When Data Gets Up Close and Personal

HOW AM I DOING?
WHEN DATA GETS UP
CLOSE AND PERSONAL
STEPHEN P. ANDERSON

STEPHEN P.
ANDERSON
poetpainter.com

I help businesses with
@stephenanderson
‘Product Strategy
& Design’ needs

How can we use { } to... [goal]

www.getmentalnotes.com


Social Proof Curiosity
We tend to follow the patterns of similar others When teased with a small bit of interesting
in new or unfamiliar situations. information, people will want to know more!

How can we use { } to... [goal]
To put people at ease or guide a decision, ﬁnd creative When—and what—can you hold back? Reveal just enough
ways to show social activity. This can be in the form of stats to arouse interest, then tease someone into taking the next
(favorited by, number of views, comments), good positive step. You can also arouse interest by doing something unusual
reviews/ testimonials, or by providing visibility into the actions and unexpected—people will stick around long enough to
or outcomes of other users’ behaviors. determine what’s going on. Similarly, puzzles are intriguing.

See also: Bystander Effect, Testimonials, Identiﬁcation See also: Pattern Recognition, Badges, Gifting

Mental Notes Sneak Preview | Find out more at www.getmentalnotes.com


3 Quick Stories
(the origins of this presentation)

“feedback loops that affect behavior”

www.afterthemeeting.com

www.goalsmashers.com

1. “TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
2. “SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
3. “ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”
4. “RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
5. “FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
6. “INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
7. “SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”
8. “JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
9. “MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
10. “CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.”
11. “TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”
12. “CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of
your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
13. “HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

2008 Personal annual report for Stephen Anderson
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Austin Miami San Francisco Seattle Mountain View New York Franklin Minneapolis
Mar 07 to Mar 11 Apr 10 to Apr 14 Apr 20 to Apr 22 Aug 21 to Aug 23 September 24 Sep 24 to Sep 26 Nov 06 to Nov 09 Dec 09 to Dec 11

You took 17 trips in 2008, which added In 2008, you spent
up to 55,753 km or 15% of the
distance to the moon.
323 43
In 2008, you mostly coincided with:
You have 52 travellers in your network. They travelled a
total of 1,753,265 km in 2008, and everyone on Dopplr
Kevin travelled a total of 1331.4 million km or 8.9 AU in 2008:
the approximate distance to Saturn from the Earth as
in Austin, Miami and San Francisco
of January 2009.
Peter
Your personal velocity for 2008 was 6.36
in Austin, Miami and Berkeley km/h, which is about the same as a duck. You spent the longest in Minneapolis, Jesse Spalding Your carbon for 2008
has a tip:
Jay Lots of great farmer's markets in the summer!
The 5 most popular cities in your network are San
in Minneapolis Minneapolis Farmer's Market on Lyndale Ave and
Francisco, Austin, New York, Miami and Chicago.
Cesar Chavez Ave or Nicollet Mall
Chris http://www.mplsfarmersmarket.com/
in Miami and San Francisco Mill City Farmer's Market on Chicago Ave and 2nd St.
The furthest distance you travelled was to New York S
Brandon (4,120 km from Mountain View), which is the 2nd most ...
popular city on Dopplr. The shortest distance you 6,606 kg CO2
in Miami and San Francisco travelled was to Austin (322 km from Plano), which is See more on the city page for Minneapolis on Dopplr. Based on figures from Fueleconomy.gov, 1 x Hummer
the 21st most popular city on Dopplr. H3 4WD truck produces nearly 10 metric tonnes of
CO2 a year. The visualisation above uses this figure to
illustrate your carbon from Dopplr as calculated by our
friends at http://amee.cc and is an approximation only.

The city images above sourced from Flickr and are used under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence: by pusgums, brickell by alexdecarvalho, Passing Under The Golden Gate Bridge by Dawn Endico, Seattle, Washington by fddi1, Apple I keyboard by Marcin
Wichary, smokin by mudpig and Spoonbridge and Cherry by TimWilson.

