This is not a hit job on Cody Wilson, tempting though it might be to write one.

Here’s the thing – if I shared his world view, however you might define it, I wouldn’t want him on my side.  For a number of reasons, he’s just not a credible representative.

It’s a problem when people like that are on your side.  We link messages and messengers, and we judge each with a view to the other.  You don’t want your message dragged down by the problems of some other messenger.

Here’s what this has to do with Big Data.

As we know, Big Data brings with it a lot of social and legal issues that need to be addressed.  It will be difficult enough to address them without the discussion being influenced by the qualities of the people who visibly take part in the discussion.

The Big Data business community needs to think about this.  It needs to invest time and money in getting ahead of the issues, put forward reasoned and reasonable proposals for the addressing the issues and try to keep the focus on the issues.  Start now please.  You don’t want people to know that someone like Cody Wilson is on your side.

So I guess that’s more of a sermon than I originally intended.  Oh well.