For the past few years I’ve co-hosted an interesting dinner, where I ask each guest to speak for less than 2 minutes on a way they think the world will change in the next 5 years – that is not obvious.
In December I hosted 70 leaders in a wide variety of disciplines – from horticulture to economics. The guest list included; 2 Governors, 7 CEO’s of companies of more than $2 billion in revenue, Chief Investment Officers of more than $38 Billion, 11 venture capitalists, etc….so you get the idea.
The 70 ideas were then voted on by each table, and below is a finalist – on ways the world will change that are not obvious. Please share your ideas on other non-obvious predictions and your thoughts about this one.
I’ve been blogging about the Implict Web for some time now. Specifically, I believe that as people conduct more of their life online, they leave a mountain of digital breadcrumbs (also called data exhaust). Historically, this data has existed in silos. Amazon knows what books I like. Netflix knows what movies I like. OpenTable knows where I eat. But as more websites adapt web services and build APIs, this data can be used in new and unexpected ways. I believe that tremendous value will be created when someone can “cross the silos.” Google’s PageRank, for example, is a perfect example of data exhaust. It’s a set of data (webmasters HTML links) that was created for one purpose, but adds a ton of value when used in a new way (search).
So, here’s my latest hypothesis: I believe that we’re rapidly reaching a point where we can learn as much about disease causation by leveraging internet breadcrumbs as we can from traditional medical studies.
For example, there has been an ongoing controversy over whether the use of antiperspirants/deodorants increases the risk of breast cancer. While there have been several studies done to date, the results haven’t provided conclusive data. Indeed, the National Cancer Institute has said: “Because studies of antiperspirants and deodorants and breast cancer have provided conflicting results, additional research is needed to investigate this relationship and other factors that may be involved.”
While I’m not a medical researcher or statistician, I’m amazed about the low sample sizes of these studies. For example, the most recent study cited by the NCI had just 104 people in it. The study before that had only 437 people in it.
What if we asked people to opt-in to participate in a Medical Data Pooling Project? Users would voluntarily contribute their data exhaust (without any personally identifying information) for medical research. Every year hundreds of thousands of people support the fight against breast cancer by walking/contributing to walkathons (the Susan G. Komen Walkathon, The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer). What if we asked them to join a linkathon — just link your data to this nonprofit medical data pool?
For example, CVS has 50 Million people who have enrolled in Extracare (their loyalty program). I sure bet a lot of them are women who buy deodorant at CVS. And if you don’t shop at CVS, you probably buy deodorant at a supermarket that has a loyalty program (most likely run by Catalina Marketing). What if a researcher was able access this global consumption data and target a segment of the population (say, 50,000 women above the age of 40 who buy deodorant 4 times a year or more, for example) and then survey them about their medical history? The ability to link to consumption to medical condition would be extremely valuable.
The power of this linkage could be immense. Take the debate over whether the chemicals used in dry cleaners (PERC) cause cancer. With over 600,000 users tracking their expenses, I’m sure that Mint.com would be an invaluable data set for medical researchers. Want to study if prolonged cell phone usage causes cancer? Skydeck collects your cell phone usage data.
Convincing users to anonymously part with their data and answer some medical questions is not going to be easy . . . BUT, it should be a lot easier than convincing them to participate in clinical trials. Current non-profits could be enlisted to get their membership to participate (i.e., it might be easier to get someone to donate their data exhaust than to give money or participate in a fundraiser). And I have to think that the database providers would love this — after all, this would (1) potentially encourage more consumers to participate, (2) benefit society and (3) provide them with a compelling argument to all those people who oppose database marketing.
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As always, the question is how to assure that privacy is preserved. But then, that question arises even if no one makes use of digital exhaust in ways that are charitable or beneficial to the public. Right now, patterns in the data at the places Ben cites (CVS, etc.) can be exploited for obnoxious marketing, public hunilitaion, blackmail and discrimination. Got AIDS, suffer infertility, keep Kosher, fast during Ramadan, have an interest in Wicca or Satan-worship, buy a new hat for Easter, like to dance? Imagine the Taliban or even the relatively respectful government of the People’s Republic of China decides to pour over your records, to confirm that you are not a social misfit, a danegr to socieity or merely a soulless infidel. It may turn out, when people look back cebnturies hence, that information technology has done more harm to humanity than nuclear technology. But I am afraid I have stepped into the realm of the obvious. What is not obvious is what to do about it. Ironically, the only public figure who has demonstrated any effective program for protecting personal privacy in an electronic age is Osama Bin Laden. Digitally, he is a zero emitter. In this respect–and, lest government authorities scanning this text put me on a list, I must emphatically say ONLY in this respect–, perhaps he is to be emulated.
Both you and Zach raise fascinating points that will invariably be debated by marketers, civil libertarians and researchers in the near future (if not the present)
It is an interesting question and I believe that sharing of data will contribute to curing cancer. A study between the use of antiperspirant and incidence of breast cancer would be unlikely to reveal a cause of breast cancer. Maybe a false positive but not a result. There is value in this data though and sharing like this should be encouraged.
You also rightly point out that study participant numbers look low. The reason for this is that biopharma companies and NCI are seeking to learn from these studies. They seek to understand the mechanism of the disease (of which cancer is made up of many many mechanisms across numerous types of cancer).
They identify a hypothesis and then test it in small numbers of patients to evaluate the accuracy of their hypothesis. In some Phase 0 studies that can be as few as one patient. Learning about the disease and it’s mechanisms is the best approach to curing cancer.
Sharing mechanism data that is held in the biopharma companies would likely accelerate the arrivals of the cures. The challenge is that they would then be unable to recoup the investment they have made in trying to cure cancer. Moral goals in a corporate setting make it a tough industry to balance.
[...] article available here in Sunday’s Boston Globe. I wrote a very similar article on how digital exhaust will cure cancer. I think people will have the ability to opt out/in of large scale medical studies on each of our [...]