Self-hacking is defined by the researcher who coined the term, Adriana Lukas, as “self-infomatics combined with action“. As she told Wired:

It’s not about the data, but about how we change, tweak and hack ourselves based on the findings of that data.

Nike is perhaps the most prominent brand in this space. Its Nike+ hardware and apps let runners monitor, track, slice and dice data about their runs and compare with other Nike+ users. Want to run the equivalent of the distance to the moon? Nike+ will let you, and also allow you to challenge friends to see who can do it fastest.

Weber Shandwick Executive Producer Ian Cohen discovered one cool new piece of technology that could bring the same sort of self-hacking experience to skiing. Meet Recon goggles:

Marketers, by nature, are all about data. We want and need to know who’s using our products and services, how they’re using them, how much time they’re spending with them, what they feel about our brand, and how much money they’re spending to sustain and extend the experience they have with us.

Users generate a great deal of data, and much of it they don’t have access to. As a customer, wouldn’t you like to be able to export your spending history and related data from your favorite e-commerce site? What if you could get your hands on your data from your favorite hotel chain and use it to help the chain deliver a better user experience for you?

We’re just starting to see an uptake in adoption of this approach, and as with all the things we all use daily but once seemed novel (cell phones, tablets, GPS in cars, cameras in our phones – even email), the charge is being led by the kind of geeks who hang out at CES. Your grandparents might be proficient texters now, but they weren’t the first users in mind for the technology; and so it will be with self-hacking for commercial products and services.

Self-hacking is what’s known as a win-win for both customers and brands. Helping customers to have singular, remarkable experiences by letting them access, play with, and make use of their own data can build affinity and loyalty like nothing else.

To lead or to follow? It’s a question marketers have to answer every day. In this case, users may be showing all of us the way.