Official site of Dr. Joni Salminen

Rediscovering Digital Divide with GenAI

Published by Joni on May 2, 2024

With digital tools, we keep rediscovering the same truth, which is that they increase the productivity differences (performance) between people. Prolific people become more prolific and non-prolific become relatively worse off. Consider a simple example from the previous generation: ad platforms. Compare Copywriter A (mediocre) and Copywriter B (skilled). The skilled copywriter can draw huge performance gain compared to the…

Different personas representing AI attitudes

Published by Joni on April 9, 2024

Different personas representing AI attitudes: All these types have their own reasons and backgrounds for touting the message that they toute. I personally prefer the silent doers who are less vocal and therefore harder to find. I prefer them because learning from them helps me apply lessons to my job.

How to make PhD students graduate on time

Published by Joni on February 21, 2024

Wrote down some of my thoughts on this matter. This is a guide to educators (PDF, 6 pages): How to make PhD students graduate on time (UPDATE [June 14, 2024]: V3 now behind the link)

Lecture notes on artificial intelligence and machine learning in marketing

Published by Joni on December 21, 2023

Wrote lecture notes based on the course with the same name in the University of Vaasa. Download the lecture notes on AI and ML in marketing.

How to write up machine learning experiments? Here’s a process to follow

Published by Joni on October 28, 2023

It’s sometimes difficult, especially for newcomers, to understand all the steps of a machine learning (ML) analysis. Here’s a practical list of the items I’m myself considering when leading an ML research project. Our use of ML is applied; we do research related to social computing (also known as computational social sciences), marketing, analytics, and human-computer interaction (HCI). Overall, we’ve…

The Triangulated Attribution Model

Published by Joni on October 13, 2023

This is a practical, conceptually sound attribution framework we have been developing with Mr. Tommi Salenius who is the Head of E-commerce in a fast-growing international e-commerce company. The point is this: >90% of e-commerce companies (just an educated guess based on our experience) solely rely on analytics to attribute sales to channels and campaigns. Analytics can be based on…

All Forms of Analytics with Their Definitions

Published by Joni on October 12, 2023

DISCLAIMER: This post was produced in collaboration with AI (ChatGPT-4, September 2023 version). The content has been verified by a human subject matter expert for veracity and relevance and modified where appropriate. There are many forms of ‘analytics’, like ‘web analytics’, ‘digital analytics’, and ‘marketing analytics’. Are these different forms of analytics all the same or do they actually have…

Introduction to Quantitative Persona Research (Read These to Get a Foundational Understanding of Data-Driven Persona Research)

Published by Joni on October 11, 2023

Here’s a reading list I recommend to “newcomers” in quantitative persona research (e.g., Master’s students, PhD students) (see bolded parts for explanations for why you should read each paper). The list contains ten papers and is organized in themes. NOTE: There are *many more* impactful and important data-driven persona papers. Why I only included papers from our team in this…

AACO – Transferrable skills in digital marketing

Published by Joni on October 11, 2023

This post is inspired by the brilliant CRAP or CARE model by Mikko Piippo (this acronym is much poorer but have to start somewhere :). Transferrable skills are beneficial across different digital marketing roles, regardless of the specialization. Analytics The skill needed in every area of digital marketing, whether advertising, PPC, SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, conversion optimization, and so on.…

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