The Intention Economy

21

Small Data

Personal data—digital data created by and about people—represents a new economic “asset class,” touching all aspects of society.

—World Economic Forum¹

The right to be left alone is the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people.

—Louis Brandeis²

THE ARGUMENT

We need ways of gathering, organizing, and controlling the data that we generate and that others suck in from our digital crumb trails. We also need new understandings about how personal data might be used. None of this is easy, yet it must be done. Fortunately, it’s still early.

As any parent knows, possession is nine-tenths of the three-year-old, and possessive pronouns are as human as opposable thumbs. This is why we’ll never be able ...