Wearable Tech, Quantified Self & Really Personal Data: eMetrics 2014

This week I had the pleasure of speaking at eMetrics Boston about a recent pet project of mine: what wearable and fitness technology (including consumer collection and use of data) means for analysts, marketers and privacy.

First, a little background… In April 2013, I was having a lot of trouble with sleep, so I purchased Jawbone UP to better understand how I was sleeping, and make improvements. This quickly became an exploration of the world of fitness and related wearable tech, as I explored my data, via devices and apps like Fitbit Force, Garmin Vivosmart, Whistle, Withings, Runkeeper, Strava, Map My Fitness, My Fitness Pal and Tom Tom Multisport. I leveraged IFTTT to connect this data, output raw data and even link to devices like Nest.

In the course of doing so, I noticed some striking similarities between the practice of “self quantification” and the practice of digital analytics, and started to think about 1) What opportunities these devices afford to marketers and 2) What the considerations and cautions we should be aware of, from a privacy perspective.

You can check out the presentation on Prezi if you are interested.

I would love to hear any thoughts, questions, or your own experiences in the comments!