Stories are data with Soul - implications for analysis of your digital footprint and your attitude to privacy

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The TED talk from Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability  is worth 20 minutes. Whilst her talk is about vulnerability in the opening she starts with a phrase "maybe stories are just data with a soul"   The talk got me thinking on all sorts of levels but the phrase has significant implications on how to look at the data and information from your digital footprint.

Whilst we are in the opening stages of another issue with Facebook (opening address and phone number)  The privacy campaigners are out waving banners but seam to forget that anyone can buy all your data from a wide range of sources and that there is a barter in exchange for your data/ privacy.   Should someone be able to change the rules, *yes* it is how innovation happens.  However the implication is that this data (name, address, phone number) does not have a story, it has no soul.  Your location, attention, reputation, intent, purchases, friends - now they do have a story to tell and so could have a soul.   So why do we value data more than soul in the privacy debate?

image from Data, Design, and Soulful Experience http://interactions.acm.org/content/?p=1303