Just as we all interpret art differently, we can all interpret data differently. You and I could be looking at the same painting and have completely opposite views of what its message is. Thankfully, our opinions don’t hold much weight as to what the accepted themes are over time because artwork’s economic value is validated by the true professionals.

In fact, blockchain is the best solution for data. It has supporting architecture in order to confirm that the data is always current and the recipient never has to worry about it changing without their knowledge. Blockchain builds on the art world’s concept of provenance, making data more valuable because of its continued validation by multiple qualified sources over time.

Copy, paste, distribute

Contrary to public belief, when we share data or documents, we duplicate and distribute. We often say for example: “I will share my resume with you.”  But instead, I send you a copy of my resume. And when I send it to you, I don’t send the original resume. I send a copy of my resume. At any given moment, you may have multiples of the same document sitting on your computer. One on your desktop, one in your sent folder, one buried in a file, and one on your friend’s computer. Let’s hope none of them are supposed to be the original source for any decision-making processes. 

That is why provenance is important, since there will never be anything other than one true original. Just like art, a print of the Mona Lisa is  nowhere near as valuable as Leonardo da Vinci’s original painting. With blockchain as well, the original data is what we need to base our decisions on. 

You may think that the mortgage industry versioning problem is just about document management and better version control, but this isn’t necessarily the case. It is really about the data within those documents and how those documents “prove” the data to be correct.

 We have all been in a situation where we can understand how problematic it is when you have two, three, or four parties all working off their own individual dataset that are all supposed to be the same but often are not. Though the data may be similar, it is not exact, leading to nuanced decisions because we were looking at things slightly differently. 

Every time we collaborate on a process or rely upon a third party to provide data to our process, we create a possibility for the game of telephone, with your data. The data can become convoluted because mistakes occur relatively easily when passing documents or information back and forth. 

One of the most exciting value propositions of blockchain is the idea that we would all work off of the same set of data, ensuring versioning accuracy. It won’t, though, put the decision makers out of a job. 

Bypassing paper, not decisions

While it may sound like the future, it is happening now. We are bypassing paper. We are no longer sourcing data from paper back-ups, but instead from their original sources. One such example is the payroll provider ADP. When they issue a “paycheck” there is no longer a physical check or even a PDF of a check. An employee’s “paycheck” is deposited directly into their account. It should probably be renamed something more like an earnings deposit. 

Appraisers are using software on their tablets to instantly input data about homes as they appraise them. Any decisions that are made about the home are either through a decision engine or by the appraiser’s experience themselves. The data does not create its own judgements. 

Bypassing the physical forms and importing information directly into a platform or database means there is no vetting process between the person entering the information and the information used then by multiple other sources. And more importantly, there is no paper or PDF to “support” this data.  

While this sounds like it may be dangerous, this responsibility is assumed on a daily basis by professionals of all industries as they perform day-to-day tasks. Today’s process looks something like this: 

1. Source system sends data to recipient. 

2. Recipient receives data and doesn’t trust data only and requests document as “support.”

3. Source system uses data from step 1 to create a pretty PDF and sends to recipient.

4. Recipient receives PDF and places it into their file repository

5. Recipient is now happy.

Hmmm. See the flaw in the process? The interesting part is that the PDF doesn’t support the original data. In fact, it is the other way around. But what the PDF does provide is a way to ensure that the original data wasn’t ever changed in the recipient’s system. Now here is where blockchain comes into play.

When using data that has been validated by a blockchain, you free the data to be even more powerful. Blockchain technology will allow companies to securely share data that is unalterable, and that everybody in the ecosystem can have access to. Even more important is that access can be controlled to these data sets for permissioned users only or set for specific time frames. 

What the Blockchain can’t do is make a decision or preserve a milestone without someone making the decision to do that. The value of the data on the blockchain can only be determined and validated by an outside party, not the blockchain itself. 

Blockchain makes data powerful, but it cannot make decisions for you. There will always be a need for judgements and validation of data. The future of the decision makers is not in jeopardy. Blockchain will allow decision makers to be more discerning and secure the final decisions on a blockchain for all parties to see.