As part of the School of Management’s Professional Enrichment Program, Assistant Professor of Marketing Dr. Colleen Kirk took students to tour the Time Warner Medialab last month. According to their website the Medialab “will provide insight into how consumers engage with content and enable ‘hands-on’ testing with the latest devices and distribution platforms” (“History” Time Warner Medialab).

During the tour, one of the staff members from the lab took the students to different rooms and explained their function. Currently, most of the rooms are used for focus groups and for testing products. The Medialab also has the latest Virtual Reality devices for testing, and a small size theater for internal conferences and external visitors.

Yichen (Kris) Huang, an M.B.A. student and president of the NYIT Chinese Business Student Association, went on the tour. He states, “One thing that impressed me the most was that they have a room where a group of people sit on the couch and watch the designated TV show. The high speed cameras in the room start to work and the people’s facial expressions will be recorded and analyzed by the computer program which can capture emotional changes.” Additionally, “As an international student, I was quite impressed that Time Warner put a Medialab in the center of Manhattan, which is a very high opportunity cost for the company. However, I believe that it will pay off because people pay attention to the development of new technology, which is what makes this country one of the top countries in the world.”

Another student, Chen Wu, who is currently an undergraduate with a concentration in International Business, states, “I was a really great field trip especially for business students. I never knew the high-tech processes of marketing research. It helped me to realize that a job in this field could be interesting and valuable.”

By Konstance Teleisha