About Us
The Wharton Interactive Media Initiative is a data-driven research endeavor focused on interactive media, its effects on global businesses, and implications for traditional business models. Designed to capitalize on Wharton’s longstanding strength in conducting data-driven research, WIMI hopes to influence decision-making across several industries and will help companies understand how to monetize interactive data that they and others have collected. World-class researchers will collaborate with leading-edge businesses to ask and answer the critical questions.
The focus is not on “30,000 foot” perspectives or speculations about far-off future trends; instead the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative will passionately pursue relevant, well-validated, data-driven research that will drive winning business strategies for years to come. Furthermore, as interactive media are already shrinking the globe in a dramatic manner, the Initiative will maintain a global orientation in identifying and addressing these research questions.
The Wharton Interactive Media Initiative:
• Brings a passionate data-driven perspective to media businesses -- i.e., content distribution and information acquisition -- in a way that no other business school in the world can match.
• Distinguishes itself with a tight focus on the interaction between content provider and user, capitalizing on the wealth of individual-level data that are exploding at the crossroads of commerce, technology, and entertainment.
• Is dedicated to bringing world-class research rigor to better understand these complex interactions in order to drive new business strategies and tactics that will reshape the media landscape.
The full Executive Summary is available here.
Leadership
Wharton Professors Eric Bradlow and Peter Fader are spearheading this initiative along with Managing Director Steve Ennen. The Initiative will focus on knowledge creation and dissemination, industry collaboration, new courses and other student-related activities, along with alumni networking opportunities. Several key components of WIMI include: a conference on Modeling Social Network Data, taking place January 28-29, 2009; a joint call for proposals, with the Marketing Science Institute, for the study of user-generated content; job placement assistance for students and alumni; and the creation of an advisory board and executive board to encourage participation from alumni and leading-edge companies.
The Wharton Interactive Media Initiative was launched with the support of a $1 million gift from alumnus Arthur H. Bilger and his wife, Dahlia. Mr. Bilger is a member of the Wharton School’s Board of Overseers and a Managing Member of Shelter Capital Partners, LLC, a Southern California-based private investment fund.
Contact
For more information on WIMI, contact Steve Ennen, Managing Director, ennen@wharton.upenn.edu