You know that feeling when several disparate experiences in your life experience suddenly join together and sing ‘a-ha’! to you in a moment of clarity? Well, I had one of those moments this weekend – I now realise my obsession with data visualisation is far more serious and pervasive (but potentially helpful) than I previously thought!
I’ve often thought how great it would be to ‘see’ inside our body. Yes there is expensive scanning kit that’s used when people are really sick, but what about the rest of us? Why do we have to be sick before we get to learn about our health?
I’ve thought my passion for visualising data started with my work in local highways, but my first trip to a Mind Body Soul fair this weekend in Cheltenham reminded me that it started long before that – with TOG Gaitscan analysis and Root2Being.
Back in 2002 I was so excited about TOG Gaitscan because it enabled practitioners to see how the foot functions. With this visual aid. its possible to explain much more easily how foot function impacts the rest of our biomechanics, and how foot function adapts to changes in orthotic prescriptions.
This Mind Body Soul fair made me realise how far technology has come. I was fascinated to see how practitioners are now using biofeedback tools to undertake live blood analysis, and biofeedback assessments to help patients understand their own health and then feel empowered to make positive changes.
Another use for biofeedback technology is to show us our auras, and I just couldn’t resist the chance to do this, as I’ve wondered for some time what 
mine looks like. Being able to see it and have it’s meaning interpreted helped me validate what I already felt and sensed about my current progress and stage in life. Like everyone, my aura is always there, but I never see it. Just the act of seeing it helped me feel more confident and that I could place more trust in myself and my own intuition.
Why then, I reason to myself, do we not make more use of the technology now available at an affordable price to help us learn about and monitor our health before we get sick?
In need of a creative idea to explore as an business enterprise for my MA in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University, perhaps its time I took more notice of my passion (obsession?!) with data visualisation in the context of holistic healthcare.
As part of this module in creative enterprise, I’ll have produced a 2 minute video pitch and a blog post developing this idea by 10th November. By mid-January 2015, I’ll have explored and researched the idea to find out whether or not it can form the basis of a viable enterprise opportunity.
First though, we needed to define what creative enterprise means to each of us…
Creative enterprise means manifesting the human spirit of creativity into sustainable business ventures that make people feel better #maent
— Teresa Jolley (@teresacjolley) October 7, 2014
Have you had experience of biofeedback technology to understand your health and wellbeing? Are you a practitioner offering services like this?