NB: This is a guest article by Jonathan MacDonald, co-founder of This Fluid World.
Across all industries - especially travel - the volume and context of data generated by users is apparently the key to future business models.
Common thinking suggests the greater the volume and richness of data, the greater our ability to target commercial communications and fine-tune offerings for competitive success.
The more specific context of people we can add, the fuller the portrayed picture of a prospective or existing customer becomes.
The ultimate extension of this presents an absolute truth: the most valuable data is the most personal.
In modern business this is no news. I often observe a strategic starting point of three components; the first is the standard offering of a product or service (eg. a room, a seat, etc); the second is an objective of making money; and the third, for reasons above, to gain more data.
Thus, the value exchange runs:
- You provide your cash and information
- We'll provide our services
This is a value exchange from the perspective of service provision... But of course, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
One could argue however the most effective way of assembling a powerful value exchange is from the perspective of a person rather than the perspective of company.
As the Japanese business proverb goes:
"Concentrate on the product and the profit will follow."
To the case in point I would augment that to:
"Concentrate on the external value and the internal reward will follow."
If you turn the perspective a full cycle round to a personal perspective, and retain the absolute truth that the most valuable data is the most personal, we end up with a situation where people, not corporations, would be the most effective assemblers of value exchanges because people, not corporations, hold the rights to the greatest currency: privacy.
From the above thinking I have created a thesis based our personal privacy being a trade-worthy currency in exchange for common products and services - Privacy-as-a-Currency (PaaC), if you will.
To develop my thinking I originally needed an industry, a muse, that had a clear and traditional exchange of service in return for payment of one kind or another. The hotel sector seemed appropriate.
In this context I've been considering whether a person could exchange their own privacy as a form of payment. In exchange for staying in a room, one would agree to allow cameras to live stream content from within.
To some this may sound slightly obscene, after all what happens in hotel rooms should quite rightly be "private", but then again in a world where we play out our lives in social networks, there are modern paradigms that actually justify this type of approach rather than reject it.
I call the concept EyeHotel.
Let's look at so-called reality TV shows - some might say they are primarily orchestrated by editors and producers. How about talent shows? Some might say they are cynical circus side-shows created by the vertically waist-banded.
If people really want reality or actual talent, maybe EyeHotel could deliver it.
And, unsurprisingly, the revenue streams associated could diversify profitably from the norm. I've written more about it here, but in short:
- Footage streamed 24 hours a day, seven days week on EyeHotel.tv
- Hoteliers get paid AT LEAST rack rate and can remain anonymous.
The primary brand construct for EyeHotel.tv:
But remember, this isn't actually just applicable to hotels. It's about turning value exchanges round to start from a perspective of PaaC.
If you think about it, we're not that far removed already in a world where our personal information is being sold on a daily basis to various parties - however currently the average citizen isn't getting the primary value in return from that sale.
Perhaps this could or should change. Let me know.
NB: This is a guest article by Jonathan MacDonald, co-founder of This Fluid World. Follow MacDonald on Twitter, visit his website or read his original thoughts on EyeHotel.tv from March 2010.