Dans’ Rants

Outrage Puppet

~ dan

outragepuppetHardly a day goes by when mainstream (or alt) press, facebook or twitter doesn’t report some event, quote or photo that promotes feeling of outrage, sufficient to stir the emotions, galvanising us to share or retweet some sound bite, MEME image or story.

Whether innocuous or deliberate, wether reported about someone important or someone that wants to be important it matter little. It’s easy to let it trigger our emotions through our basal tribal behaviour (our biology is wired for it) to protest the offence across our modern bastions of information and truth ….social media,. And in that moment there is little intrest in the full story,  in a familiar emotion clouds intellect moment. Inevitably the largely good works of public figures over many years are suddenly erased and falling on swords often ensues, ultimately to the detriment of the community. 

And as if that isn’t enough cue then the outrage against the outrage and it lives for a least a second media cycle, mean while the big issues of our time hide in the corners ….

Triple bottom line Politics.

~ dan

triplebottomline1There is a real nice idea in accounting called the triple bottom line. The idea here is that you measure in three areas financial, social and environmental and try to achieve a good outcome for all three. Its a really nice idea and gets back to what ‘accounting’ is all about, that is to account for all things, whereas mostly its used as a bit of a dirty work because its most often associated with financial matters only. 

I guess finances are the easiest thing to measure …how much have you got? and you get a nice round number. Measuring social and environmental indicators is a bit tougher. There are some indicators such as Bhutan’s happiness index (rather than GDP) but thats another story. 

So onto the political area and in Australia anyway we might easily pigeon hole the LNP, Labour and Greens into each of the triple bottom line areas of  financial, social and environmental respectively. Whats interesting is that each party might over time seek to reach the triple bottom line of balancing all areas ( and ultimately snag more voters ) by steadily iterating towards the centre. We certainly see this with the LNP and Labour parties, with at times, their policies at times being almost indistinguishable. The Greens however, maintaining a somewhat more evangelical stance on the environment, seem less interested in persuing a triple bottom line approach.

For example when we look a compromise agreements around carbon emissions we can certainly LNP and Labour have put forth remarkably similar policies with the Greens  steadfast in not supporting anything that has the remotest sniff of compromise. Sadly as a result carbon emissions are a work in progress…

Interestingly as majors (LNP/Labour) drift slowly to a more balanced perspective, it seems to allow space for more room for the purists focusing on the core areas of financial and social. This room has left opportunities and the rise of the the alt right/ alt left movements, advocacy groups and parties seem to be a direct response to this.

Anyways thats about all the political analysis this swinging voter has in him for the moment. 

Science and Creativity

~ dan

adrian-diery.jpgOne of the great joys of being a researcher is taking on doctoral candidates.  These are our brightest minds of the future who go on a 3yr (or more) journey into the unknown. Armed with years of technical training it’s their opportunity to apply it creatively to further advance knowledge and society. One of the great things is seeing that success carry forward, where ever their careers take them ..

A while back David Rowlands and I were contacted by former PhD student Adrian Diery to borrow some props for a film he was helping out on. It turns out that Adrien is the composer of the soundtrack for the film too. Its called ‘SPACE/TIME’.  Well done Adrian!

Here is a link to the preview trailer and a ‘making of’ short doco …

Banners_and_Alerts_and_SPACE_TIME.png

Validate or get it to market ?

~ dan

fitness-research-logo.jpgAt the most  recent wearable technology conference in Melbourne we had speakers from industry and industry all weighing in on the latest developments of wearables.  I had as conference chair the at times challenging task of facilitating an emerging debate on wether ‘product’ should be rushed to market, or first scientifically validated and then released to market. Not surprisingly in a rising growth market being first to market is critical for gaining market share so hanging back and validating might not be desirable…unless of course it doesn’t work, which has brought undone a few companies playing in this space in recent times.

After the conference I spent some time with colleague James Lee musing  this over and considering the adoption of wearables in the sports science community we published this invited article for the Journal of Fitness research (get the full issue here , its open access). Have a read…what do you think?

THE INCREASING ADOPTION OF CONSUMER GRADE WEARABLES: COMPARING THE APPLES AND ORANGES OF SPORT SCIENCE

Volume 5, Issue 1, April 2015 | JOURNAL OF FITNESS RESEARCH

Daniel James1 and James B. Lee2

The increasing adoption of off the shelf wearable technologies by sports scientists is a real sign of the times. It was not so long ago that the thought of using lab based body mounted sensors was new and even treated with suspicion. Today, specialist products for sports science exist and the use of the underlying sensors has been well validated1 and since that time, have been applied to all manner of sporting applications2,3. Body mounted instruments offer comparable (though sometimes different) method of the quanti cation of human activity. It has opened the way for consideration of the use of body mounted sensors for a variety of purposes and offered an opportunity to study human movement in relatively unconstrained environments4 where considerations such as ecological validity could be removed. Not only outside the lab, but for the rst time the performance environment could itself be assessed. In competitive sport the issue of feedback and unfair advantage had to be considered and today GPS sensors are accepted in many forms of team sports during competitive practice.

