There is a point when technology stops being a solution, and instead, becomes a question. Namely, how do you want to live? The tools of the 21st century may afford us the luxury of working anywhere, but how much of our work lives are deliberate decisions as opposed to accumulated accidents? If you started with a clean sheet of paper, how would you design your day? It’s harder than it sounds, and I also quickly learned that there were three things that stood in my way. I ended up calling them the three rules of freedom.

It’s easy to get seduced by the idea of Big Data. Data alone - well, that’s dull conversation fare. But throw in some hype, an adjective and a little capitalization, and you have this year’s big strategic topic. All that aside, there is one thing about this debate that makes it more important than the usual industry fad. Big Data is about Big Business, not just high tech startups.