social networks have a defining impact on not only consumer choice but are also central in social and political decisions ranging from the political discourse in the blogosphere to the organization and coordination of protests in the Arab spring. Similarly financial networks seem at the heart of the 2008 crash. Network effects are now seen as major elements in other domains with human decisions including healthcare, public health, smart power grids, urban transportation, and more. As a consequence, both businesses and government are increasingly looking to build new types of networks to improve management abilities.

This workshop is intended to bring together researchers from different communities working on information propagation and decision making in social networks to investigate both rigorous models that highlight capabilities and limitations of such networks as well as empirical and simulations studies of how people exchange information, influence each other, make decisions and develop social interactions.

For more information, see http://wids.lids.mit.edu/