This change has been driven in no small part to worldwide trends in electronic industries that make this possible. The well-established trend of

miniaturisation of electronic components, rst proposed by Moore in the 1960’s shows the doubling of complexity every 18 months5. The net effect of this is that devices become proportionally smaller and cheaper. This has led to market place convergence of a range of technologies (of which smart phones are a mash up of many components including computer platform, sensors, video camera and web aware telemetry platform). In turn the market responds with a greater demand for these products as they become increasingly useful and inexpensive in the growing consumer sports technology market6.

It is here that sports science’s traditional approaches to measurement and instrument is itself subject to digital disruption and the Fitbit is a good example of that7. Here we have a consumer product, itself a trickle down by product of the work that has been undertaken in sports science and allied health, that not only have their origins as tools of science creating a market, but also opening up opportunities not possible by these more mature and dedicated products.

Whilst products like the Fitbit and what are used professionally on the surface are measuring the same thing and do so using the same basic sensors, i.e. accelerometers, each product is driven by its different market segment and achieves its goals through different design decisions. Understanding these, leads to making better decisions when choosing what is the best tool for a particular application.

Lab based technologies (ambulatory or xed) have a signi cantly higher cost, both the capital required to purchase and the more hidden cost, that of having a user suitably experienced to use it. Thus they are suited to high accuracy studies of not too many participants. Commercial wearables on the other hand are at least an order of magnitude cheaper to purchase and can be used widely. They represent an opportunity to do larger scale studies of more participants and don’t require a sophisticated operator. These products, driven by the desire for social engagement (consumers like this interaction and are more likely to continue to use and purchase in the future) over data aggregation opportunities across whole communities. Therefore commercially popular devices can possibly be an option for researchers to consider using.

Research quality monitoring platforms, typically use high rate sensors, today in the order of 1000 Hz. In addition they may also have other sensors, modularity and to accommodate for long periods of operation large capacity batteries. All data is collected and stored in raw form with the minimum of ltering, to allow for the most robust of analysis later on8. Fitbits and other commercial wearables need to make substantial compromises to achieve their small form factor and lower cost, so available computational power, sensor sets and batteries all must be substantially smaller. These compromises necessitate much lower sample rates, typically around 10Hz, or interrupt driven footfall events. Raw data is stored in aggregate form, usually in epochs that provide enough accuracy for a user and reduce the required amount to be stored, for example a 1 minute epoch of 10 Hz data is a 600 times reduction in data, but the trade off is resolution and accuracy.

As these consumer products continue to create a market appetite for such technologies, so too the market eventually becomes more sophisticated and the appetite for greater accuracy grows. Coupled with

technology trends we will increasingly see products like the Fitbit grow ever closer to their research quality cousins. Consider this, rather than doing studies of n=20 for statistical signi cant that n=2M is well within the realms of possibility…how exciting.

For now though they each have a role and a place. Understanding both of these in conjunction with either accepting an accuracy compromise, or that accuracy is paramount, for a sports scientist. Therefore, the sports scientist has to not only understand his or her objective, but needs to have considerable knowledge in the technology to be able to make an informed choice. In comparing apples with oranges it is perhaps helpful to see them as a fruit salad for the consumption of the discerning fitness professional.

 

 

Talking to the media

~ dan

catalyst-sportAs scientists its not uncommon to have a love /hate relationship with media. Often introverted by nature its daunting to be speaking to the masses, but sooner or later many of us end up doing it. Getting science out to the real world is a great outcome for years of effort in the lab and can turn up new research opportunities and enhance existing ones and makes good common room talk too. In the domain of sport and sports technology not only do we need to be current with the science we (and others) are doing  but often its helpful to be able to follow most sports on the planet too, as this is the engaging human interest the reporter often wants to throw to as well.
Its also useful to be able to communicate in shorter sound bites, or explain complex science in a nutshell. I was fortunate enough to do an ABC Science Media fellowship which helped a quite a bit in this regard,  as well as our lab doing a few stories with their science media department on shows like Catalyst (see the stories here – which we are still not brave enough to watch )

At the end of the day (even though after a full day of filming its only going to be 5min story at best), you never know whats going to be left out or in of the print article, left on the cutting room floor of a TV interview and so you just hope for the best. Add to that our culture of peer review which ensures we are very careful about claims we make (often understating what a reporter will what to over state), try to acknowledge colleagues and the shoulders of the giants we stand on. Probably the greatest fear is of making statements that our scientific peers might haunt us with,  either minor facts and qualifications on statement’s or for some good natured ribbing from the slip of the tongue (One of my colleagues headline statements was “I’m not a geek but….”, which he is still trying to live down), yet trying to communicate something meaningful. Now try to process all that under the pressure of spontaneous questions during a live 2min television interview and its not surprising we might come out a bit wooden, be reluctant to express opinion or are otherwise sidetracked.

