Q&A with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Q&A with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz: All the World's a Lab - Analyzing Data to Understand What Customers Want

Tuesday, February 13,  2018
Carrillo Recreation Center Ballroom
Public event

“Big Data” expert Seth Stephens-Davidowitz met on February 13, 2018 with 30 local business people and other community members for an A&L Thematic Learning Initiative afternoon session (75 minutes).
 
Attendees included members of The Impact Hub, Women’s Economic Ventures, Sonos, Chamber of Commerce and the Santa Barbara Downtown Organization. Participants found Davidowitz’s research and analysis of GoogleTrends and GoogleAd data bases fascinating as he described how clues in the data were useful in predicting consumer behavior, differentiating customer intentions vs. actions,  managing survey factions,  translating results, buying patterns, search engine power and human intuition. He shared algorithm factors that could aid in recognizing both physical and mental health tendencies and spoke of Google cooperating with the Centers for Disease Control in an effort towards improving public health outcomes. The audience engaged Davidowitz on data assessment, ethical responsibilities, filtering and privacy amongst other issues.