From Data to Information to Knowledge

1、From Data to Information to KnowledgeLet us begin with where we want to go knowledge then look at its predecessors: information and data.1. KnowledgeMany of us have an intuitive feel for what knowledge means. I provided an initial definition of knowledge in Chapter 1. With the intention of staying a

2、way from esoteric notions of knowledge and using an applicable yet complete description of the terms knowledge and knowledge management, let us survey formal definitions of knowledge. Webster's dictionary gives the following description:knowledge: 1. applies to facts or ideas acquired by study,

3、investigation, observation, or experience 2. rich in the knowledge of human nature 3. learning applies to knowledge acquired especially through formal, often advanced, schooling 4. a book that demonstrates vast learning.The first definition implies that knowledge extends beyond information. It has s

4、omething to do with facts and ideas that have been acquired mostly through experience and includes formal and informal learning.aa Formal and informal learning could be through past experience, failures, and successes both within and outside your own company. Roget's Thesaurus provides a set of

5、synonyms for knowledge:Knowledge.桸. cognizance, cognition, cognoscence; acquaintance, experience, ken, privity, insight, familiarity; comprehension, apprehension; recognition; appreciation ; judgment; intuition; conscience; consciousness; perception, precognition.The synonyms give a better descripti

6、on of Webster's highly constricted definition above. The inclusion of intuition, recognition, ken, art, perception, and precognition define knowledge in a more complete manner. Knowledge is deeper, richer, and more expansive than information. For consensus, let us stick with Davenport and Prusak

7、's definition of knowledge, which best captures both its valuable and almost impossible-to-manage characteristics.Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, expert insight and grounded intuition that provides an environment and framework for evaluating and inc

8、orporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms.1To put it more simply: Knowledge is simply actiona

9、ble information. Actionable refers to the notion of relevant, and nothing but the relevant information being available in the right place at the right time, in the right context, and in the right way so anyone (not just the producer) can bring it to bear on decisions being made every minute. Knowled

10、ge is the key resource in intelligent decision making,2 forecasting,3 design, planning, diagnosis, analysis, evaluation, and intuitive judgment making. It is formed in and shared between individual and collective minds. It does not grow out of databases but evolves with experience, successes, failur

11、es, and learning over time.2. How Is It Different From Information?The key link between knowledge and information is probably best expressed in the commonly accepted idea that knowledge in the business context is nothing but actionable information. If you can use it to do what you are trying to do,

12、information, arguably, becomes knowledge. One way of looking at knowledge is that it is information stored or captured along with its context. Knowledge allows for making predictions, casual associations, or predictive decisions about what to do, unlike information, which simply gives us the facts.K

13、nowledge is not clear, crisp, or simple. Instead, it's muddy,4 fuzzy, partly structured, and partly unstructured. It's intuitive, hard to communicate and difficult to express in words and illustrations, and a good chunk of it is not stored in databases, but in the minds of people who work in

14、 your organization. It lies in connections, conversations between people, experience-based intuition, and people's ability to compare situations, problems, and solutions. Only a minuscule portion of this tacit knowledge gets formalized in databases, books, manuals, documents, and presentations;

15、the rest of it stays in the heads of people. While there is nothing wrong with that, it means that the very moment people who have that knowledge walk out of your company, all that knowledge goes with them! In contrast, information can be explicitly stored; it remains behind when people move on.Know

16、ledge is supported by both formal and informal5 processes and structures for its acquisition, sharing, and utilization. Knowledge workers or employees broadly communicate and assimilate values, norms, procedures, and data beginning with early socialization6 (when they first fit into the organization

17、 and slowly become more willing to share), and the process is continued through ongoing formal and informal group discussions and exchanges. Information, in contrast, is more devoid of such owner dependencies.3. Tacit KnowledgeBreezing past the philosophical underpinnings of knowledge, it's esse

18、ntial to realize at the outset that knowledge management is as much a cultural challenge as a technological one.7 To be on the safer side, it's better to assume that it is more a cultural issue than a technological one. So any system that is designed to support this endeavor must extend well bey

19、ond enterprise-wide technology and take into account the people who will actually use it8 and contribute to its success.Knowledge emerges in the minds of people, through their experiences and jobs.9 While some parts of this knowledge are explicitly captured in an electronic form or hardcopy document

20、s, a more significant portion is not. The portion that does not lend itself to easy capture and storage is the tacit component of knowledge. Whatever portion of this knowledge is formalized, captured, or explicated can easily be converted and packaged into a reusable and searchable form. This knowle

21、dge is then converted back into tacit knowledge that is learned and absorbed by others in the organization.As long as your job security and my job security depends on what we know梠ur skills and level of understanding梚t makes you and me more reluctant to share our basic, critically exclusive knowledg

22、e and understanding with others, either directly or through networked databases. So any knowledge management initiative that assumes "if we build it, they will come," is predestined doomed for failure. Whatever the design strategy is, it must be devised around the acceptance that knowledge

23、 hoarding, to a fair extent, is basic human nature. Without a very strong incentive to do so, we are usually reluctant to give away all that we know.Since much of the knowledge that is created in an organization, whether its a 5-employee small business or a 100,000-employee behemoth, is created duri

24、ng the act of collaboration and action, supporting collaborative efforts is a critical part of a KM initiative.F An Example: Taking a FlightLet me give a simple example of typical decision-making "content, " wherein the boundaries between knowledge and its predecessors are, at best, hazy.

25、Suppose I am trying to take an urgent flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Shanghai, China. If I look up information in the time table shown on a travel agent's Website, I move through the stages of data gathering to knowledge application in the following steps: The Website provides me a flight map

26、along with departure times for flights that currently have seats available. Assuming that there are no restrictions such as visa controls that I might need for my trip to China, I must be able to read and interpret what shows up on the page, to effectively collect the raw data needed. I know that the flight will stop over in London. The flight that leaves in an hour is a British Airways flight that stops over at Heathrow Airport in London. The flight that leaves in another two hours is a Delta flight that stops o