{"id":50139,"date":"2016-08-04T02:09:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T06:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/?p=50139"},"modified":"2023-10-21T06:06:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T10:06:37","slug":"age-data-era-homo-digitus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/2016\/08\/age-data-era-homo-digitus\/","title":{"rendered":"THE AGE OF DATA: THE ERA OF HOMO DIGITUS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Age of Data<\/strong><\/h1>\n

In our digital era data deluge \u2013 soaring amounts of data, is an overriding feature. That\u2019s why it\u2019s fitting to focus on the concept of Homo Digitus, which I first learned about about in\u201cThe creative destruction of medicine: How the digital revolution will create better health care,<\/em>\u201d by Eric Topol<\/a>, and more recently highlighted as a Gigaom conference theme. \u00a0In Topol\u2019s vision there is a new human species,\u00a0Homo digitus<\/em> that benefits from the data deluge brought about by the convergence of the digital and physical world. \u00a0They track sleep quality with brain-wave headbands, monitor vital signs with wrist transceivers and use cell phones for self-diagnosis amongst other things, realizing the opportunity for a much more evolved life.<\/p>\n

Data is the New Food<\/h2>\n

Each evolution of the human species delivers on the promise of a smarter human far more capable than the species that preceded it. \u00a0In earlier species humankind looked for new ways to improve hunting and gathering of food and in some parts of the world, such was their mastery that they even created an oversupply of certain foods. Homo Digitus sees data as the new food and you\u2019d be challenged to find any facet of life that has not been revolutionized by data deluge \u2013 there are a great many varying estimates, on how much data is created every year but everywhere you look volumes of data are soaring.<\/p>\n

Mostly, it\u2019s been for the better good of humankind.\u00a0 With new data points we\u2019ve experienced great transformation in the quality of services, business process and everyday living. \u00a0We\u2019ve come to have a great reliance on the benefits that data deluge brings.\u00a0 If you consider how often an individual might use map services to estimate a commute, or an app to compare shopping prices, and then for business the productivity and economic gains from using data points to estimate customer preferences, improve customer service and speed business delivery times.<\/p>\n

Data Exploitation<\/h2>\n

Conversely, data is also exploited and misused in ways that leaves humankind fragile and that puts businesses at great risk.\u00a0 Data breaches, privacy infringements, identity and data theft<\/a>, and unauthorized data access and changes abound.\u00a0\u00a0 Every day we read of some new exploit, more egregious than the previous where criminals have found a new way to extract data and then profit from the sale of that data.<\/p>\n

There are also businesses who have started to use data from individuals in a way that is not always very transparent. That\u2019s stating it in very simplistic terms.\u00a0 However, as great a risk might be posed to businesses from well-intentioned individuals, who might accidentally misuse or overshare data.\u00a0 It\u2019s only natural considering that for many individuals digitization occurred midway during their lifespan and dealing with the data deluge is not yet a completely natural phenomenon.\u00a0 Also, our lives are increasingly fast paced, workplaces are more pressurized and the convergence between home and work narrower, that workers are prone to accidentally misusing data.\u00a0 For example, it\u2019s very easy to accidentally drag and drop a file into an email and send as an attachment.<\/p>\n

Controlling the Data Deluge to Maximize on Homo Digitus<\/h2>\n

What\u2019s needed is a way that allows Homo Digitus to benefit from the positive effects of data deluge but with the safety net that data flows are being directed to only those authorized to have access.\u00a0 In an enterprise being able to proactively determine data flows and then implement additional safeguards based on a comprehensive set attributes ranging from geolocation, network, device down to multiple facets of identity will be critical, given the sophistication of data exploitation. \u00a0Information security\u00a0tools have traditionally been associated with impeding progress.\u00a0 Newer solutions need to be easy to implement and policy attributes stated in a way which are business-consumable.\u00a0\u00a0 Homo Digitus is still in the process of being shaped.\u00a0 Now is the time to ensure that data deluge does not become the destroyer of this species and remains the positive enabler.<\/p>\n

By Evelyn de Souza<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Age of Data In our digital era data deluge \u2013 soaring amounts of data, is an overriding feature. That\u2019s why it\u2019s fitting to focus on the concept of Homo Digitus, which I first learned about about in\u201cThe creative destruction of medicine: How the digital revolution will create better health care,\u201d by Eric Topol, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":40104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudtweaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}