A good night out

Condliffe Memorial Lecture 2009

Profosser Hal R. Varian

Evolutionary Business - The Effect of Computer-Mediated Transactions

Date: Wednesday 18 March
Time: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Location: Central Lecture Block, C3 - University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

From clay tokens in 3000 BC, to cash registers in the 1800's and to today’s Internet, transformative technologies have enabled companies to optimize business processes. But the Internet does more than just provide an online storefront for selling. Computer technology is revolutionising processes across the board from product development to logistics. Professor Varian will explain how computer-mediated transactions continue to transform business practices.

Professor Varian joined Google in 2002 in a consultancy role and has been involved in many aspects of the company since that time, including auction design, econometric analysis, finance, corporate strategy and public policy. Professor Varian holds academic appointments at the University of California, Berkeley, in three departments: business, economics, and information management. He received his SB degree from MIT in 1969, and his MA in mathematics and PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 1973. He has also taught at MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan and a number of other universities. Professor Varian is a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has published numerous papers in economic theory, industrial organisation, financial economics, econometrics and information economics. He is the author of two major economics textbooks which have been translated into 22 languages and is the co-author of a bestselling book on business strategy, "Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy" and from 2000-2007 wrote a monthly column for the New York Times.