Dr. Tricia Wang, an alumni of our graduate program, recently keynoted a conference with eminent sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman. Both of them spoke at Re:publica in Berlin, Germany about the tensions of living in an increasingly tech-mediated future.
Tricia’s talk, How to Avoid Curses in the Era of Big Data, examines how quantitative data has become more valued than qualitative data. She traces it back to three key moments in history: the emergence of management science, the incipience of mass popular culture, and the rise of the Information Revolution. She concludes her talk by discussing the social consequences of overly focusing on measurement to define value.