The Thing About the Internet of Things is the Humanity in the Data

The thing about the Internet of Things is it isn’t about the things; it’s about the people.

The “things,” for the most part, are designed to create more connected experiences for humans. And the data layer that connects the digital experiences to the physical world through our gestures and actions is our data.

The transactional data that connects the online and offline world happens largely through us, through our transactions and purchases, through our speech, through our attention, through everything we do.

In the course of analyzing, optimizing, and targeting, we can’t let ourselves forget about the humanity in the data.

(This, by the way, is part of what I examine in my forthcoming book Pixels and Place: Designing Human Experience Across Physical and Digital Spaces. Available in print and Kindle versions on September 1st, but you can pre-order a Kindle copy now.)