John Thompson’s book, Data for All, is one of the more interesting ones I have read recently. It is one of the most honest, direct, pull-no-punches sources on one of the most important personal issues of our time. That issue is, ‘Should I undertake extraordinary efforts to prevent companies—tech and otherwise—from getting access to my personal data?’ I think the answer is yes. I’ve already changed some of my own behaviors after reading the book, and I suggest you do so as well. You have more to lose than you may think.
—Thomas H. Davenport,
Distinguished Professor, Babson College and Fellow,
MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy,
author of Competing on Analytics and The AI Advantage
John provides a cogent and concise treatment of the problem of ‘digital exhaust’ and what to do about the nearly infinite traces of ourselves that we create in the course of everyday activity. His voice is of someone who has lived with and thought about data from before it was trendy to do so. While John is appropriately blunt about the challenges ordinary people face in controlling their data, he is neither cynical or pessimistic, and therefore provides an actionable path toward greater agency around the data we generate.