The personal debt crisis that many Americans are facing is becoming unmanageable and life-changing. First, people lose sight of their total debt picture. They have no idea what their true debt is because all the information is decentralized and often difficult to access. Second, people begin to believe that paying off their debt is impossible. [...]
The concept of personal metrics, self-assessment, and data-driven lifestyles is clearly beneficial to individuals. Armed with data, people now have valuable information about their behavior that helps them make better decisions and change their habits and actions. Society is developing an always-on hunger for information about each other, but more interestingly, about themselves. This is [...]
Until now, we’ve thought about energy as ‘always on’ and little thought is applied to when we use energy and what the economic impact is. However, the economics of energy are changing. Utility companies are remodeling the way energy is distributed and priced. At the centre of this change is the Smart Grid. Building on [...]
I remember how fascinated I was the first time I read Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About The Bike. I was amazed to learn how much of a team effort the sport of professional cycling really is. I had no idea of the elaborate group effort that is required for one to win the Tour de [...]
Personal Metrics isn’t just about how we as individuals change our actions and habits based on data about our behavior. It is also about how brands use the data trails our behavior produces to help tailor their products and services to our needs and lifestyles. Freeband Communication is a Dutch national research program that is [...]
A serious health care crisis is the horizon. The aging population will soon be faced with a significantly understaffed medical system. To help deal with this shortage and increase access to preventative medicine, medical professionals are turning to technologies that can improve patient care. At the heart of this development is a concept called Ambient [...]
A generation exists that has never experienced life without the Internet. They are always connected, always communicating, and most important, always creating. Participation is a thing of the past. This generation is not passive. They are active creators who demand custom and personal experiences from the products and services they invite into their lives. The [...]
At some point in our lives, we’ve all had errors in judgment. We make decisions and act without truly identifying the problem, weighting the alternatives, and understanding the consequences. As a result, our lives are shaped by decisions made with only partial information and what feels right. This disadvantaged decision making is most prevalent in [...]
At the heart of Personal Metrics is the need for persuasion, whether aligning a new idea, adopting a new attitude, or modifying their behavior. BJ Fogg coined the idea of Captology, which is the study of computers and their use as persuasive technologies. As Founder & Director of the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, Fogg helps [...]
As technology continues to evolve, it is quickly moving “beyond the box”. Today, technology does not require us to be tethered to a traditional device. Shortly, nearly every device we interact with will have a digital sensor. This will allow for the activities in our lives to be monitored at levels that we’ve never imagined. [...]