The Lean, Agile Quantified Self
Self-tracking and personal science has always fascinated me, from trying one of the early heart rate monitors 20 years ago to separately plotting lean and fat body weight changes (my team developed the LeanScale app), to measuring my brainwaves at night with Zeo.
I’m blown away and humbled by the collective intelligence and spirit of adventure and curiosity in every single participant and presenter at the first Quantified Self Conference today. In the afternoon I’ll be co-presenting a short talk entitled Agile Self Development, on borrowing ideas from Lean Startup and Agile Software Development for optimizing personal development, experimentation and productivity.
Seth Roberts suggested in his opening plenary that professional science is stagnating, while personal science is about to revolutionize the advancement of knowledge and human health, productivity and happiness. Hooray for progress!
Startup Lessons from NASA (and pictures of Discovery’s last flight, STS-133)
Shuttle Discovery on pad 39a, night before her final launch
My visits to NASA for this launch were an amazing experience, but I also noticed a valuable lesson for company founders and leaders.
Innovation and reliability sometimes compete, but they matter differently to each of the things you do. At any stage and any size, your company can be more nimble and accepting of failure where needed, and more risk averse where needed. The trick is knowing the difference and taking advantage, rather than succumbing to the temptation to always favor one over the other.
Perhaps a more interesting way to look at it might be that we’re always engineering a reduction in different kinds of risks. Focus on the right one to reduce for each problem, and we can meet our most important and appropriate goals. Beware the temptation to manage the wrong risks.
More about the lesson and the launch, with a few of the snapshots I took on this trip (all are unedited/uncropped from my point-and-shoot Canon sx30is), after the break… Read more
How I Enabled New Facebook Comments for WordPress (March 2, 2011)
After trying out Facebook comments on Techcrunch and reading a few people’s thoughts on them, I decided to try them here on my blog.
I think it will result in more discussion and views as they post both here and on folk’s Facebook walls. It’s really cool to see a comment show up in both places.
If it goes well, I’ll look into hiding or disabling Disqus (or better yet, Disqus and Facebook will come to some agreement that lets them integrate and pull in Twitter as a login option).
The plugin I used is at http://grahamswan.com/facebook-comments/ and includes clear instructions for how to install (including setting up a Facebook application key). (I also PayPal’d the author a quick donation.)
What do you think?
Win dinner with Fail Whale creator and Walls360.com co-founder Yiying Lu
We thought it’d be fun to have dinner tomorrow night at home before we head off to the iPad art show Future Canvas. Yiying thought it’d be great to have a couple of old or new friends join us, and we figured: What better way to figure out who’s coming to dinner than Twitter?
We’ll select the two best blog comments and/or Tweets to @dalelarson telling us why you’d make a great guest in our home for dinner on Saturday, December 4 with myself, Walls360 co-founders Yiying Lu and John Doffing (visiting from Sydney and Philadelphia, respectively). Make sure you have an email or Twitter handle that I can DM associated with your account to notify the winners. Details to be nailed down, but we’ll probably let you know by 3pm for a home cooked dinner around 5:30 in San Francisco…
(UPDATE: So far we’re also being joined by Harry McCracken of Technologizer.com and Time magazine, Marie Domingo of StageTwo.com, and Krystyl Baldwin of HootSuite. Still room for a couple more to make a table of 12)
Canon SX30is thoughts and 5 Best Photos from NASA KSC and Shuttle Discovery STS-133
First the images, then the review. Oh, and a little contest: Can you guess what and where each of these shots are? (Click each for larger image, post your answers to the comments.)
I ordered a Canon SX30IS 14.1MP Digital Camera with 35x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
I knew to expect amazing access through the #NASATweetup, including the press area (as close as you can get for a launch, but still three miles away), at the launch pad, and inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. Not to mention briefings by Astronauts, engineers and managers, and meeting Robonaut 2. Thanks so much to NASA (in particular @NASATweetup and @NASA) for your wonderful hospitality and amazing opportunity to learn and see so much these past five days! Still looking forward to viewing the (delayed) launch from the press area!
So how well has the Canon meet my needs for these conditions so far? Read more
Trouble for Social and Location Networks means Opportunity for new Startups
Mark Zuckerberg already admitted that lack of context is the biggest problem Facebook sees in the future of Social Networking. The real solution will probably have to be revolutionary rather than evolutionary. There’s a huge opportunity, one more likely to be filled by a new startup than by existing players.
It’s not just me who thinks so, I’ve been seeing a crop of smart posts the last few days that all seem to be contemplating related issues. Read more
Who can build your iPhone app?
Last night my friend Doc Pop asked me for a recommendation of who could build an iPhone app for his performance and art. Doc is a force of nature: he blogs, is a nerd core rapper (who is releasing a new album of all-iPhone music), a world-champion yo-yo’er, comic creator, and does other arts and crafts in addition to his day job as an iPhone game designer. So of course he should have his own app.
We were at a party, so I didn’t have time to find out more about what he had in mind before giving him the general answer of what anyone in his position needs to hear… Read more
Dear Foursquare: You just don’t understand my feelings anymore
Dear Foursquare.com:
When we met, it felt like you really cared about me and my feelings. You used to help me stay better connected to people. Now you only connect me to places in a mindless game.
What was once an interesting and useful relationship has become an irrelevant distraction. I’m taking you off my iPhone’s shortcuts dock for now, but I hope this note might help you change in ways that make you relevant in my life again. I’m going to take a break from our friendship for a while rather than unfriending other people… Read more
Canon SX30IS: test shots of the Blue Angels at Fleet Week San Francisco 2010
Canon’s latest point-and-shoot just became available this week: the SX30IS has an amazing 35x optical image stabilized zoom. It’s a bit of a lens on steroids with a camera attached. I tried one out for the first time this afternoon during the Blue Angels show. They finished flying two hours ago… Read more
What comes after The Social Network?
Leaving the theater, I wanted more.
While hardly an insider, I’ve been to Facebook’s offices a couple of times over the years, and I’ve met some of the people from the film in person. I wanted to know what other people, closer to it, had said about film, Facebook, and what comes next… Read more
About Dale
Executive Coach to Entrepreneurs.
Prior to becoming a consultant, advisor and now a coach, I'd been a CEO, a software engineer, a rocket scientist, book publisher, editor and author, a personal trainer, helped build a couple of mobile and Internet marketing agencies. Yeah, I was also the guy at the front of the iPhone line; all four times. iPad, too.
I mostly write about startups, marketing, business, and technology (especially mobile, social and web), and sometimes about other interests such as travel and health.