Renee Richardson Gosline

How does one become an effective leader in a diverse world? Inspiring people from various groups is not merely a “diversity” issue; it is a key factor for innovation. Renée Richardson Gosline, Ph.D., leads groups through a science-based and actionable session on inclusive leadership for optimal performance. She begins with unpacking cognitive associations and heuristics — the subconscious mental shortcuts that shape everyone’s judgments. On one hand, labels and their associations allow us to make more efficient decisions in the “blink of an eye,” serving as rules of thumb in the face of limited information and overwhelming options. However, these cognitive shortcuts and associations are also subject to biases, says Gosline, of which even the most “rational” leaders must beware. In this presentation, Gosline will apply her background in social science to the goals of inclusiveness in leadership, identifying strategies that can help leaders make authentic connections with varied audiences to spur innovation. She helps audiences explore how each of us can take a mindful approach to advancing the type of community that empowers everyone to fulfill his or her potential. Gosline will use principles from behavioral science and discuss cases from social media, politics and business. She will help us toward a better understanding of how the decisions we make as leaders are affected by labels and their associations, and how that understanding can make leaders more effective in building inclusive environments and maximizing performance.

The average person makes tens of thousands of choices per day. In light of such an overwhelming decision-making burden, how can we create a customer journey that improves purchasing outcomes and the customer experience? In this highly interactive session, MIT senior lecturer Renée Richardson Gosline, Ph.D., shows participants how to remove obstacles from a shopper’s path while preserving agency, especially when their cognitive load is at an all-time high, such as during a pandemic. Taking a human-centered approach to CX, Gosline teaches executives how to deconstruct the customer journey – a chain of behavioral choices influenced by psychological factors – and re-construct it through “nudges,” targeted experiments, data activation, and team culture shifts. In situations where clear product benefits don’t convert into action, she explains how to reduce complexity and guide users toward overlooked product and brand value. According to Gosline, better CX can be accomplished by creating a “best-of-both-worlds” approach that is at once heavily data-driven and keenly aware of human emotions. With equal weight given to behavioral economics theory, experience-mapping and discussions of strategy, Gosline helps companies architect customer experiences that are not only meaningful, but delightful.

In today’s highly competitive business environment, organizations must continually generate new ideas that disrupt their industries. In this presentation, MIT senior lecturer Renée Richardson Gosline, Ph.D., teaches leaders and teams how to design a culture of innovation by leveraging AI and behavioral science principles. Pointing to the value of digital transformation and field experiments, Gosline reveals how to bridge the knowledge gap and apply data to what you already know using strategic experiments. With an arsenal of proven methods, such as human-centered AI, psychological safety and viewing the customer as a co-creator of value, Gosline shows participants how they can successfully develop innovations that lead to big rewards.

With the advent of large language models (LLMs) and widespread access to generative “AI,” many firms are exploring human-AI collaborations and their potential to make content creation more efficient. These “human in the loop” (HITL) systems could also help address concerns about the potential unmitigated proliferation of inaccuracy and bias in frictionless applications of AI. Many are asking how we can leverage the efficiency benefits of generative AI while creating safeguards for human use. In this talk, Renée Richardson Gosline, Ph.D., head of Human-First AI research group at MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, will discuss some of her latest experiments. Participants will explore emergent insights and a framework for approaching friction in HITL systems – identifying when it is harmful and when it is beneficial – to increase efficiency and mitigate inaccuracy.

Today’s digitally native startups are deeply rooted in rich data, driven by breakthrough technologies that are solving problems in business and society. But data on its own doesn’t make a brand. And tech-minded, data-oriented entrepreneurs often aren’t modern marketing and branding experts. Renée Richardson Gosline, Ph.D., is. Gosline, who teaches MIT’s brand strategy course (popular with current and aspiring entrepreneurs), introduces startups to the fundamentals of branding, and prepares them to build and protect their brands. In this session, Gosline takes a more scientific – but actionable – approach to consumer behavior in order to understand how “rational” consumers can make surprising purchase decisions. She discusses purchase heuristics and ideas for collecting actionable data via field-based experiments. She also lays a foundation of classic and essential marketing principles, including competitive positioning, creative briefs, design thinking, and multi-methods for developing science-based consumer insights and personae. Additionally, she tackles some of the strategic issues that affect brands at various stages of the “life course,” including challenges that come with success (e.g., imitation, second-mover advantage, etc.). Brand is an invaluable asset for every company, big and small, established and emerging. This presentation will provide the essential tools and ground rules for establishing a brand strategy that will convince investors you’re worth betting on.

Digital technology has revolutionized the way humans behave and make decisions. What do these shifts mean for customer experience (CX) and competitive strategy? Renée Richardson Gosline, Ph.D., uniquely applies both behavioral science “nudges” and a data analytical lens to help you develop breakthrough digital CX. She simplifies complex, new and still-emerging topics and tools in ways that are immediately relevant and actionable for CEOs, CXOs, CIOs, CMOs, Data Scientists, and their teams. Grounded in scientific research and practical experience that bridges the gaps between classic approaches and modern marketing CX strategies, Gosline shows participants how to:

• create an organizational culture that embraces digital transformation and field experiments
• increase adoption of new ideas among leadership and teams
• design a customer experience strategy that is the best of both worlds—data driven but also keenly aware of the human element

Whether you are part of new company leveraging the latest technologies, or a legacy organization feeling the pressures of digital transformation, this session will leave you with a varied set of actionable tools to help you and your team enhance the digital customer experience your company provides.