My Digital FootPrint

Been looking at Flux . Simple proposition.  Aggregation of all your receipts and loyalty into one place. #loveit The power; [in terms of control of your data and what happens to it, how gets to exploit it and what rights you have] shifts from one silo ( the retailer and the bank) to Flux.  It moves from the relationship collector (who you interact with) to a new third party. (intermediary) So here is convenience for you, as these services improve your customer experience, at the expense of data, it is trade we make with having to determine the consequences.  Your data is spread out to a new layer who now needs to monitise  data  to thrive.  The players who now have access to and want to monitise your data goes up.  More competition usually means a lower price, in this case to access your data.   Given some of the players have a direct business relationship with you for products and services ( how y...

This post is not should Amazon create a bank, just would BigTech companies do better at the retail FinTech/ banking functions because of the data they hold on you and me? --- All of Amazon’s reporting data is here , Q4 will be released on 31.1.2019. We know from the existing reporting that they have passed 500,000 employees, added $5Bn to cash and sales income of over £200bn. Whilst the Q10 reporting give numbers, facts and a short section on risks there is no mention of data. Can AMAZON or any other BigTech buy an existing international retail bank in cash – yes, but would they be able to do any better? Ignoring the specific relationship that customers have with Amazon and these same customers with their banks, the regulation frameworks and that Amazon has a range of credit/ gift card offers right now; the question:- “Is any of the BiGTech’s data set on me (and you) provide an advantage insomuch that it would enable them to make better decisions as a “bank” that say y...

I love my weekly email update from Nir Eyal and his post on Nir and Far - he writes on behaviour, habits and How to Build Habit-Forming Products.  He always brings up some interesting fact.   This week Nir was writing about the screen time problem, this is coupled with what Fred Wilson has been writing about on screen time trackers  made me think about my own FOMO with tracking. I used to have a fitbit, my phone and lots of devices to track me as I started on the ideas of quantified self  way back in 2008 - which feed into My Digital Footprint. I left "on" a wide range of trackers for location, heart, paces etc and tried to build a model.   Well I kind of got board and slowly the devices broke for a stack of reasons.  Rock Climbing and diving among the most obvious ones that some devices stopped functioning as well as they should.  Many have been upgraded and also gone to my overflowing man draw of one-day recycling...

We are all aware of the response that when a digital or Internet service is Free; you are the product. It is most probably an adaption of a 1970 quote from the TV/media industry. Free to Air TV, which is advertising supported, means you watch for FREE in exchange for attention to watch adverts, as product and service owners hope you will buy. I want to explore this line of thinking a little further, as with the introduction of PSD2, GDPR and many other new regulatory frameworks from the US to Australia: the user/ consumer can now get their data back – aka #data_portability/ #data_mobility, so the model of FREE needs to be looked at again with our updated digital glasses on.  The purpose here to raise questions as I am thinking about BigTech and the reaction of companies to new regulations. Who benefits and who is threatened, specifically exploring if branded Banks / Fintech gain or lose with data portability?  The thesis is that the Free Facebook model breaks beca...

The majority who read this will be aware of the response that when a digital or Internet service is Free; you are the product. It is most probably an adaption of a 1970 quote from the TV/media industry. Free to Air TV, which is advertising supported, means you watch for FREE in exchange for attention to watch adverts, as product and service owners hope you will buy. The idea of this post is to explore this line of thinking a little further, as with the introduction of PSD2, GDPR and many other new regulatory frameworks from the US to Australia: the user/ consumer can now get their data back, so this idea needs to be looked at again with our digital glasses on. The purpose here to raise questions with the hope others will help explore what it means through commentary.  Definitions for this post  Derivative : A derivative is a contract between two or more parties whose value is based on an agreed-upon underlying digital data asset (like your social media posts)...

This is Richard Holton (x MIT) discussing the classic philosophical problem of can data predict and free will --- that is, the question of whether we human beings decide things for ourselves, or are forced to go one way or another.  He distinguishes between two different worries. One worry is that the laws of physics, plus facts about the past over which we have no control, determine what we will do, and that means we're not free. Another worry is that because the laws and the past determine what we'll do, someone smart enough could know what we would do ahead of time, so we can't be free. He says the second worry is much worse than the first, but argues that the second doesn't follow from the first. The next problem is that this assume the mind and no body and when we realise that they are one ( the strange order of things) - and chemistry is a bigger controller of outcome than the mind ( the mind is flat ) - does knowing more data help or not?

