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A Response To A Digi.Me Post
As I often do, when my response is more detailed than a throw away - writing this ‘response’ post here - and dropping the link into the comments on the post.
In this case this is the link to the original post.
Dear Emma
I really would have liked to have seen Digi.Me disassociate itself from the idea that ‘Data is the New Oil’ - since it perpetuates the thinking that data - like oil - is a resource that is ready and waiting to be mined.
In the physical world - the extractive industries are rapidly trying to redefine themselves - and separate their values from what they do. In other words, to be in the extractive industries in 2020 is NOT GOOD, so why would we perpetuate that thinking in a relatively new industry, like data management, data is all about ‘extraction’. New metaphors are needed.
I talk about data connection - as a better way of working, rather than data collection. This ideas, I think fits right in with DigiMe/Consent App thinking.
When Hunby first coined the phrase in 2006, it was a very different world (though in many ways not that different, so shame on him), but in this new, more ethical world of data management that (IMO), Digi.Me leads - to reference the expression without ‘slapping it down’ I find sad.
One of my longer pieces on the topic in BizCatalyst
A shorter reference in my newsletter
In both I push for thinking of ‘Data as Energy’ … vibrating, pulsating, forever chnaging, continually morphing, constantly switching between two very different forms, hard to contain, but for all of that - eminently controllable - if we approach with care.
I keep talking about this all over the place. The topic even pops up from time to time on the IIW list. Me? I am in the ‘energy’ camp, meanwhile, Jim Pasquale talks about ‘Nitrogen’ (I think that was the gas reference he used). Either way - the conversation tries to push the thinking away from the idea that data is the new oil.
Why energy you might ask?
”If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.”
Nikola Tesla
Do I care whether you reference it as energy? Well of course I do, why else would I write this? But that analogy needs to work for you. What I do really care about is that Digi.me doesn’t fall into old thinking, old metaphors.
Let’s change the thinking.
Just #MyTwoCents