If you Google [relevance theory], you’ll discover this Wikipedia entry about a theory proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson arguing that, in any given communication situation, the listener will stop processing as soon as he or she has found meaning that fits his or her expectation of relevance. The Wikipedia entry offers the following example of [...]

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What a day! I’ve been excited about LinkedIn from the moment I joined — and for several years before that — but today has been a unique experience. I hope our celebration extends beyond LinkedIn’s employees and investors — this is a great day for Silicon Valley, for the data scientists who are building its [...]

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A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a summit that Greylock Partners organized for its portfolio companies at LinkedIn to discuss the power of data. Invited participants represented some of the most interesting “big data” companies in Silicon Valley, including Google, Facebook, Pandora, Cloudera, and Zynga. Discussion took place under the Chatham House Rule, [...]

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As regular readers know, I’ve been co-organizing annual workshops on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval since creating the first HCIR workshop in 2007. These have been a huge success, not only bridging the gap between IR and HCI, but also bringing together researchers and practitioners to address concerns shared by both communities. Past keynote speakers have included [...]

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