Hacking Happiness (34 page)

There was a time I planned on going to seminary to be a minister and I got caught up in analyzing Scripture scientifically in an effort to prove it was “true.” When you’re young in your faith (whatever the worldview), it’s easy to think you can convince others to accept your beliefs if you have strong enough words. My dad, however, emphasized the importance of works and that people should know you from the fruits of your labor. He felt character was built, forged like the tools his blacksmith grandfather created when he was a boy.

I’m good with mystery. It leads to wonder. And awe. And humility.

So here’s what I know, at the end of our journey together: Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living.

Go see for yourself.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am blessed to know a trove of talented, brilliant, and gracious people who have lent their support in my writing of this book. For the others I’ve forgotten who should be in this list, my sincere apologies, and the pint is on me the next time we get together so I can thank you in person.

Thanks to Lynne D. Johnson for introducing me to my tireless literary agent, Carole Jelen, and her colleague Zachary Romano. Big shout-out to Andrew Yackira, my editor at Tarcher (Penguin Random House), for his constant encouragement and humor during the writing process. Thanks also to Gina Rizzo at Tarcher for her help in promoting the book, along with Nettie Reynolds, who helped me spread the word about
Hacking H(app)iness
. Rich Silivanch of Mutant Media is an amazing friend to me, this book, and the H(app)athon Project, and his compelling, attractive, and savvy branding and media creation (which includes the awesome logo and cover for this book) have provided fundamental help to my work. Kudos also to Wedge Martin of GeoPapyrus for his support.

Huge geeky thanks and shout-outs to Matt Silverman of Mashable, who provided me with the opportunity to create the series of work that inspired the articles that led to the writing of this book. Thanks also to Matt Petronzio, Stephanie Buck, and the rest of the team at Mashable who supported my articles and work. I also deeply appreciate the thoughts and wisdom of all of the interviewees I had the pleasure of learning from for this book, whether I spoke to them for Mashable or directly for
Hacking H(app)iness
. Thank you.

A great deal of research for this book came in unison with my work as founder of the H(app)athon Project. On that side of things, special thanks go to Adam Laughlin, Kat Houghton, and Sean Bohan, the team driving H(app)athon from the beginning. Their wisdom, expertise, and support are the reasons the Project has come to fruition. The Project also would not exist had it not been for the tireless efforts of Alexis Adair, with her gifts in research, positive psychology, and all things organizational helping me and H(app)athon make sense to the outside world. Other H(app)athon peeps supporting me/the book include my advisers: William Hoffman of the World Economic Forum, Jon Hall of the United Nations Development Programme, Peter Johnson of the Van Heyst Group, Stephen J. Derezinski III of Infinium, and Peter Vander Auwera. These are the people providing essential outside perspective on our work to keep our vision on track.

Special thanks also go to Kat’s team at ilumivu for the technology that launched the first version of our survey, and the team who created Open Mustard Seed, the heart of H(app)athon’s transparent tech, including the amazing John Clippinger, Patrick Deegan, and the entire team at ID3. Pivotal in helping us get the word out about our efforts is the gloriously selfless and gifted team at Pulp PR, chaired by Jessica Hasson, with hugely effective support from her colleague Mishri Bhatia. Also instrumental in sharing our work is our indefatigable social media team, led by Irene Koehler, the always-optimistic Debbie Miller, and Deanna Pitta. In Somerville, extreme thanks go to Daniel Hadley and his team at the mayor’s office. Heartfelt thanks also to my friend and positive-future brother Chris Rezendes of INEX Advisors. Special thanks also to the amazingly warm Mario Chamorro, founder and CEO at Make It Happy and founder of The
Happy Post Project, and to all of his team. His support at our various H(app)athon Project events and introductions to people in the “happy space” have been invaluable.

I also want to warmly thank the other H(app)athonites around the world on our leadership committee and at other organizations that have added significantly to our work. These include Jason Williams, our global workshop coordinator and constantly supportive Twitter fanatic; Kristine Maudal, Even Fossen, Julie Kildahl, and the team at Brainwells in Oslo (Norway rules!); Juan Pablo Calderón in Bogotá and the team at HUB; Taichi Fujimoto from Happiness Architect and his team in Tokyo; Carlos Somohano and my old friend Stewart Townsend for their work in London; Stan Stalnaker of Ven for his numerous introductions; Manuel Kraus in Lisbon; Randall Krantz in Bhutan; Brian Barela, Brandon Cockrum, and the team in Indianapolis; Chris Heuer and his team in San Francisco; and the amazing Sunnie Southern in Cincinnati. Arthur Woods and his colleagues at Imperative deserve thanks for their help regarding how H(app)athon can translate to the enterprise, and special thanks to KoAnn Skrzyniarz, Dimitar Vlahov, and Bart King of Sustainable Brands for all their support of H(app)athon and helping to host our San Diego event. Also a big shout-out to Kaliya (aka Identity Woman) for all of her amazing expertise regarding personal data and identity issues.

Profound thanks to Anil Sethi of Gliimpse for his financial support and entrepreneurial bonding during the H(app)athon process; Mario Chamorro of the Happy Post Project and his partnership in our workshop efforts; the gifted Peggy Kern and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania in the World Well-Being Project; Neal Lathia from the University of Cambridge for dealing with my numerous crazy and often late-night ideas; Tim Leberecht, fellow writer and artist type, who heard about H(app)athon soon after my Mashable article and has been so supportive ever since; Joshua Middleman, an early brainstormer and supporter in the H(app)athon process; Laura Musikanski from the Happiness Initiative for providing my earliest knowledge of all things related to happiness economics; J. P. Rangaswami of Salesforce.com for his ongoing wisdom and support of our work; plus Konstantin Augemberg of Measured Me; Dara Barlin of A Big Project; Mary Czerwinski of Microsoft; Margie Morris of
Intel; Susannah Fox of Pew Internet; Scott L. David; Johannes Eichstaedt; Lakshmi Arthi Krishnaswami; Kalev Leetaru; Amber Melhouse; Gregory Park, Ernesto Ramirez; Andrew Schwartz; Eiji Han Shimizu, Jason Sroka; Patrick Van Kessel; Kim Whittemore; Barbara Van Dahlen; Rick Cohen; Mark Anielski; Eimear Farrell; Shwen Gwee; Joel Johnson; and my dear friend David Richeson, who inspired me to try to make the H(app)athon Project a reality from the beginning. Thanks, Dave.

