The World Economic Forum recently released a report called and is fostering a 3 year project called Rethinking Personal Data that involves convening C level executives and government leaders.  Although rooted in their Telecommunications interest group this effort is attracting interest and attention from the other industries as well including Banking, Advertising, Data Broker, Web, Cable Industries.  The Industry Collaborative within PDEC is focused on supporting the technical and business practitioners within large enterprises in these industries who are tasked with developing products and services for the Personal Data Ecosystem. 

Given the range of different industries involved in engaging in this space developing common language and understanding across them is going to be essential for success.  Our catalytic roll is to support information exchange and learning between practitioners from these industries so a coherent interoperable ecosystem can be developed.

We run our first Industry Collaborative project a  Value Network Map and Analysis this summer. The goal was understand the current personal data ecosystem and map out a future where people are aggregators of their own data in personal data stores and have services running on their behalf using their data. The logic for doing this is simply that, if personal data is the oil of the information age, then we need a clear picture of how it is going to flow – where value is realized and people’s interests are aligned with business goals and outcomes. This critical industry is already emerging and there are several scenarios that could play out in the next two to five years. The risk of not doing this foundational work is high. If companies are not proactive about shaping the conversation around models and standards, regulators can easily fall into knee-jerk policy making that will constrain the market.