Blog posts about technology
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September 17, 2019
Here’s why your country doesn’t have a Silicon Valley — and that’s ok
It’s not uncommon for cities or regions to publicly profess their plans for building the next Silicon Valley in their backyard. We’re heavily investing in “startup ecosystems” around the world but rarely do we stop to ponder the hidden assumptions of Valley-style startups. Are these high risk, wi...Read more -
January 14, 2019
Common excuses for not talking to your customers — and how to get over them
As a startup founder, you know you should be talking to your customers more. Every startup book you’ve read is full of examples of how customer feedback has helped shape the products you now love using every day. You understand this on an intellectual level yet when it comes to actually getting o...Read more -
July 21, 2016
The media is way more dangerous than Pokémon GO: musings on newsworthiness
# of TV interviews I gave in the last week about Pokémon GO: 3 Read more -
July 13, 2016
Why is Pokémon GO such a big hit NOW?
Pokémon GO probably needs little introduction. It’s a location-based AR game that is spreading around the world like wildfire. In less than a week, it managed to attract more active users than Tinder and is even surpassing Twitter in the US. The time spent in the app is off the charts, and it’s n...Read more -
February 1, 2016
A week with 5 different personal trackers: how accurately do they count steps?
This is a questions I often hear when people find out that I wear a small army of personal trackers 24/7. And what’s the point of being a self-appointed guinea pig if you can’t do fun little experiments on your own quantified self, right? Read more -
January 25, 2016
How do we go from sensors to making sense? (Part 3)
There is no escaping sensors that monitor your activity. They’re already in your smartphone and slowly taking over our buildings, cars and more. And there are countless apps that can help you monitor everything that isn’t already automatically tracked by your smartphone. Read more -
January 18, 2016
The wearables and apps I use for self-tracking (Part 2 appendix)
As part of my quantified self series, I also wanted to share a list of tools that I’ve used for an extended period of time in the past couple of years to track my activity, sleep and more. I often get asked about differences among trackers and for buying recommendations, so I’ve also included a s...Read more -
January 18, 2016
What has the quantified self helped me learn abut myself? (Part 2)
I know exactly how many steps I’ve taken in the past 938 days. And how many hours I’ve slept on each of those nights. If fact, I can compare measurements from multiple sources for a lot of these days, as I‘m currently wearing at least 3 personal trackers at all times (not counting my smartphone h...Read more -
January 11, 2016
What is the quantified self? (Part 1)
Over the past two years I went from not wearing a watch to always wearing at least 3 (often more) personal trackers that monitor every step I take and every minute of my sleep. And that’s without counting all the apps on my phone. Read more -
May 18, 2014
Lights on: 1 week and 3 events that filled me with hope
It’s Sunday. I finally got the chance to sleep in a bit. In just a week, I was lucky to participate in three amazing events that were started up by three amazing tech/startup communities. It’s probably not something that will be heavily featured in the news, what with the game of political throne...Read more -
November 10, 2013
Europe Code Week: Why I want to see every European learn more about how technology works
At this year’s Digital Assembly, me and my fellow Neelie Kroes’ Young Advisors were challenged to pick a common theme to work on. One suggestion was to focus on providing every young European with opportunities to start learning coding. Out of this suggestion, Europe Code Week was born over summer. Read more -
March 26, 2013
I'm in love with Markdown
I just want to go on the record for saying that I really, really love Markdown: Read more