Today’s breakout session preview for the upcoming QS conference is from Vahe Kassardjian of INM and Rafi Haladjian of Sen.se. Below they describe their session “Crossing the Data Desert:” — Some people base decisions on facts and data, while some people base them on other foundations or beliefs. Let’s immediately forget about this latter group. For the former group,…
This is a guest post by Patrick Burns, who is a PhD candidate in the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia. He is researching the use of technology to promote physical activity. His interests include ubiquitous and wearable computing and ambient displays. According to the World Health Organization…
I recently received an email from someone having trouble keeping up with her experiment. While there is lots of general advice about discipline and motivation, this got me thinking about how doing personal experiments might differ. Following are a few brief thoughts, but I’d love to hear ways that you keep motivated in your quantified…
Let’s admit it. People who do stuff are more interesting than those who don’t. Naturally we’re biased as Self-Quantifiers, but don’t you love running into folks at gatherings who have surprises and results to share about themselves, gained from experimentation and tasty data? It’s stimulating to hear about an insight (“I eat less when I’m…
From the New York QS Show&Tell group: Bethany Soule and Daniel Reeves talk about self-trickery that helped them get motivated to meet their long-term goals. They each pledged $2,000 one summer – they would lose this money if they didn’t daily follow their “yellow brick road” targets for everything from pushups to desserts to spending…
Nathan Yau over at Flowing Data started a fascinating discussion last week. He asked his readers why they collect data about themselves, what they’ve learned from it, or why they don’t collect any data at all. 23 people answered the call and shared their insights. There are many positive self-discovery comments like the stories we…
