Data is the World’s Most Valuable Resource (and You Own a Bit of It)
When you buy a bus ticket, check your email or pay with a digital wallet (such as Apple Pay, Vipps), new pieces of data are created in the vast, digital jigsaw puzzle. Each piece can potentially contain information about you.
Different actors may see different parts of this puzzle.
What many of the biggest and most successful companies worldwide have in common is their superior access to industry-specific data and their skill in using it. Not only do they have more pieces of the puzzle, but they’re also experts in fitting the pieces together, allowing them to create entirely new things and discover insights that others haven’t found.
These insights may be immediately valuable—and they may also in turn allow the companies to create even better products and services, and better understand their customers, adding further value.
At the same time, data isn’t only valuable in large quantities, or exclusively for big companies. Even the smallest businesses can benefit from adopting a data-driven approach. In addition to commercial businesses, governments, public authorities, and intelligence services, individuals are also interested in collecting data.
There is both small data and big data. Small data refers to manageable amounts that humans can comprehend, analyse, interpret, and use to guide their actions. Big data, however, is so vast that only machines can process it. Machines analyse this data, looking for relationships and patterns. These often need to be visualised and summarised to make sense to humans.
Both big and small data offer fantastic opportunities, but they also present some major challenges. These include concerns related to security, responsibility, data control , intellectual property and human autonomy.
Who is data valuable for?
Have you ever wondered how Google and Facebook actually make their money? Fundamentally, it’s through data, however, it’s not only these companies that find value in data!
So, the question is: If certain actors are far ahead in collecting, using, and controlling the data in circulation—what are their motives?
What happens if they can predict where we will go, who we will fall in love with, or who we will vote for? What happens to democracy and freedom of speech if we avoid seeking information or sharing our opinions out of fear for what it does to our digital profiles? Or when we only receive content that reinforces our existing beliefs and opinions, leading to a risk of developing an increasingly narrow and less diverse picture of reality?
All this datafication—meaning how all aspects of our lives, jobs, and society are represented in digital data—carries potential risks. While it presents considerable opportunities and benefits, it can also lead to hazards and negative impacts. Therefore, authorities around the world are attempting to regulate the use of data through legislation such as the GDPR (which we will return to).
For you as an individual, learning about data is not only crucial for leveraging its potential but also for understanding what happens to your data and developing the ability to think about it critically.
The journey from data to insight and value
We are still only entering the digital age. It is a new time—a data economy—where data is the foremost of all resources. To give an example: The consultancy firm Menon estimates the potential for data-based value creation in Norway to reach 300 billion NOK in 2030—about seven per cent of the country’s GDP.
The data-driven economy may surpass the value creation from oil and gas at the beginning of the next decade.
At the same time, this isn’t just about money: Data also leads to information and knowledge, which in turn can lead to power—and it can be harnessed to help us solve large and important problems in areas such as health and sustainability.
Much of the data comes from you—from your interaction with a machine or your surroundings—or from machines that are connected to the internet (Internet of Things, IoT), without us necessarily interacting with them directly. For example:
- Social media: Everything you click on, what you type in, how you navigate, what you dwell on—everything can be stored and become information about us.
- Websites and apps: Similarly to social media, all your interactions in apps and websites can be registered, whether it’s on an online newspaper or a digital learning platform.
- Vehicles: Modern vehicles, especially electric and connected cars, generate vast amounts of data about your driving behaviour and pattern, location, battery usage and vehicle performance.
- Smart home: Not just TVs and speakers, but door locks, coffee makers, light bulbs, heaters and ovens have Wi-Fi functions and can be controlled via an app. The use of both the devices and the app produces data that is collected and used by the provider and, possibly, third parties. The same applies to wearable devices such as smartwatches and smart rings.
- Smart cities: All around us, especially in urban areas, there are sensors that can register, send, and receive data. Such “smart” technology is used in everything from our cars to the infrastructure for water and sewage and the heating and lighting in buildings.
- Industry: Industry and infrastructure are becoming increasingly digitalised and automated, with data collection and optimisation at all levels—from planning logistics to the maintenance of machines and equipment.
- Services: Both public actors (e.g,. social services) and private actors (e.g., banking and insurance) depend on data from you and third parties (for example, credit assessments, etc.) to deliver their services.
Data leads to value in two ways. First, it gives you more and better insight. Second, it can be used as a basis for practical applications, to improve and streamline various processes.
Example
The multi-storey car park
Let’s say you run a multi-storey car park with charging stations for electric cars. The charging stations are “smart”; they are connected to the Internet and can send and receive data. In addition, you have installed sensors at each parking space that detect if a car is currently parked there.
The data that is collected, first of all, can be used to gain insight—in the form of, for example, troubleshooting and diagnostics of the charging stations, statistics on the use of the car park and decision support for determining prices, opening hours, and further expansion of the charging stations.
Second, the data can be built into the operating model itself. Access to the car park can be controlled with an app. This not only provides better control over access and payments; the app can also be used to show the customer where to find available parking spaces and charging stations, how long it will be before the car is fully charged, and so on. When everything in the car park both collects data and is connected to the Internet, it’s almost only the imagination that sets the limit for extensions to the services that are provided.
While the primary purpose is to streamline their own services, the car park can also potentially make money by refining and selling their data to other interested parties. These third parties could be insurance companies, urban developers, the municipality, or nearby businesses. Through the mobile app, one can also get information not only about the car park, but about the car’s owner, car brand, type of mobile phone, and so on—which might lead to valuable insights both for the car park and third parties.
This secondary use of data—data that is shared, auctioned, or sold—is central to the digital economy, and an important reason for why data is such a valuable resource.
In this way, data directly or indirectly has value for all actors in society, from public authorities to private companies, hackers, activists, and private individuals.
You are a data producer
Every single interaction we have with digital technology produces data. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are a co-creator and a producer of data, not just a passive user of this new digital reality.
Most of our data production is invisible and unconscious. It’s a bit like driving a car: You are conscious of the steering wheel and the road—but indifferent to the mechanics of how air and petrol mix in the carburettor of the engine (or how an electric motor works, for that matter). That’s how it is with data.
But data is also much more—and much closer to us—than this vast and intangible world that big tech companies operate in, with their log files, servers, and databases. Even the notepad you use for a training diary is full of data, which you fully control and oversee yourself.
“Quantified self”
There are many who, knowingly and willingly, collect as much data about themselves and their daily lives as possible. This trend is referred to as the “quantified self”. Expand the box to read more!
Even if you are aware that you are collecting data, it is the data on top of the iceberg you are dealing with. Underneath the surface are other data—what we call analytic data, diagnostic data and function data—which are data you do not see, and are probably not as conscious of. You will learn more about all of this in later topics.
But first, there is one important thing we need to stop and clarify: What is data really?