A conference plug for this event: I spoke at last year’s version and found it great (there’s a lot of interesting work happening at the interstices between data science and the social sciences, and this is a very good way of keeping up with the state of the art). The submission deadline is two weeks away.

Location

Marriott Hotel, Santa Clara CA
2700 Mission College Blvd, Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 988-1500

The topic areas for collective intelligence include:

The evolution of collective intelligence
Crowdsourcing
Human and social computing
The emergence and intelligence of social movements
Collective response to environmental constraints
The spread and containment of rumors
Collective robustness, resilience, and stability
The evolution of scientific intelligence
Collective intelligence in plants and non humans
The Wisdom of Crowds & prediction markets
Collective search and problem solving
Collective memory
Emergent organizational forms
The intelligence of markets and democracies
Technology and software that make groups smarter
Collective Intelligence in the new journalism
Crowd solutions to policy problems and crises

Conference Organizer: Scott E. Page, University of Michigan
Program Chairs: Deborah M. Gordon, Stanford University
Lada Adamic, Facebook

I grew up watching The Monkees on TV. Even when I was 8 or so (when I first watched them) I could tell that the carefree, enthusiastic attitude they seemed to have toward life was not going to be for me, and I was stupid enough to find Davey’s English accent utterly confusing (where did he get that accent from in California, I thought — I was equally befuddled when some character turned up in the Archers with an American accent, having lived in the US for 30 years). But I did love them, and even in my teens, when I my musical tastes were very much for the authentic and not-over-produced (I went, alone, to see Kevin Coyne live at the Marquee, for my 21st birthday, for example), I still enjoyed listening to them, and never blamed them for not being the Beatles, which seemed a pretty minor crime.

So when The Monkees DVDs first came out I bought both seasons, basically on a lark. The kids proceeded to watch them, over and over; and SW, the eldest’s friend, borrowed them for a year during which I suspect she did nothing except watch them. My middle kid is a particular fan, so last spring, when I noticed that the remaining three were performing in Milwaukee, I (with the help of SW) convinced the whole family to go together. A nice woman in Minneapolis who had gotten groupon tickets mistakenly thinking that the performance was there sold me her tickets over CraigsList, and seemed much more concerned about someone using the tickets than getting the money — when I couldn’t get Paypal to work, and given that there was some doubt that her groupons would actually transfer validly (they did), she told me to send her a check once I knew everything was in place. SW’s dad called to ask if he could come along. Which actually put the pressure on me, because he’s i) not a kid and ii) an accomplished and discerning musician. So I got another ticket at the regular price.

There was no opening act. The Monkees stage act combines musical performance (yes, they play their own instruments) with film — and opened with the backing band on stage watching archive footage of the boys auditioning for the TV show. Then, to the sound of Hey Hey…, and with the opening titles of the show up on the screen, three ancient men walked on stage. I had a moment — well more than a moment — of complete horror, thinking how annoyed my party was going to be at seeing three old men who should be in a home singing out of tune on stage. Tork, in particular, looked in a bad way, basically hobbling onto the stage. And they definitely seemed not up to much…. for about 2 minutes. Then, toward the end of the first song, some sort of transformation happened.

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