Along the way we might fall into some common traps like:

  • Reverting to yes/no answers, as a proverbial ‘deer in the headlights’ (which the interviewer doesn’t want, because they want conversation)
  • Coming across as a flake who has no opinion, or worse some being cagey (something akin to a hostile witness with whom the reporter tries harder)
  • Trying to be a media personality rather than ourselves

The latter is a particularly poignant cautionary tale as I read the mornings news today and saw a particularly media savvy politician (Barnaby Joyce) try to play the comedian with comedians. It was over a customs issue with an A list celebrity…it was never going to end well, but was a funny read and A for effort Barnaby!
Barnaby Joyce left red-faced during Depp grilling

For the record, I only ever did one interview in which I was being goaded into humour, I apologised immediately “ sorry I don’t do funny”, which apparently was, go figure!

Intrapreneur, entrepreneur, startup, accelerator, incubator…?

~ dan ~ 1 Comment
Intrapreneur, entrepreneur, startup, accelerator, incubator?There is a lot of focus in the Sports Technology world given to being a startup or making it as an entrepreneur. The Australian Sports Technologies network has been at the van guard of much of this in Australia where we have had training from notables such as Jerry Engel and Steve Blank. One of the reasons for this focus is that Sports Technology is a comparatively new industry and if you look at most of the existing industries in sports they can be pretty traditional. A lot of the break throughs have come from fresh ideas, fresh thinking and the application of new and emerging technologies. Every week it seems we are contacted by startups keen to leverage our particular area of research expertise (wearable sensors) to get a potential product to market or we are contacted from near or far by an SME (small to medium enterprise) or garage inventor with a great idea or prototype. We love the ideas and the passion!
Big established sports companies (and technology ones too) often look to acquisitions of such startup’s or develop in-house and thats often an exit plan too.
Recently though a new term has come into vogue, the ‘intrapreneur’ and certainly thats how we like to think about our own venture, SABEL Labs. As an  intrapreneurial enterprise that’s embedded in Griffith University and right next door to the Queensland Academy Sport (who produce well over 50% of Australia gold medals)
Here we have to operate much like a startup (and I’ve had more employment contracts than I can count on a hexadecimal hands to prove it), but we also get the benefits of the resources of a large organisation (and inherit its processes as well).  Many talk about needing to have an eco system to survive and we have that with access to mechanical, electrical workshops, world experts in a range of disciplines, a range of internal and external funding schemes, a steady stream(well a good sized trickle anyway) of commercial contracts and wide collaborative networks (like the Queensland Sports Technology Cluster). We also have finance, HR and legal team resources  and a business school where I can upskill one subject at at time too. On the down side its sometimes difficult to remain agile and pivot as we follow standardised processes for signoff, appointments,ordering, billing, then theres branding and the dilemma of the SOE (standard operating environments) for IT systems that we want to be innovative with too. Recently i’ve noticed quite a few companies from the big end of town have innovation (intrapreneurial?) departments as they seek to embrace change before some unseen disruptive technology makes their business as obsolete as Kodak, so there are more like teams out there too!
More reading
Steve Blank’s books and reading suggestions
Tips for intrapreneurs (and image credit)
The Australian Sports Technologies Network Accelerator

A Rant on Research funding

~ dan ~ 2 Comments
research cuts australiaIts well known that research funding in Australia is at an all time low. The reduction in staff at places like CSIRO and reduced funding in competitive grants scheme are also in decline. Gone too are the larger scheme like the Cooperative research centres too. But a somewhat  hidden cut has crept into universities.  As a result of reductions in federal funding to universities (its all created a pressure to enrol and pass more students….but thats another story). The knock on effects around Australia’s universities seem to be  too
  1. Rather than employ permanent Academic staff, whose job it is to do both teaching and research there has been an increase in casualisation of academics. In some cases up to 50% of teaching staff are now casuals. Thus increasingly the appointments are solely to teach rather than do research.
  2. Where an academics job is traditionally divided between teaching and research and administration/service  teaching workloads seem to be on the rise. So much so that there is a decline in time available to do research.
  1. There are less available net funds for universities to engage and support research staff (who are largely on short contracts)
Where does this leave research in Australia? There is no doubt we are doing some world class research that have led to many a break through and innovation (See Dr Karls link below). For a little while perhaps we can ride the back of decades of investment in research and continue to have good output, but that may only last a short time. Opportunities for commercialisation of existing work, and contract research are such avenues, though its arguably something the traditional academic is poorly suited for. ‘Chase two rabbits catch none’, if chasing commercial income is pursued solely where is the time to do the next round of  ‘break through research’.  Tough one!
Some followup reading
Increasing pressure to more short term work contracts
The rise of mental health issues in universities
Reduced funding puts pressure on academic rigour…at what cost?
Is education a corporate commidity
The move to teaching only academics as a means to improve research?
Challenge of Change
Dr. Karls presentation highlights the value of research and the innovation that comes from Australia

Mayday, mayday computer down

~ dan
knowledge worker
Computer down: e-waste, legacy and  backup solutions..my clutter free desk 😉

I spend the better part of the last month without a computer to call my own – its a knowledge workers worst nightmare..or at least it was a decade or so ago.

