Gijs Houtzagers offered:
>1. Data: atomic single or lists of facts, meaningless without
>a structure.
>2. Data sets: a number of data related to a subject.
>3. Information: related data sets combined in a sense-
>making entity.
>4. Knowledge: digested information by an individual or a
>group of individuals
>5. Wisdom: exploring knowledge to create new information
>and knowledge.
I would like to share Eliyahu Goldratt's definitions as published in The
Haystack Sydrome - Sifting Information out of the Data Ocean (page 85):
INFORMATION: An answer to the question asked.
ERRONEOUS INFORMATION: A wrong answer to the question asked.
DATA: Any string of characters that describes something about our reality.
REQUIRED DATA: The data needed by the decision procedure to derive the
information.
ERRONEOUS DATA: A string of characters that does not describe reality
(might be a residual of an erroneous decision procedure).
INVALID DATA: Data that is not needed to deduce the specific desired
information.
end of quote
Knowledge would include all the meta-information needed to work
effectively with the definitions above: knowledge of the decision
procedures and how to find appropriate ones (transform data into
information), determining which question to ask when, how not to be
distracted by invalid data, how to recognise errors etc.
Wisdom, I think is the ability to keep the whole issue practical and
motivating for individuals and organizations :-)
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>