Thanks to my brother, Andy, for inspiring me to be a writer. And thanks to my mom. While my dad is mentioned a lot in this book, my mom is the one who has been my quasi–business manager, dear friend, and spiritual mentor for the better part of my entire life. I love you, Mom.

I always say that I married up regarding my wife, Stacy, and nothing could be truer. She is my best friend and was utterly supportive during the crazy packed months of parenting I was often absent for during the writing of this book.

Thanks to my son, Nate, and daughter, Sophie Joan, who make my life worth living. They’re the primary reasons I want to reflect on my life more often, to spend time with them and Stacy versus staring at my iPhone.

And although the book is dedicated to him, he’s worth mentioning again: My deepest and humblest thanks to a dad who was an artist with his silences as much as his words. Look forward to seeing you again, Pop. Until then, I pray my legacy can honor your work, which touched and helped so many lives.

NOTES

Introduction

1
. David Bollier,
Power-Curve Society: The Future of Innovation, Opportunity and Social Equity in the Emerging Networked Economy
, Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, 2013, http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/upload/Power-Curve-Society.pdf.

2
. Steffan Keuer and Pernille Tranberg,
Fake It! Your Guide to Digital Self-Defense
(Amazon Digital Services, 2013).

3
. Shane Green, CEO of Personal.com, interview with author, March 18, 2013.

4
.
Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: Recommendations for Businesses and Policymakers,
Federal Trade Commission Report, March 2012, http://ftc.gov/os/2012/03/120326privacyreport.pdf.

5
. Federal Trade Commission, “FTC to Study Data Broker Industry’s Collection and Use of Consumer Data,” press release, December 18, 2012, http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2012/12/databrokers.shtm.

6
. Sarah Perez, “Facebook Graph Search Didn’t Break Your Privacy Settings, It Only Feels Like That,”
TechCrunch,
February 4, 2013, http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/04/facebook-graph-search-didnt-break-your-privacy-settings-it-only-feels-like-that/.

7
. Kaliya (aka Identity Woman), executive director, Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium, interview with author, August 2, 2013.

8
. David Streitfeld, “Google Concedes That Drive-By Prying Violated Privacy,”
New York Times
, March 12, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/technology/google-pays-fine-over-street-view-privacy-breach.html?pagewanted=all.

9
.
Privacy and Security,
Edelman’s Data Security and Privacy Group, 2012, http://datasecurity.edelman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Data-Security-Privacy-Executive-Summary.pdf.

10
. John Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs, eds.,
World Happiness Report
, Earth Institute, April 2, 2012, http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2960.

11
. Michelle Nicole Burns, Mark Begale, Jennifer Duffecy, Darren Gergle, Chris J Karr, Emily Giangrande, and David C Mohr, “Harnessing Context Sensing to Develop a Mobile Intervention for Depression,”
Journal of Medical Internet Research
, August 12, 2011, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222181/.

12
. http://emotionsense.org.

13
. Kiran K. Rachuri, Mirco Musolesi, Cecilia Mascolo, Peter J. Rentfrow, Chris Longworth, and Andrius Aucinas, “Emotion Sense: A Mobile Phones–based Adaptive Platform for Experimental Social Psychology Research,” University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, 2013, http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~cm542/papers/Ubicomp10.pdf.

14
. John C. Havens, “The Impending Social Consequences of Augmented Reality,”
Mashable
, February 8, 2013, http://mashable.com/2013/02/08/augmented-reality-future/.

15
. Shirley S. Wang, “Is Happiness Overrated?”
The Wall Street Journal
, March 15, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704893604576200471545379388.

Chapter One

1
. Coert Visser, “New Light on the Origin of the Scaling Question—‘The Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale,’”
The Doing What Works Blog
, May 22, 2010, http://solutionfocusedchange.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-light-on-origin-of-scaling-question.html.

2
. http://www.slideshare.net/swipp/rateocracy-when-everyone-and-everything-is-rated.

3
. Christopher Carfi, VP of platform products for Swipp, interview with author, June 3, 2013.

4
. Stephanie Pappas, “Facebook with Care: Social Networking Site Can Hurt Self-Esteem,”
LiveScience
, February 6, 2012, http://www.livescience.com/18324-facebook-depression-social-comparison.html.

5
. Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, interview with author, June 9, 2013.

6
. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL4lSavSepc.

7
. Cassie Shortsleeve, “De-Stress in 3 Seconds,”
Men’s Health
, August 8, 2012, http://news.menshealth.com/de-stress-in-3-seconds/2012/08/08/.

8
. David Talbot, “Wrist Sensor Tells You How Stressed Out You Are,”
MIT Technology Review
, December 20, 2012, http://www.technologyreview.com/news/508716/wrist-sensor-tells-you-how-stressed-out-you-are/.

9
. Bianca Bosker, “Affectiva’s Emotion Recognition Tech: When Machines Know What You’re Feeling,”
Huffington Post
, December 24, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/24/affectiva-emotion-recognition-technology_n_2360136.html.

10
. http://mashable.com/category/social-tv/.