With data in their hands, consumers can intimidate anybody

The blockchain era has spawned a great deal of innovation, but its most lasting impact might well lie in the fact it forced us to think more imaginatively about data. A decade ago, every business wanted to be the next Facebook or Google, by selling its data to third parties. Today, the coming businesses are those which have grasped that data naturally belongs not to corporations but to consumers because, once consumers wake up to that fact, a lot of apparently successful businesses are going to be seriously discomfited. One person who has mapped a future in which computers steaming data are the constant companion of consumers is David Shrier, author, futurist, co-founder and CEO of Esme Learning Solutions, and professor of practice at Imperial College Business School. He spoke to Dominic Hobson about the role of data in trust, identity and democracy, the future of the financial services industry, and how to forge a successful path into a future in which everyone is connected by computers and informed continuously by algorithms processing streams of data. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.