The Nike Experiment: How the Shoe Giant Unleashed the Power of Personal Metrics →
The gist of the idea is that people change their behavior—often for the better—when they are being observed (which is why it’s sometimes called the observer effect). When you lace up your running shoes outfitted with the Nike+ sensor and fire up your iPod, you’re both the researcher and the subject—a self-contained experimental system. And what you’re likely to find is that the Hawthorne effect kicks in. You’re actively observing yourself, and just that fact not only provides information you can act on but also may modify your behavior.
Just as a side note, I subscribe to the print version of Wired Magazine. I loved reading this article, so I went to wired.com expecting to find a link to the online story. Nope. They waited a couple of weeks after the magazine was printed before publishing the article online. So lame.
Chris Anderson, the editor in chief, doesn’t even oversee the website. The conflict and segregation of print and online at Wired unfortunately isn’t a unique situation, as many other print media companies are still trying to figure out the internetz.
