When
April 22, 2015 | 12:00pm - 2:00pm
TOPIC
In Medias Res: Trends, Fads, Bubbles and Massively Scaled Analyses
ABSTRACT
The focus of this presentation is on developing a better understanding of trends, fads and bubbles -- the distinctions between them as well as finding ways to quantify them. The statistical modeling of trends and fads originates in diffusion processes -- the evolution of technology innovations, new ideas, products and services. These models are underutilized in applied research as a consequence of their relegation to a niche, new product audience. But diffusion processes are ubiquitous and this class of models deserves to see wider application, extensions and use. In particular, the discussion outlines the shift from understanding one, two or a few univariate time series to fitting growth curves for massive numbers of products.
These are all important building blocks leading to an understanding of the analysis and diffusion of styles and trends as might be found in the typical fashion retail RDBMS. RTW fashion has been chosen for a deeper dive since it is an industry where creativity and uncertainty reign supreme and the diffusion of trends and fads are explicit.
The strategic implications of all of this as a function of the disruptive times we live in are also considered.
Speaker
 |
Thomas Ball
RDM Partners
Thomas Ball is an advanced analytics professional and hands-on, pure-play practitioner with a career spanning the consulting, financial, health care, direct marketing and media industries. It began while he was still in grad school building marketing mix models of toothpaste sales for JWT. Next, he spent more than 10 years with McKinsey & Co as a statistical expert managing a group of analysts and developers in its New York office. While at McKinsey, he covered the waterfront in terms of the range and types of analytic questions and problems that consultants posed as well as becoming expert in distinguishing smoke from mirrors. He left McKinsey in 2005 to co-found a hedge fund where he wrote a stock picking algorithm ranked in the top 5% of hedge fund portfolio performance based on analysis by Morgan Stanley's Risk Management Practice. The fund was shuttered in 2007 with the Downturn. He describes his life and career since as a long diaspora. His current involvement is with RDM Partners, an entity focused on driving client growth in emerging markets (Rapidly Developing Markets).
Thomas holds an MBA in Organizational Behavior from the City University of New York and resides in Queens with his wife and daughter.
|