Foursquare is hiring a Data Scientist, which is the coolest job title I’ve heard in a while. I wasn’t sure what it is, so I looked it up. After reading this definition of a data scientist I know one thing: I still have no idea what one does.

The Sports Guy gets on the Sabermetrics bandwagon and breaks down his seven favorite baseball stats in an understandable way.

We all know my love of data visualization and the quantified self. Brad Feld has a post detailing his quest for a Personal Dashboard. I’ve thought about this for a while now myself and have had visions of a few items all digested in different formats.

In the morning, I want my TV to turn on right as my alarm (iPhone) goes off. On the TV I want a few widgets to be there: news headlines, weather, my days appointments, and my media player. Think something similar to Jeff Jarvis’ Konfeedulator.

Then, as I switch to my computer (tablet PC preferably) I will have a dashboard populated with information (based on the date) that I need to see. It could be financial statements, research to read based on a meeting later in the day, emails, etc. It’s all curated for my day and coming days.

Lots of the prep work will be based on tags and what type of information I put in my calendar. This is fine with me as on the back-end of this system will be a highly customizable “information pot” where I put all the sources with search terms, etc to filter to my dashboard. I believe this will be the hardest part to do, but I think there are ways to make this easier. To track and report on my health, I can take pictures of food bar codes, for example.

Lots of jumbled thoughts here, I guess I should just start trying some of this stuff to see what works. Add to it to help me figure this out.

Touching a little on the Data Visualization in Everyday Life post, I found this post by Ben Fry wondering if electronic medical records are about data . I’ve wondered that too. Right now I’m in Michigan and would like to go to the doctor. I’ve lived in three different states since graduating college and have not done as good of a job as I could have with transferring my medical records.

While the majority of this is my fault, I do believe that the whole process of storing my medical data is rather archaic. How do they organize, find, store and understand the information in those aisles of folders? And, how exactly does anyone, including the doctor, read his or her own handwriting? Usually that stuff is chicken scratch.

There have been efforts to take medical records online. Google Health seems to be the most easy-to-find option. But, I guess my biggest question is with all the advanced technology in use in factories, businesses and our personal lives, how is there not a way to automate make going to the doctor more technologically savvy?

I’d imagine there being a tablet pc on a secured network where the doctor can see all past treatments, clearly read notes from a previous diagnosis, cross-reference with other similar symptoms and update the medical record in question in real-time. Not to mention the possibilities of the user tracking his or her data (think: moods, food, exercise, drinks, smoking, blood pressure, etc) for the doctor to see hard evidence to recommend a treatment.

But back to my original point, the data to be tracked, organized and stored here could be used to help see trends in ailments, successful treatments, easily present the data to the doctor immediately and clearly.

The area where I think data viz could most quickly and easily make a difference is in the area of bills and statements. It seems like a dull topic, I know, but imagine the impact of suddenly giving millions of people genuine and immediate insight into their spending habits, cell phone behaviours or energy consumption. It’s data people are generally either bored or intimidated by but the impact of genuinely understanding and seeing patterns in it could be hugely empowering. Knowledge, as they say, is power.

Agreed. And, I’ve been saying that for a while now. I guess I should preface that with the fact that I’m an amateur data visualization wanna-be; I have no idea of the best way to do things, I just know that when I look at a good example, I love it (and vice versa with bad).

I think good data visualization can really help businesses make decisions and clear up any vague areas that data provides. I’d really like to partner up with someone to work on improving different areas where I see problems.

More to this point is the amount of data we can learn about ourselves. I’ve mentioned the quantified self before, but if we can find a way to easily track data on ourselves then present it in a pretty way using data visualization, I believe this will be a marketers dream.

I’ve mentioned the quantified self before and have spend some time trying to find the best way for me to record data. The best way for me is via my phone as I have it on me at all times. your.flowingdata has come up with a way for us to track those data bits via twitter. Looks perfect for me as I’m trying to identify behaviors and different routines in my life. Read Kevin Kelly’s post for a bit further background on The Quantified Self. Also, major bonus points if you then take your data and turn it into a Felton-style Annual Report.

We make tiny choices every day. Those choices become habits, and those habits develop into behaviors. your.flowingdata helps you record these choices.

Use your.flowingdata (YFD) to collect data about yourself and your surroundings via Twitter. Record what you eat, when you go to sleep, how much television you watch, or whatever else you want. What you track is completely up to you.

The WSJ highlights how some major league teams are tracking the number of groundball outs from their pitchers. This brings up something I’ve always thought about. Why isn’t a groundball out on one pitch more valuable than a three-pitch strike out. The one pitch will keep the starter fresh for longer (keep pitch count down) and gets the same result.