(not new, but accelerating and spreading)

I think the Wii Fit represents a much
more fundamental shift....

http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/06/what-actitivies-that-can-be-turned-into.html

We've had other exercise equipment around the
house before, as well as gym memberships, yoga
classes, etc. None of them has been as
motivating as a simple set of exercises wrapped
in a system of game-like rewards. My wife's
experience with Wii Fit speaks volumes about
games potential to turn an often mundane
activity into entertainment that is delightful,
exploratory and highly meaningful.


We've had other exercise equipment around the
house before, as well as gym memberships, yoga
classes, etc. None of them has been as
Could as simple
motivating o bset of rue ofwrapped
this aals e texercises
in a systemapgame-likens?
of plicatio rewards. My wife's
business with Wii Fit speaks volumes about
experience
games potential to turn an often mundane
activity into entertainment that is delightful,
exploratory and highly meaningful.


Performance Reviews
Hiring & Recruiting Tools
Time Tracking
Invoices
Health Records Corporate Email Scheduling Apps

Project Management Software

Investment Tools
Sales Tracking

Online Training / E-Learning

Banking & Accounting Tools Marketing Managemen

Knowledge Sharing
File Manageme
Customer Relationship Management

“I can do what’s
Hiring & Recruiting Tools
Performance Reviews
Time Tracking
required ofices
Invo me.”
Health Records Corporate Email Scheduling Apps

Project Management Software

Investment Tools
Sales Tracking
“Wow, Training / E-Leara ng
Online
I’m having ni
great time, and getting
Banking & Accounting Tools
better every day!”
Marketing Managemen

Knowledge Sharing
File Manageme
Customer Relationship Management

Email + Feedback Loops?
(a process)

Further reading...

http://johnnyholland.org/2010/01/27/when-data-gets-up-close-and-personal/

(sheet of paper + something to write with)

What are you working
on, right now?

What are some of the
business goals associated
with your project?

What do people have to do
in order for your business to
be successful?

brilliant question from Joshua Porter | bokardo.com

behaviors
be successful?


behaviors
be successful?

business goals


1a.
Identify speciﬁc business
goals

1a.
Identify speciﬁc business
goals
1b.
Identify speciﬁc pattern
s
of behavior to encoura
ge
(or discourage)

Business goals
(Problems to be solved)

I’m lousy at responding to emails in a timely fashion,
important emails often fall through the cracks,
I sign up for email lists I intend to read but never do,
sifting through the avalanche of emails is only getting worse
I’d like email to be fun, and not feel like a burden and...
I suspect these are a universal problems, right!!?

Behaviors to encourage:

Never open an email twice
Read emails in the order they were received
Answer brieﬂy
Respond in a timely manner
Only check email twice a day (or once an hour)
...and so on

2.
Translate desired patterns
of behavior into data that
can be passively tracked
and measured

-lots of explicit data already

-avoid “asking” for new data

-...also look for implicit data
(when, where, how long, character length, etc.)

3.
Attach points to
these behaviors

+10 points for taking action!
Never open an email twice 0 for opening an email a second time.
-5 for opening it a 3rd time. (And so on)

Read emails in the order Dealing with an email in the order it
is received will get you +5 points.
they were received Skipping it will get you nothing.

You could set personal goals for this behavior.
Answer brieﬂy 10 points for keeping it under 5 sentences. -1
point for every sentence over 5.

Respond within ‘x’ hours Responding within 48 hours gets you +15 points.

Meh. For this email, you only got 25 out of 40 possible points.

“Motivating consumer behavior through game mechanics”

points
levels
scoreboards
achievements
badges
assignments

human psychology
“Motivating consumer behavior through game mechanics”
appropriate challenges
points variable rewards
levels
scoreboards pattern recognition
achievements curiosity
badges reputation & identity
assignments
social proof
surprise
status
feedback loops
etc.

4.
Translate points into a
periodic score and other
useful information

F inal Score

73%
YO U R A F T E R T H E M E E T I N G S C O R E :

By completing the 3 outstanding commitments (2 of which
* are overdue!), you can raise this score to 92%.
A perfect score is not possible for this meeting due to several
slow responses. Try to work on this in the future.

