Five Misconceptions about Personal Data: Why we need a people-centred approach to Big Data is a paper presented at EPIC 2013 in London. We produce vast amounts of data in our daily lives. Email, text, search, check-in, photos, payments – all these activities create a trail of digital exhaust. This personal data has been triumphantly declared a “new asset class” by the WEF and compared to oil as the world’s newest economic resource. This has sparked the big data boom, a frantic race to gather our personal data. However, this gold rush obscures the real value of personal data, and forgets a fundamental rule of innovation: start with the person. Why has this basic principle been largely absent from our obsession with big data? This paper draws on global ethnographic research with data-driven individuals, experts, and start-ups to address five common misconceptions about personal data. It concludes with a set of simple principles for ethnography to help create new value from personal data and to deliver that value back to people themselves.

1. 5 Misconceptions about Personal
Data: Why we need a people-
centred approach
Abby Margolis, Claro Partners

2. From data-centric to people-centric
• Shift in thinking from Big Data, to Personal Data, and
from what is technologically possible to what is of new
benefit to individuals
• Address five common misconceptions in the data
conversation that don’t apply to Personal Data
• Introduce some principles for ethnography to enrich
perspectives and opportunities around Personal Data
@claropartners
#personaldata

3. Every time we interact,
communicate, access,
share, recommend,
download and record,
we cast a digital
shadow of our
activities
Image:petilipois|Flickr

4. Businesses are
collecting and
stockpiling personal
data, convinced that
bigger is better; this is
resulting in a
big data boom
Image:GloalAccessPoint

5. OLD DATA EXPERIENCES NEW DATA EXPERIENCES
Not just more data but new data experiences

6. Our research was grounded in the belief that we
need to start with the person rather than the data.
As ethnographers, we looked not at the data, but
at human behaviour to see what it could tell us
about the role of data in our everyday lives.

7. Six month, global consortium investigating personal data experiences

8. Five misconceptions about personal
data

9. MISCONCEPTION #1
Personal data is
the new oil
Image:UCBluenoser|Flickr

10. REALITY:
My personal data is
most valuable to me!
Image:Foursquare

11. MISCONCEPTION #2
Personal data
is all about privacy
Image:tsallam|Flickr

12. REALITY:
People want to benefit
from their data - not hide
it away - but they need
control, trust and
transparency
Image:tsallam|Flickr

13. MISCONCEPTION #3
The value of
personal data is
in its sale
Image:shutterstock

14. REALITY:
The personal data
economy is an
experience economy

15. MISCONCEPTION #4
Personal data is
for data scientists

16. REALITY:
Personal data
empowers people
Image:Fitbit

17. MISCONCEPTION #5
Personal data
is big data
Image:Visualparadox

18. REALITY:
The personal data
economy is small data
Image:iStock

19. Data-centric
view
People-
centric view

20. 1. Start with the person, not the data
2. Become observers of the role data plays in people’s lives
3. Identify unmet functional and emotional needs
4. Create tools
5. Design the whole user experience
Five key principles for ethnography to help promote a people centric
approach to personal data

21. Thank you
Abby Margolis | Research Director
Abby.margolis @claropartners.com
+34 674 061 648 (m)
abbymargolis (skype)
@claropartners