Today I received a wonderful piece of advice about promoting my research. Since I am an artist who has returned to academic work, someone suggested that I should… paint my scientific graphs as flowers. For a moment, I genuinely did not know what to say.

I have been thinking that I should also write about the economics of the art business. For the past ten years, I have worked as an artist—teaching, painting commissions, participating in shows, creating content, and trying different ways of turning creative work into a sustainable business.

Research Has a Terrible Definition of “Done.” 😄 I finished a paper. Then I found something that needed checking. While checking it, I found another question. At least the Chihuahuas have a much better system. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. No revisions required. 🐾📊

Today’s research lesson: I accidentally deleted an entire article chat because I thought the app was broken. The app was fine. The chat was not. Fortunately, the final files survived — so instead of losing the paper, I got an unexpected lesson in why research infrastructure matters.

My Research Team Keeps Expanding. 🦜📊 I thought 3 Chihuahuas were enough research assistants. Apparently not. I’m visiting a friend today, and within minutes I acquired two additional team members. Their quantitative skills remain unverified. Their interest in my work, however, is extremely high.

The biggest shift in working with AI is not learning to write better prompts. It’s learning to build a better workflow.

Apparently, the 1980s Are Having a Better Career Comeback Than Most of Us. 😄 I posted 80s-inspired look and was surprised by how much people liked it. Which made me think about something very simple:we spend a lot of time trying to predict what people will respond to. Observe first. Explain second.

My Most Reliable Research Assistant Has Four Legs 🐾📊 Independent research has many advantages. You choose the questions. You choose the data. You choose when to work. You also choose your research team. Mine currently includes three Chihuahuas. So far, I’d call the collaboration a success!😉💋

I Have a Data Problem. I Have Too Much of It. 📊 For years, I used social media completely wrong. I posted too much. Repeated myself. Tested tiny variations. Sometimes published the same idea again and again. Very bad creator behavior. Very interesting researcher behavior. 😄

The Economics of an Oatmeal Cookie 🍪 For three years, I posted essentially the same oatmeal cookies in a large Facebook cooking community. People baked them, changed the recipe, sent me photos — and eventually recognized me because of them. Funny, yes. But also an interesting economic question. 🍪📊

Social media platforms are not just communication tools. They are economic systems — allocating attention, shaping incentives, influencing consumer behavior, and creating markets around visibility. That makes platform economics one of the most interesting places to study modern economic behavior.

Digital behavior does not stay online. Platforms shape markets, opportunities, and real-world outcomes — which is exactly why they deserve serious economic research.

Repetition is often treated as noise. In platform research, it can be the signal. Repeated content and repeated behavior can reveal patterns that single observations miss.

Digital platforms create extraordinary amounts of behavioral data — but the real research challenge is not collecting more data. It is finding the right questions, proxies, and level of analysis. I’m interested in connecting micro-level platform behavior with economic effects.