Turns out I managed to survive the slow demise into reboot hell of my old machine, the tracking of my new machine through the machinations of a large bureaucratic organisation (university) out to the supplier, the shipping information as the custom build landed on our fair shores, its arrival into one of many loading bays (this is were it spent its greatest period of time BTW), looking at the signature on the receiving docket to find out who to hassle, on to IT who reimage the machine as an SOE (not always a great fit for R&D) and then on to me (to tweak said image), migrate files, passwords and preferences and then I’m happy again. Nearly everything is online now and except for generic email accounts (including the donotreply@… addresses) you can usually find a human attached to as well to keep the whole process moving along.
Work wise I seemed to survive quite nicely thanks to the liberal sprinkling (in different physical locations) of incremental backups from the old machine (done hourly) that I could pull files from. My email (a significant chunk of work flow) I had sometime ago aggregated all my email accounts into a single account for rainy days such as these where I could read, query and send (as an alias from) thanks to the kind people at google. Day to day work was carried out, albeit a bit slower, on some legacy (read out of warranty) machines I have floating about and together with a smart phone and tablet that could handle a lot of the day to day communications (and blogging) too.
Anyways the new beasty should see me through till its warranty  runs out? Why is the warranty so important, it comes down to time, anything out of warranty is a time bomb that none will touch or look at without some $$$ and if something goes wrong these days its the better part of the purchase price of a new machine to fix it anyway. As an engineer sure its fun to fix stuff, but costing up my time, and down time while parts come in, its often not a good trade off and a level of risk to day to day activities.

Wearables are here and big brother likes it!

~ dan ~ 1 Comment

wearablesIn case you were wondering about the potential for your fitness tracker and big brother…its already arrived!

The idea of quantification of an athletes movement is something we have been using at the elite end of the spectrum for over a decade to help improve performance and reduce injury. With the popularisation of the technology in mass market, consumer devices like (shameless plug alert)  the excellent Jaybird REIGN the potential for the weekend warrior to improve their fitness and health is clear. Whats the next step, our work in big data and analytics tells us its the large scale aggregation of data from large populations. Here long term health and well being can be tracked and used by the err… forces for good!

But what’s around the corner? Well my MBA program director (yes I’ve been hitting the books as a student) produced a graphic novela on a distopian reality where everything is a metric and is up for sale ( you might like to read it http://isthisokay.com )

In his subject last year I was invited to look at some future scenarios after doing some technology predictions in the wearable space. This is new stuff to crystal ball and the scenarios varied from personalised shopping and eating, where the shop keeper knew you were coming and what you would want to buy, as too the restauranteur knew your favourite meal, where you like to sit, and how many calories you needed that day etc.. I thought some of these were a bit far out, even though they were consistent with the emerging technology trends. However blow me down if in the coming weeks I found that some of Australia’s banks knew when high value customers walked in the door and offered a prestige service (and no bout sniffed a sales opportunity). See below for a link on emerging technologies in banking. So too high end restaurants had clubbed together to do customer profiling, gathering data such as who were good tippers! (See below for a link to a range of technologies)fitbit-medibank

Closer to home, well at home actually, it seems that Flybys ( a shopping card that earns rewards points, all the while collecting detailed information about your shopping habits) is now offering rewards points for using it,  if you partner with….wait for it,  your health fund. Bingo! here are your shopping habits and what you buy (I hope its healthy!) coupled to how much exercise you do being made available to your health fund. On the plus side there is perhaps an opportunity for a premium reduction, thats the carrot…wheres the stick!!

Of course if fitness trackers aren’t for you, fear not, your probably already being monitored by your smart phone (iOS and Android) and they capture about 70% of you daily activity

Yikes!! I’ve been sitting for 1/2 an hour, better rack up some steps

References

Is this OK? Prof Nick Barters Distopian reality of the future http://isthisokay.com

Resturant customer tracking services http://streetfightmag.com/2013/07/22/6-tools-restaurants-can-use-for-better-guest-intelligence/ 

Flybuys and Fitbit http://www.flybuys.com.au/partners/fitbit

Banking trends http://www.cio.com.au/article/547615/how_our_banks_innovating/