Last week, I was in Mountain View participating in the Internet Identity Workshop #17 working with luminaries like Doc Searls (@dsearls), Craig Burton (@craigburton), Kaliya Identity Woman (@identitywoman), and Phil Windley (@Windley), leaders from likes of Google, Microsoft, HP, Yahoo, AOL, and Amazon, plus a slew of entrepreneurs and policy folks.

So when my 12 year old sent me a email for the very first time, it was shining example of what this conference is all about. Allow me to explain.

At IIW, lots of conversation centered on the fundamental building blocks of the Personal Data Ecosystem (the tremendous market opportunity based on personal data estimated to create over 1Trillion Euros in value by 2020 – and that’s just in Europe).

The key ingredients are:
1) Solid, simple digital identity solutions – OAuth2 and OpenID Connect fit the bill.
2) APIs to interact with products and services, programmatically.
3) Free, simple access to, or better yet full control over, your personal data from any app or service you use.
4) Commitment to simple interoperability – its all about the interop.
5) A bias toward action.
6) Connecting things – digital or not – to the internet.
7) A systematic approach to trust and privacy by design.

So here is the kicker – my 12 year old who sent me an email… is my 2001 Station Wagon. Yes my car emailed me. When it emailed me, there was no one in the car with a smart phone. The car experienced an error code (P0113 – Intake Air Temperature Circuit High Input) and it let me know – all by itself.

How did this happen? I am using a product/service called Carvoyant coupled with proof of concept software from Family Fleet Manager Phil Windley’s company Kynetx (this POC, was built on their SquareTag platform, is part of a great new project up on kickstarter called Fuse)

I have the OBD2 device plugged into my car all the time. It talks to the internet via its own cell connection. Carvoyant gets the data and makes it available to the Kynetx’ software. Totally cool.

The Personal Data Ecosystem is real, The Internet of Things includes more than just digital devices (Phil says potholes should be included)  and putting this all to work for you is simpler than you think. When you get to know PICOs (Persistent compute objects) you will see the boundless opportunity.