While some people are using their data to help solve or, at least, alleviate seemingly intractable health issues, others are using their data to stave off issues before they occur. Daniel Rinehart talks about using sleep, happiness and biomarker data to keep himself in various “optimized zones” for his long-term health (filmed at the Boston…
At our Quantified Self conferences we focus our show&tell talks on personal, first person narratives of self-tracking and self-knowledge. But what if first person is actually two people instead of one? Well, that’s when things get interesting! At the upcoming Quantified Self Global Conference we are excited to have Dr. Rosane Oliveira talking about her…
We’ve covered weight tracking here many times. It’s a very popular topic, and one of the easiest ways to get started with self-tracking. In this insightful talk from Matthew Ames we learn how weight tracking, in conjunction with diet and activity tracking, positively impact his weight loss and improved his fitness. (filmed at the Boston…
If you’ve followed along here on the Quantified Self website or attended a meetup in your community you know that self-tracking isn’t limited to using gadgets or apps. Some of our most interesting talk come from individuals who are exploring their lives through the lens of personal data collection. That is, data that and methods…
John Schrom is a data scientist, graduate student, and avid self-tracker. After taking a look at his historical weight data he decided to dig a bit deeper into the story. Luckily, in addition to collecting his weight (via a Withings scale), he’s also been using Foursquare to collect his geolocation history. With these two data…
Ever since we started QS in 2008, the toolmakers, inventors, and entrepreneurs who create self-tracking instruments have been an active and essential part of our community. I know from working with many of them directly that they enjoy contributing and benefit a lot from our active and diverse community. We recently started a program to…
For about a year QS Labs has been working on a small scale project to learn how we can get more meaning out our personal data. The program involves small group discussions in which participants share data in advance, collaborate on visualization and analysis, and discuss the results. With a research grant from Intel, we’ve…
“Papa, what should I read?” Sometimes a simple question can lead someone down an interesting path towards self-tracking and understanding. In the case of Rajiv Mehta, his daughter’s interest in reading led him to start tracking his own reading behavior. In this wonderful talk, Rajiv walks us through his method for tracking his reading as…
We’ve showcased a few great talks from Steven Jonas, from his exploration on learning to how he became interested in tracking stress. In this insightful talk Steven walk us through his process for tracking and responding to his stress in realtime while at work. Low-level, seemingly mild stress still drains my energy, and many of…
In this wonderful talk from the Bay Area Quantified Self Show&Tell meeting, Ashish Mukharji, author of Run Barefoot, Run Healthy, describes doing three years of continuous happiness tracking, using a single number.
I’ve been organizing Quantified Self Meetup groups since 2011. After every meetup, another woman says something to me like: I wish we could talk about [ women’s specific health topic ]. I’d like to give a talk about [ … ] , but it doesn’t feel like it would fit in. My tracking isn’t quantitative enough…
As you’ve probably read here before, our Quantified Self Conferences are special events. We spend a lot of time hand crafting the program to make sure we enable the human-to-human connections that we value and love. At our last two Global Quantified Self Conferences hosted in the bay area we’ve had the opportunity to bring…
Data gave me power to talk about the issue. We highlight a lot of great show&tell talks here that focus on personal medical mysteries and understanding one’s own health. Well, this one really hit home for me. I’m a runner and I’m constantly battling minor injuries and recurring knee pain. It’s nothing terrible, but it’s…
Biomimicry is an interesting topic and one that we’ve started to see creep into our Quantified Self tools and visualizations. While recovering from surgery, Pete Denman, an interaction designer at Intel, became inspired to start to explore biomimicry as a way to show data. In this short Ignite talk from our 2013 European Conference, Pete talks about…
There is nothing quite like having to unexpectedly deal with your own mortality. Mark Leavitt experienced that “wake up call” when he spent Thanksgiving in 2007 at a cardiac cath lab. While he didn’t have a heart attack, he left with 3 stints and new outlook. He decided to take a hard look at his “comfortable life”…
Today we are happy to bring you another interview in our Toolmaker Talk series. We had the great pleasure of speaking with Sampo Karjalainen, the designer and founder of Moves. Over fifty percent of U.S. adults have a smartphone. That’s a lot of people walking around with a multi-sensored computer in their pockets. Moves is another example of…
Here at QS we’re big fans of spaced repetition. We’ve seen it presented at various meetups where people have used different systems to learn languages, understand world geography, or in the case of today’s subject, become one of the biggest winners on Jeopardy. Roger Craig has the distinct honor of not only being a wonderful…
