DIKW

Like a moth drawn to a flame - it seems destiny to return and reflect on the data - information - knowledge - wisdom sequence (DIKW)

Thoughts:

A line in the sand:

There is no clear progression and no real hierarchy in the DIKW sequence, rather a context dependent recursion. There can be a reversion, if you become aware that the context has changed, e.g. what you were processing as information may become data again if you are aware of external context changes.

The best thing to do is to have (hold) a few core characteristic so you position yourself along the continuum. Here are some of my 'milestones'.

I do not see a sequential progression data ==> information ==> knowledge ==> understanding / wisdom as the key feature here. To me there is recursion and placement along this 'trajectory' is very context dependent.

There are however core qualities around these concepts that make the distinctions useful. It helps to recognize the boundaries are fuzzy and the overlaps may be large at times. Mostly I liken this to the futility of drawing a line in the sand when you know the tide is approaching.

The key, to my way of thinking, is to highlight the subtle role played by context, framing and shared meaning when moving between these DIK concepts. Let's examine these core qualities and assumptions:

Data:

Facts, perceptions, measurements, observations. Assumptions: shared meaning and values. We need to validate measurements checking for reproducibility, consistency, veracity AND we need to understand the axioms to appreciate the value. There is a stand-alone data! to get data, there must be prior agreement on what is important, how it should be captured, measured, recorded and represented.

Information:

Arrangement, aggregation, abstraction from data and past experience. Here knowledge of purpose and needs of audience / user is key, visual display plays a huge role. We are interested in trends, patterns, sequence, clustering. We apply a model and see how well the data points fit. There is a message, explicit or implied behind all information. The questions we ask about information shift from those we are concerned with when looking at data, i.e. now we focus more on intent, ownership, application, interpretation, extrapolation. At this point we are evangelizing a message.

Knowledge:

Social validation, utility, uniqueness, shared meaning, understanding and acceptance are key attributes. Knowledge is 'local', tied to community and conformance. What counts and survives depends on if it works and how useful it is. Knowledge has qualities associated with relationships, people, flows, interactivity and emergence. It comes from a distillation of local experience, must survive informal social validation and may exist in tacit forms or be embodied. Knowledge also captures shades of awareness and the ability to act from experience and intuition without explicit recall of principles. The key to knowledge is communication, community, people and relationships.

I will leave wisdom to those that are wise.

Comments

[David Locke]

That probably explains it. IT shops consider only information. In their drive to integrate they are ignoring that knowledge is local and they are taking knowledge and recontextualizing it as global information, thus throwing away the semantics of the knowledge they traffic in. It will take, what, a decade for them to realize that they drove thier business into the ground, because of the integration fad.

Congrats.