M.I.T.'s Alex Pentland: Measuring Idea Flows to Accelerate Innovation - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com

For a reality mining reality check, see The Limits of Social Engineering (Nicholas Carr in MIT Technology Review)

"Reality mining, for example, examines the data about what people are actually doing rather than what they are looking for or saying. Tracking a person’s movements during the day via smartphone GPS signals and credit-card transactions, he argues, are far more significant than a person’s web-browsing habits or social media comments.

But Mr. Pentland argues that even the less valuable information in current flood of personal data could help open the door to what he calls “social physics.” That topic is the subject of his new book, “Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread — The Lesson From a New Science.”"

M.I.T.'s Alex Pentland: Measuring Idea Flows to Accelerate Innovation - NYTimes.com - NYTimes.com