D E L I V E RY:

T H I S S C O R E I S A FA C T O R O F :

– decisions made
– commitments made (and kept)
– commitments completed as promised
– timely responses to all requests

Commitments agreed to be completed
after today’s date do not count against
the group score.


5.
Display the score
in a fun way

Ford and Honda's next-gen instrument clusters feature
trees (a vine in Ford's case) that grow more lush as
drivers learn to hypermile — the ﬁne art of maximizing
fuel economy.

After just a couple days of using
Fitbit, I got hooked on the idea of
keeping digital tabs on myself, and I
liked looking back at my activity log
over a period of time. I started taking
the long way walking to and from
my Washington, D.C., Metro stop.
Rather than rolling my chair over to
the printer to grab a printout, I stood
up and walked the four feet over to it
so I could log a few extra steps.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513582518301794.html

...monitoring the bloom
was the gentle nudge
[Andrew Chen] needed to
stay on track.
“It’s a nice reminder to be
more active without being
too numeric or cold...”

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/ﬁtbits-motivator-a-virtual-ﬂower/

The little flower growing represents
anticipation and hope that something good
will happen, which is the flower growing...
When you push that button and see the
change, it's instant feedback, a reward.
Even though the device seems simple, it's
tapping into a complex psychology that
changes people's behavior... It hits the right
button.
These kinds of feedback systems tap into
basic human nature... Most humans are
naturally wired to nurture things and be
rewarded for doing so...

http://www.core77.com/blog/news/captology_how_the_ﬁtbit_pedometer_really_motivates_its_users_15582.asp

6.
Create Rules to
Translate Data into
Helpful Information

“Ouch! You only responded to 38% of your
emails in a timely fashion. This may be due to
your lengthy (avg 17.4 sentences) replies.
For next month, focus on shorter responses in
a shorter timeframe.”

You responded to that email in under 2
minutes... That’s much better than your
average response time of 8.5 minutes.
Good job!

PHRASE 1

PHRASE 2

(dozens of different possible phrases)

7.
Set Challenges
(and rewards)

personal challenges from friends

Less time to respond
An email challenge?

less frequent checking of email

random limitations
best streak

Congratulations! You’ve earned the “email ninja” badge.

Sidenote: 3 Kinds of Measures:

absolute
relative
incremental

What would you like to know
about other (similar) people’s
email habits?

9.
Have fun. Make
it interesting

Back again so soon?
It’s only been

3 minutes
since you last checked your email!
(Go away!!)

10.
Test. Iterate.
Proceed with
caution.

Be careful what you’re
measuring or encouraging!

PEOPLE WANT TO FEEL GOOD
ABOUT THEMSELVES.

-Put a positive spin on your comments.
-Bad performance? Present as a problem to be solved.
-Indicate next step necessary to improve a bad situation.
-Adjust target goals per individual (vs absolute).

PEOPLE GET BORED WITH THE
“SAME OLD THING.”

-How can you add variety, momentum, surprise,
narrative and similar ideas to your feedback?
-mix the unexpected in with the expected

the idea is for a system that makes previously
invisible aspects of people’s behaviour visible,
in order to help change individual and collective
behaviour.

-Dan Hill

http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2008/01/the-personal-we.html

Feedback loops
the idea is for a system that makes previously
invisible aspects of people’s behaviour visible,
presented in an emotionally engaging way
in order to help change individual and collective
behaviour.
can affect individual and collective behaviors

by suggesting and reinforcing speciﬁc goals.
-Dan Hill

http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2008/01/the-personal-we.html

What are your business
Goals?

Could your application—and
users—benefit from offering
personal feedback?

“That is the best gift an educator can give—
to get somebody to become self-reflective”
—Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your
feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet
thing I did or it can just be one great man
who tells you what you need to hear. The
hard part is the listening to it.
—Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Thanks!! @stephenanderson

Stephen P. Anderson


www.poetpainter.com

www.slideshare.net/stephenpa

When Data Gets Up Close and Personal

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