Talk Data to Me: Small Data and Trust
Trust is a terribly broad topic. Because of this breadth it’s often the topic of side bar discussions, without meaningful intent to take it further. With trust at an all time low, it would seem this side bar discussion should start making its way to the centre of the room. In fact I’d argue (and do so regularly) it’s time to design for trust.
Through our work we’ve come to learn you can demystify trust in the context of economic and social interactions. You can even do this in such a way that it informs organisational change practices. You can do this in such a way that it impacts design practices. You can do this in such a way that it impacts how people navigate the complexity of their daily lives.
With all that said, we recently had the good fortune of organising and facilitating an event with General Assembly Melbourne. Our explicit focus was small data and data trust.
Small data is data that relates directly to an individual. It may be a biometric, a goal or preference, or something more contextual. Data trust is the trust a person or group of people place in an organisation’s data practices. It’s the propensity people have to willingly share their data with you when you ask them to do so.
Here’s a highlights reel of the event.
Our Panelists, Agnes Misiurny, Ben May, Tony Wu and Harvey Lee each have unique expertise and deep experience in research, design, governance and building data-driven businesses or business units. They tackled the tough topics we threw at them head on and offered up practical advice for the audience to take action on immediately.
With the world of data rapidly changing; hard hitting regulations, new technologies and more abrupt consumer behaviour, small data and data trust can no longer be afterthoughts. The organisations who deliver the most value will be the very same organisations who use people’s data most effectively. To gain access to this data, just when it’s needed most, organisations must exhibit their trustworthiness. They must be radically transparent, deliver new and unique value consistently, and be willing to own the consequences (positive or negative) of their actions.
It’s these traits that will define the success of data-driven organisations.
If you’re building a data-driven product, if you use data as part of your daily design workflow and if you want to find ways to inform, empower and enable the people you serve as customers to make free and easy choices, don’t wait around. The time to design for trust is now.
Get started with our practical playbook and feel free to reach out directly if you’d like to dive deeper into the practicalities of this topic.
