Welcome to the July QS Newsletter! Inside you’ll find photos, upcoming events, and other QS goodness including an interview with our awesome Seattle QS meetup organizer, David Reeves. We hope this helps you better understand what’s going on in the QS universe! {Alex & Ernesto} July QS Meetups July 4 – Munich QS Show&Tell meetup at Combinat 56 July 7…
Some people may be wondering how I find all the amazing people conducting neat self-tracking experiments and creating jaw-dropping personal data visualizations. Well, for the most part I just listen. I’m constantly paying attention to what’s being said on twitter about #QuantifiedSelf. When that doesn’t work I just use the power of Google to find…
Stefean Heeke wondered why only large companies were using “big data” and analytics, and then he decided to do something similar. In this talk Stefan describes a few different self-tracking and personal analytics projects that gave him unique insights into his own life. Not satisfied with only understanding and improving himself, he also applied his…
Lisa Betts-LaCroix has been tracking her weight off and on since 2000. In this Show & Tell talk at the recent Silicon Valley QS meetup Lisa details the trials and tribulations that go along with attempting to track her weight and other associated behavioral variables. From simple excel spreadsheets to using Google forms to finally…
There has been an exponential rise in the number of people talking and writing about Quantified Self. Some call it a movement, some call it “the next big thing.” In most, if not all cases, there is a an overwhelming emphasis on the role of technology. Be it new sensor systems, applications, or analytical tools,…
If you have diabetes, or know someone who does, you’ve probably encountered a blood glucose monitor. Like many medical devices, design and data visualization are usually an afterthought. While there are many new exciting products coming to market like the iBGStar designed by Agamatrix, there are individuals who want to learn more than just their…
Where are you? A pretty easy question to answer. But, what about, “Where was I?” Not so easy to answer, especially when we start talking about periods of time more than a few days or weeks. Sure, we all have GPS running on our phones now. We can check in with Foursquare/Facebook/Path etc. to keep…
This special guest post in our ongoing QS 101 series comes to us from Dan Gartenberg, our great QS-Washington DC meetup organizer, and his fellow graduate students in the Human Factors and Applied Cognition program at George Mason University. Turning Scientific Concerns into Strengths for Quantified Self Experimentation By Dan Gartenberg, Ewart de Visser, and…
As we wrap up a wonderful April we here at QS Labs wanted to create something to let you all know what’s going with Quantified Self. Thanks to some prompting from our wonderful worldwide meetup organizers we decided to create the QS Newsletter. Inside you’ll find a variety of…
There is something really magical about taking data and turning it into a compelling visual image. Even though I’ve already written a bit about the importance of making data visual, I am consistently amazed at how data can be made more appealing and informative by creating eye-popping graphics. Today we are devoting this NFATW post…
Today’s NFATW post comes from Martin Sona, a QS friend and organizer for the QS Aachen/Maastricht meetup group, who pointed out this fascinating project on the QS Facebook group. Dale Lane is a software developer for IBM living and working in Hampshire and he has been developing neat personal tools for his self tracking for the…
James Stout is a professional cyclist. He also has Type 1 Diabetes. In this Show & Tell, James explains how self-tracking has empowered him to understand himself and be a role model for others. Truly inspiring. (Filmed by the San Diego QS Show&Tell meetup group.) QS San Diego: James Stout – Diabetes, Exercise, and Quantified Self from Ernesto…
One day you decide to lead a data-driven life and naturally data collection seeps into the realm of health. Maybe you buy a Zeo to better understand your sleep patterns. Or maybe you decide to start tracking your blood pressure with one of the various new connected tools. Heck, maybe you’re just tracking your daily…
Data. Health. Communication. In our daily lives, we are keenly aware of the power of each of these individual concepts. However taken together, their influence on our wellbeing, to borrow a phrase from my friend Karen Herzog, “our wholeness”, is exponentially influential. So why do they seem to rarely coalesce during our conversations, discussions, and…
On Tuesday March 12, Nick Dawson asked if there was a Quantified Self Twitter Chat. Lots of interest followed so we decided to make it happen. We had the very first #qschat twitter chat last Thursday and it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot about what people are thinking and doing in the…
On March 8th, 2012 Stephen Wolfram opened the curtains and gave the world a glimpse of his own self-tracking and personal analytics practice. It was jaw-dropping. It was dense. It was beautiful. And, it might have shown us the future of what the Quantified Self could become. We were lucky enough to have Dr. Wolfram…
So here we are with post #4 in the QS 101 series. We’ve already talked about keeping it simple, using the SMART system, and using social support to help you in your self-tracking process. Today we’re going to talk about what to do once you’ve collected your data – make it visual. The Visual Cortex…
Karsten W. is on an amazing journey towards understanding his personal finances. Thankfully for us he’s been writing about his methods and what he’s learned along the way over at his blog: FactBased. Let’s dive in! Step 1. Track Karsten decided to use twitter to track his expenses and supplement that data with his normal bank…
Every day you interact with the web. You log on. You upload, you download. You tap and you click. You search, you “like”, you pin, and you retweeet. These actions make the web work for you, but they also make you work for the web. It should come as no surprise to even the casual…
