Upcoming Events

February 17, 2010

Please join Lithium Technologies for a live webcast held Wednesday, February 17 at 9AM PT. Professor Barak Libai of the MIT Sloan School and the Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business in Tel Aviv will join Lithium's Principal Scientist for Analytics, Michael Wu, for a revealing discussion about recent findings from rich data on word of mouth interactions.

This 60-minute webcast will cover:

• First-mover Advantage: How establishing a customer community swiftly earns you significant competitive advantage within your industry
• The Power of Influencers: Why superusers you recruit and recognize within your branded customer community increases the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing programs by as much as 50 percent
• Sales Acceleration with High ROI: Which mechanisms maximize your returns in the form of qualified leads and sales from your interactive web investments

The two speakers, Professor Barak Libai and Lithium's chief scientist, Michael Wu, will share their findings from their recent research collaboration with Eitan Muller, of New York University's Stern School of Business and the Recanati School; and Renana Peres, of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Their research quantifies the impact of customer networks on word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. Sanjay Dholakia, Chief Marketing Officer at Lithium Technologies, will moderate the discussion.

Speaker Information:

Barak Libai – Assoc. Professor of Marketing -  Recanati Graduate School of Business, Tel Aviv University

Barak Libai, also a Visiting Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management from 2006-2008, researches the economic value of customers’ word of mouth. Relevant questions he examines include how customer lifetime value is different when word of mouth is taken into account, what the ROI of word of mouth programs is, and how advertising effectiveness measurement should take social effects into account.  His current work centers on integrating social network data with agent-based models to explore the social value of customers. His research on the economic consequences of customers' word of mouth have won prizes from the Journal of Service Research, The Marketing Science Institute, The American Marketing Association, the International Journal of Research in Marketing, and ESOMAR. He teaches executive and MBA courses and  consults on areas related to word of mouth marketing, customer relationship management, and branding. Prof. Libai is on the academic advisory board of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

Michael Wu - Principal Scientist of Analytics - Lithium Technologies

Michael received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's Biophysics graduate program. His graduate research focuses on modeling the human brain, specifically the visual cortex, with techniques from math, statistics, and machine learning. Michael has been a DOE (US Dept. of Energy) fellow during his graduate career and was awarded four years of full fellowship plus stipend under the Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. During his fellowship tenure, he has also served at the Los Alamos National Lab, conducting cutting edge research in machine learning and face recognition. Currently, Michael is applying similar data-driven methodologies to investigate and understand the complex dynamics within online communities. Prior to his graduate research, Michael received his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley triple majoring in Applied Math, Physics, and Molecular & Cell Biology.

Sanjay Dholakia – Chief Marketing Officer – Lithium Technologies

As Chief Marketing Officer at Lithium Technologies, Sanjay is responsible for driving Lithium's vision, go-to-market strategy, and customer acquisition programs. Sanjay joins Lithium from SumTotal Systems, where he was instrumental in advancing the company's market leadership in the learning and talent management industries. During his tenure, the company grew over tenfold and became the clear leader in its market, with a relentless focus on customer solutions and success. He served most recently as Senior VP and General Manager, of SumTotal's Learning and Talent Management Business Unit, driving the company's vision, strategy, and go-to-market activities across all channels, while maintaining responsibilities in M&A, corporate strategy, and emerging business lines at the company, which he held in his previous position as Senior VP of Marketing & Alliances. Before joining SumTotal, Sanjay served as Director of Business Development and acting COO for a portfolio company within Walker Digital. He also served as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and Andersen Consulting, advising Global 500 companies from a broad range of industries.

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