In this episode of our podcast, we shift our focus from the “big data” themes in episodes 1-3 to personal data and self-tracking. We talked to Niklas Laninge, founder of Psykologifabriken (“The Psychology Factory”) and COO of Hoa’s Tool Shop, which are both relatively new startups based in Stockholm and which use applied psychology in innovate ways to facilitate lasting behavior change – in the case of the latter company, using digital tools such as smart phone apps. Niklas is also an avid collector of data on himself and describes some things he has found out by analyzing those data – and remarks that “When my [Nike] Fuelband broke, part of myself broke as well.”

At one point, I (Mikael) miserably failed to get the details right about The Human Face of Big Data project, which I erroneously call “Faces of Big Data” in the podcast. Also, I said that it was created by Greenplum, when in fact it was developed by Against All Odds productions (Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt) and sponsored by EMC (of which Greenplum is a division.)

Some of the things we discussed:

– Viary, a tools that facilitates behavior change in organizations or individuals

– Clinical trials showing promising results from using Viary to treat depression

– “Dance-offs” as a fun way to interact with people on the dance floor and get an extreme exercise session

Listen to the podcast | Follow The Data #4 : Self Tracking with Niklas Laninge