This is the short presentation I gave at The Boston Quantified Self Meetup Group #3 in Cambridge, MA: http://www.meetup.com/bostonQS/calendar/14132216/ In it I explain what I think is missing from the self-tracking data movement, why it needs to be part of a personal scientific method, how it makes you happier, and a little about our edison (tm) Experimenter's journal tool to help live everything in life as an experiment: http://edison.thinktrylearn.com/ Give it a look and let me know what you think! It's my first take, and I'm developing the ideas as I write my book, "Think, Try, Learn: A scientific method for discovering happiness." I'm at http://matthewcornell.org/contact.html You might also enjoy my essay on the field of self-tracking and what's missing: The Experiment-Driven Life (http://www.matthewcornell.org/2010/06/the-experiment-driven-life.html) and my post Attention Data Hounds: What Personal Data Are You Tracking? (including my An Incomplete Summary of Personal Informatics): http://matthewcornell.org/2009/06/attention-data-hounds-what-personal-data-are-you-tracking.html

1. The Experiment-Driven Life matthewcornell.orgthinktrylearn.com

2. * It’s not about the data

3. Which is more interesting?

8. We are tracking all kinds of things…

9. …but data is not the point.

10. The point is to be happy.

11. * Data = Observation

12. Data’s real role is scientific observation.

14. observation -> awareness -> change

15. How do we codify that into a true scientific method?

16. * key to happiness: treat everything as an experiment

17. Treat everything in life as an experiment.

18. What is an experiment?

22. It’s an experiment if… I’ve never done this before. This is not going like I expected. This is scary. This might fail.

23. How can this make you happier?

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28. * Edison & TTL

29. edison.thinktrylearn.com

34. * Call to action

35. Start experimenting!