GPS Tracks Emotions

 In this AP photo, artist Christian Nold demonstrates his system for detecting peoples’ emotions while walking a neighborhood in San Francisco’s Mission District on April 12. Nold, a London-based artist who has mapped settings as varied as industrial areas of Bangladesh and the red light district of Brussels, recently arrived in San Francisco for his first U.S. “emotional mapping” project.AP

By Lisa Leff

Associated Press Writer

May 06, 2007 6:00 AM

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As cartography projects go, Christian Nold’s approach to charting the peaks and valleys of urban landscapes is decidedly unconventional.

First, he outfits volunteers with global positioning system devices and the sensors used in lie detector tests. Then, he sends his subjects out to wander their neighborhoods. When they return, Nold asks them to recount what they saw and felt when the polygraph recorded a quickened heartbeat or an elevated blood pressure.

“Tried to stomp on some pigeons,” one tester recalled after a stroll through San Francisco’s bohemian chic Mission District.

“House right here, it reminded me of flowers at a funeral,” another said of what he saw a few blocks south.

“Security guard at a business giving lollipops to kids. I think I wanted one,” still another volunteer observed.

Nold, a London-based artist, calls his work “emotional mapping.” Having mapped settings as varied as industrial areas of Bangladesh and the red light district of Brussels, Belgium, he recently arrived in San Francisco for his first U.S. project…. Read More About Emotional GPS:

I have been told I have too many categories here on the blog as it is (perhaps rightly so), so I’m not going to start another one today.  But I am sorely tempted to start one called GPS fun.  Just when I think I have a good handle on the uses of GPS tracking up pops another fascinating one.

In actuality this wouldn’t be only fun … I can see many practical uses for this technique.  Among them:

• Measuring the effect of advertising … walk people past sample billboards or displays and gauge their reactions
• Real Estate Planning … let people tour areas you are contemplating investing in and find out which ones appeal.
• Signage and Redevelopment measurement .. got a slummy-looking area in your city?  Find out if new signs, simple repainting or different landscaping would help.
• Theme Parks … this would be my fav idea … people’s inclination to part with money would really be influenced by how they felt in certain areas of the park

I guess what this really proves is, my often quoted adage from my now-deceased idol, Peter Drucker … you can’t manage what you can’t measure.