Douglas Rushkoff ’s new book, Team Human Follow Douglas on Twitter  He has a FREE Book launch event at Civic Hall in New York City on Wednesday January 23 2019 Douglas kindly provided me with a pre-launch books and here is my review    SIMPLE - READ IT. Douglas spots a trend and writes a book about it. How do we put people back into the centre (tech). It has been a theme growing for a while but the sense is that it is now that we should refocus. I agree. Team Human is a manifesto, different to the policy ideals explored by say Paul Collier in The Future of Capitalism.  The structure is 100 (one hundred) essays or statements, where he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together — not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of ex...

The Strange Order of Things: Life, feeling and the making of cultures by Antonio Damasio Follow him on Twitter ---- For decades, biologists spurned emotion and feeling as uninteresting. Antonio Damasio, a professor of neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, sets out to investigate “why and how we emote, feel, use feelings to construct ourselves and how brains interact with the body to support such functions”. He demonstrates that we are our chemistry and that feelings are central to the life-regulating processes which keep us alive and thriving. What the body feels is every bit as significant as what the mind thinks and we can turn to emotions to explain human consciousness and cultures. It is worth spending a few minutes reading the praise section as the depth and quality will confirm this book is worth taking seriously. You may not like the content or agree with it - but it is worth reading. The link here to data and sensors is that maybe we can deter...

The Inflamed Mind Edward Bullmore Follow Edward on TWITTER In The Inflamed Mind, Cambridge psychiatrist, Professor Edward Bullmore presents a new discovery which overturns centuries of medical, psychological and philosophical understanding: the mind and body are linked far more closely than we ever knew - obvious! Central to this thinking is doing away with old notions of dualism, such as mind and body, inherited from Descartes. For years it has been accepted by the medical profession that mind and body were separated by a `blood-brain barrier', which prevented all cellular interaction. It was not considered professionally respectable to investigate connections between the brain, the realm of neuroscience, and the immune system, the province of immunology, because it was well known that the brain and the immune system had nothing to do with each other. Now it is clear that that is not the whole story. Bullmore's research reveals that the existence of the blood-brain ba...

The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier  outlines original, pragmatism and ethical ways of addressing the growing gaps between economic prosperity and being more humane. The topic is of great importance and you may not agree with the content but it is beautifully written and important book. The author takes on the failures of contemporary capitalism driven by national and global policy for the now discontent of contemporary high-income western countries and offers (practical) ideas and policies to address them. Drawing on ideas from some of the world's most distinguished social scientists and much of his own personal background and leading research Paul shows us how to save the ideals “capitalism” from itself - and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the 20th century. “Deep rifts are tearing apart the fabric of our societies. They are bringing new anxieties and new anger to our people, and new passions to our politics. Thriving cities versus the provin...

Open Source Leadership    @RajeevPeshawria We always thought leadership should be democratic but Rajeev Peshawaria shows through his research that a great leaders should be autocratic. I wrote long thought piece in 2018 called Organisation 2.0  I will post it soon as it was a good structure of thinking but lacked a reason (which I think I now have).  The thesis started from ideas that the gen X and Millennials are thinking differently about assets, policy and values.  The are a generation where the gig economy has more alignment than a pension. Rajeev's book starts with identical thinking, which is also echoed in the excellent book by Paul Collier “T he Future of Capitalism ” So knowing that there is a substantive change in the views/ opinions about work and what work means - it means that management and leadership have to adopt.  The 1980’s MBA is now so far out of date on theory and ideals that it is all but irrelevant - however most top ma...

Hello World by Hannah Fry .   Follow Hanna on Twitter My take If you are having any issues explaining algorithms, data or the impact to anyone from a student to the CEO. READ this book ! It is brilliant. I highlighted more in this book than most Hannah brings out that algorithms and data bias is part of society, however the scale is now something we cannot hide from.  Past controls were hidden but now are out in the open, but sometimes we don’t have a clue how it happens We have a choice every time we use a service - be lazy or be in control.  Neither is better however, to become dependent on the algorithm is not about the loss of control but about the loss of identity Control of the algorithm is not limited to the code, but the weaknesses of the machine, design and data. Love Hannah’s take on AI, will be writing up another book on AI soon - so will keep thinking on AI for that. When people are unaware that they are being manipulated, they tend t...