Remember the dizzying madness of the digital art NFT (Non-Fungible Token) era, when unremarkable cartoon images were selling for eye-watering prices because they were entangled with a newfangled crypto whatnot called ‘NFTs? 95% of the digital collectibles are now probably worthless.
Matt Levine (he writes the Money Stuff column at Bloomberg News) spent time trying to understand what an NFT actually was:
“Oh. I get it. It’s a receipt.”
Indeed, an NFT is a receipt for the item you bought. That’s basically it. It is a deed of ownership.
If you bought a digital cartoon image of a cigarette-smoking ape, you got a receipt, an NFT, lodged securely on a blockchain which proved you owned the ape, and to which only you had access.
The evolution of the technology
While the speculative bubble surrounding digital art and exorbitantly priced JPEGs has deflated, the concept of a “digital receipt” or blockchain-based certificate of ownership has persisted in other sectors, such as the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), gaming, and digital ticketing, with a far smaller impact and significantly less media attention.
So the question is: how you can recognize, in your business, what data is a valuable digital asset and what is not?
A digital asset is considered valid and valuable when it acquires the capacity to generate profit and to be recognized and exchanged between parties.
BIM/CAD files, digital catalogs, spec sheets, manuals, certifications, projects, presentations, digital twin data, customer data, and more.
It’s not about the tools (CRM, ERP, authoring software, CDE, etc.). Those are evolving constantly.
It’s about YOUR information. That should also evolve constantly but mostly remain organized, so you should always know where to find them and how to use them to generate value, not to answer emails or phone calls to provide “a document”.
Information flows like blood in the veins, and if they are motionless, they are useless.
Chitchat about digital assets is not what your business needs
Today, I see so many “professionals” posting weekly on LinkedIn the same messages with questions at the end, to look smart.
And yet I don’t see any solutions proposed. Because they don’t have one.
Snake oil salesmen on the internet are not the right solution for your digital assets.
I’ve spent the last several years working with more than 100 companies to help them build their digital asset capabilities. Across nearly every conversation, the driver is the same: digital assets compress the time between a client’s intent and its execution. What’s also become clear across the conversations is that, regardless of what the company is using digital assets for, it all comes down to one decision, made once: the control layer.
Everyday files (e.g. documents, videos, presentations, logos) are digital assets, as are datasets and databases that inform analytics and decision-making. Digital assets let companies track real-world activity with far more transparency.
Digital assets can be listed on various platforms, each containing their own fee structures and custody methods. A user’s choice of platform affects fees, access to assets and the degree of control they retain over their holdings.
It is crucial to make smart choices about where to put yours. Don’t be fooled.
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Stay data-hungry. Stay data-foolish.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Digital Consultant
