I thoroughly enjoy events that bring academics and professionals together to explore areas of interest at the intersection of science, technology, design, and creativity. ADS*CON 2014 is one such event this week at NYU and I’ll be there in Washington Square. Here’s a description:

“ADS*CON 14 is a half-day symposium dedicated to exploring how we find meaningful signals in massive and often noisy data sets. It will explore the impact of bigger and more varied data on building models and understanding markets.

Underwritten by Dstillery and the NYU Stern Center for Business Analytics, the forum will feature preeminent advertising, academic and data science professionals in a fast-paced format of exploration and debate. Our goal is to help attendees understand the vast potential of embracing the noise. The agenda is designed for CMOs, media agency executives, strategists and data scientists, as well as anyone interested in exploring the frontiers of how advertising can capitalize on advances in technology and data science.”

In a world where location, time, and connectivity is built into every new digital product & service, we now have a global network of mobility sensors producing massive amounts of spatiotemporal data on a daily basis. Making sense of the noise and extracting new actionable insights and intelligence isn’t easy in the present, but if the past is analyzed, the future can be predicted. This is the thesis of my talk, and what I hope we discuss. Please say hello if you see me, and in the words of Public Enemy front man Chuck D – Bring the Noise!