Two interesting conversations on Linkedin concerned Big Data doubts. The October Manager’s Choice discussion on the page of England’s Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE) was started by Mike Barker who solicited thoughts about how modern buildings should accommodate “the fancy andro-appleo-bling that we will be wearing.”  He pointed to inspiration from both the October automatedbuildings.com article by Jim Sinopoli  and the recent AppleWatch announcement and subsequent high-fashion publicity campaign. The conversation did not veer off in the positive, enthusiastic direction he expected.  You can read it here.  To summarize  the 26 comments he writes

Instead, we are discovering we all have misgivings about the use of this big data. Despite that, it’s all going to happen – so how can we make best used of the data without compromising our human rights. And who would have thought Building Services Engineers would even have to consider human rights when specifying a sensor. It seems we do have this as an added responsibility to our clients. Time to dust of the CIBSE Code of Conduct then :- ” Have due regard to the safety, health and welfare of themselves, colleagues and the general public.” Could someone argue their welfare was compromised if a wearable heart rate sensor or a wall mounted surveillance / temp / CO2 / occupancy sensor shared their intimate data with outsiders ? We have a duty of care to at least warn our clients.

A similar tone was struck by Fred Gordy in his blog post entitled “Is Big Data Dead.”

As is often the case, Ken Sinclair offers some sage advice:

The true danger comes from not being involved in its evolution and having open discussions like this.