Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland

Selected Recent Press

Collective Intelligence &

Sense Networks

Honest Signals

Honest Signals (video)

Reality Mining

Reality Mining (video)

Entrepreneurship

Selected Recent Papers

Automatic Mapping and Modeling of Human Networks

Thin Slices of Negotiation

Socially Aware Communication

Reality Mining Class Projects

CommConnect

HealthCare

Selected Recent Theses

Toward a Social Signaling Framework

Influence Modeling of Complex Stochastic Processes

Distribution of Ideas, Practices, and Artifacts

What if you could see yourself as others see you? What if you could have a “gods eye” view of how the people in your social network interact? Or `see’ the rhythms of interaction for everyone in your town? Reality Mining, described by MIT's Technology Review magazine (2/08) as `a technology poised to change the world,' is beginning to make this possible.

We are in the midst of an explosion of information about people and their behavior, but most of it is noise. Reality Mining sifts through this noise to discover the `honest signals’ hidden within: subtle patterns that reliably reveal our relationships with other people, and accurately predict our future behavior. Honest signals are the true measures of our selves and our society, beginning with our mental functioning and extending to our cultural rhythms, and offer an unmatched window into our financial, cultural, and organizational health. By understanding these subtle patterns we can better understand ourselves, and begin to create true collective intelligences, as described in my forthcoming book `Honest Signals,' published by MIT Press.
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Professor Alex (“Sandy”) Pentland is a pioneer in organizational engineering, mobile information systems, and computational social science. Sandy's focus is the development of human-centered technology, and the creation of ventures that take this technology into the real world.

He directs the Digital Life Consortium, a group of more than twenty multinational corporations exploring new ways to innovate, and oversees the Next Billion Network, established to support aspiring entrepreneurs in emerging markets, and the EPROM entrepreneurship program in Africa. He is among the most-cited computer scientists in the world, and in 1997 Newsweek magazine named him one of the 100 Americans likely to shape this century.

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