Data Love at Next11

This week I had the pleasure of attending Berlin's Next11, one of Europe's largest digital media conferences. The theme was "Data Love," and for two days, over 100 thought leaders from around the world gave presentations and got conversations flowing about how data is driving the next wave of digital innovation.

One of the recurring themes of the conference was the ethical and philosophical debate about personal data. How much of ourselves should we open up and share? Does the value of services that aggregate massive amounts of personal data outweigh the corresponding reduction in privacy? Should we feel optimistic about the potential for greater connection with others and better understanding of our world? How concerned should we feel about the potential for our personal data to be misused?

Fabio Sergio, creative director of Frog Design's Milan office, offered a positive perspective on the impact of this changing world of personal data. He talked about data as a kind of digital "exhaust." As we move through the world, we're basically exhaling data at every turn, and being able to collect, store and analyze that information about our behaviors provides insights about ourselves and how we interact with our environment that can lead to making better choices.  Sergio called this "mining for meaning." If we're able not only to track activity but to sort it and see patterns, we can improve human quality of life and make cases for economic and environmental change. He also talked about the evolving social norms related to personal data, and how these will largely be defined by the "digital natives"-people who don't remember life before computers. [Aside: Gary Shyengart provides a dystopian vision of the next generation's digital cultural norms in his 2010 novel, Super Sad True Love Story, which I just happened to be reading this week. But he's not a digital native.]

Also speaking at Next11 was Rafi Haladjian, the inventor of the Nabaztag, that cute little Wifi bunny that can be programmed to inform you that your stocks are dropping or read your email aloud. He talked about the future of connected environments and how he hates the phrase "internet of things."  His vision is much bigger than connecting bunnies to the Internet—it's one of sensitive and reactive environments that communicate with us and interact with each other in networks, for a single holistic experience that bridges the virtual and the real. Sounds like an LSD dream, but it's not that far away.  Haladjian is currently launching a new service called sen.se that connects and enables the mash-up of data from your various devices, sensors and Web feeds—another step toward a completely connected future.

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels talked about how "data without limits" is key to innovation. Before cloud storage, there was only so much data that could be collected and analyzed at one time, and this put certain limitations on the "truths" we could glean from analyzing that data. Like an image that gets clearer as you add more pixels, any given piece of information gets more accurate as you associate facts with it. He said that it's now common for online businesses to generate more than three terabytes of data per day, and that perhaps surprisingly, one of the most crucial tools for parsing all of that is Mechanical Turk, which allows people to help organize streams of data by recognizing errors a computer might miss. Vogels also talked about the importance of opening large data sets like the Human Genome Project and the U.S. Census, and how collaborating on the analysis of "big data" leads to both innovation and better interpretation of existing information.

The data theme resonated for me in an interesting way because I lost my iPad on the way to the conference, and using Apple's new and controversial "find my iPhone" feature, I learned that I had left my device on an airplane headed to Copenhagen! With a dozen phone calls and a live map of the Copenhagen airport displaying my iPad's location, I was able to track down the airline employee who had put it in a safe, and I got a friend in Copenhagen to pick it up. (Tak så meget Mikkel!) Amazing, and only possible as of a few weeks ago. My iPad would have been lost if I hadn't decided to open up my data by enabling the "find my iPhone" service.

Aside from helping people find lost Apple products, I think there's a much deeper implication to the current focus on data. Philosophers and mystics have long talked about how "everything is connected," but until now, that connectivity has been a matter of the soul and of science (all living organisms share certain molecules, etc), but nearly impossible for the average person to see. Today, we're reaching this beautiful moment when millions of people around the world can respond in concert to a human need. We sound the alarm that Japan has had a natural disaster, and send help immediately. We let corrupt governments around the Middle East know that masses of people disapprove of their actions. We see the impact of our actions illustrated through beautiful data visualizations—such as those from Hans Rosling's Gapminder World—that we can then act upon.

Yes, there are sinister possibilities inherent in sharing data (for a small slice of that, see icanstalku.com, a project that alerts people when they're sharing information that could be used by criminals). It's a rapidly evolving idea space and we can't foresee the various ways in which our data will be used.  But during the world events of the past few months, sharing and broadcasting data has enabled collective actionthat demonstrates there's much to be hopeful for.