Apparently, Uber has a company tool called “God View” that reveals the location of Uber vehicles and customers who request a car. This tool can allow a wide number of Uber employees to view customers’ locations. Now this is “my data” & now Uber has it!

In fact this becomes even more critical in the Health care arena.Shouldn’t patients be the owners of their own medical data? The US government has an interesting Blue button initiative. This protocol is already providing a secure way for veterans and Medicare beneficiaries to share their medical history with health care providers they trust. You can use your health data to improve your health, and to have more control over your personal health information and your family’s healthcare.

Many businesses are still not getting the fact that using API’s can be a powerful force multiplier for them. Put simply, an API is a set of instructions that allows one piece of software to interact with another. In general, as the array of API enabled devices and services grows, so too does the range of ways that they can be connected. An interesting UK government report suggested that :”You can even connect the lights in your living room to ESPN so that they flash when your football team scores, or to your calendar so that they blink on your birthday”.

The growth in the use of public APIs reflects the fact that there are a number of ways in which organisations can benefit from allowing their software and data to interact with third parties. For some companies, their APIs are their core business model. Twillio, for instance, provides a service that allows partners to send and receive voice and SMS communications.When a customer receives an SMS message telling them that their Uber driver has arrived, this is powered by the Twillio API.

Richard Thaylor, a professor of economics and behavioural science at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago has this very interesting proposition.

This is what Richard provocatively suggests:

“If a business collects data on consumers electronically, it should provide them with a version of that data that is easy to download and export to another Web site. Think of it this way: you have lent the company your data, and you’d like a copy for your own use”. Read more about this:

http://nyti.ms/2iY2Tmp

I think this is a powerful idea & can have a huge impact on consumers & also create a huge number of intermediary companies who help consumers make sense of their data. The idea of using analytics as “personal power” will definitely be resisted by companies & governments, but it has the power to allow the customer to control & manage her relationships with Telecom, Retail & a myriad other companies.

Here is how Richard explains this can happen:

“Mydata” is the term we use in the United Kingdom; in the United States it’s called “Smart Disclosure.” The idea is that in many cases we can help consumers simply by making their own usage data available to them. Here’s an example: You’re searching for a new smartphone calling plan. What you’d like is access to all the ways you use your smartphone—in a machine readable format. That would create a business opportunity for online services that I call “choice engines.” With one click you could upload all of your usage data, and the choice engine would recommend plans that suit your needs. We can help people make smarter decisions across many areas of their lives just by giving them access to their data”. 

My experience of working in large banks & Retail companies has been that often thoughts like these can be seen as fluffy & not hard “revenue producing” ideas. This really is about becoming more customer centric. In many companies, such as banks, business silos make customer centric initiatives far more difficult. As Marketers in service companies,often the power does not lie with the CMO to drive such thinking forward. And yet as industries are getting disrupted, maybe this is the time to make your voices heard & take steps to become more customer centric.

So how does all this matter to companies.

1. Business is no longer the gatekeeper to data: customers will demand their data & intermediaries will build solution sthat offer “customer value” on top of it. Banks , Retailers & Telecom companies will need to follow this trend & partner their customers for making money!
2. Marketers can help customers lead a better life: Whatever business you are in, customers will want you to add value to their lives. Helping customers use their own data in creative new ways can be a great diffrentiator. Customer data can be used to benchmark customers. Customers would love to know how their telecom spends compare with someone of a similar profile. Am I spending too much time on the phone lately, that too in my personal hours on official matters!Or how many hours of Kids television does my household watch as compared to others. Customers may willingly provide more data(information about their family’s or interests) in return for getting value addition like this.
3. Creating a Personal data product business: Most millennials are data natives. A data native is someone who expects their world to not just be digital, but to be smart and to be able to personalise to their taste and habits. For example, a bank should not only be digital and interactive — it should be personalized. It should tell you what you need to know based on your interests, location, preferences. Data products provide context & personalisation. If your brand has the customers trust, they may even be open to giving you their data from other service providers, if you can help them improve their life.The expectations have shifted. Companies need to focus on creating a product based on data & making it valuable for their customers.