Quantified Self: Changing Behavior Using Data

#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:
Giving people analytics of their daily activities can help change their behavior.

A More Detailed Exploration:
After hearing Naveen Selvaduria from Foursquare present this past weekend, I learned how his company is built upon two big ideas: game mechanics and quantified self. While I knew about the former from hearing his co-founder, Dennis Crowley, speak at prior conferences, this was the first time I had learned of the former’s role.

What is “quantified self” and why does it matter? Great question.

The most succinct definition can be found at quantifiedself.com, which has the tagline of “self knowledge through numbers” and serves as rallying point for likeminded Meetup groups from around the word. Those in the QS movement are using data collected thru various devices to give them data sets to analyze and adjust their behaviors.

A mainstream example is Nike Plus, which helps runners track their training, have friendly competitions with others and seek to improve their performance. Another interesting mainstream us is Toyota’s A Glass of Water iPhone app, which helps coach drivers to adopt more fuel efficient driving habits. Combining the iPhone’s GPS, timer and gyroscopes, the app simulates having a glass of water on your dashboard and measures how much “water” falls out because of quick acceleration/deceleration and other fuel hog behaviors.

As you can see when searching the term on Wikipedia, the quantified self concept stems partially from lifeloggers – people who use computers to capture their entire lives. While that might have been really odd sounding 5-10 years ago, now that we’re able to carry devices in our pockets that have substantial computing power, video and audio inputs, GPS location and other sensors, you can begin to track all types of behavior with little or no effort.

Quantified self matters because organizations and individuals have previously unheard of ability to track individual and collective data, increasingly more sophisticated ways to analyze and illustrate data trends, and greater connectivity with other likeminded people and organizations.

What do you want to measure and how can you use this data and analysis to change others’ behavior in a way that solves the social problem you’re seeking to address?