Skip to main content

Learning: Data, Information, Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom



I liked this, from Nivi, summarizing some of the points in the book Re-Creating the Corporation:
Learning is the acquisition of data, information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

And what are those things?


  • Data consists of symbols that represent objects, events, and their properties. For example, the speedometer in a car presents data.

  • Information is data that has been made useful. Information answers who, what, where, when, and how many questions. Information is helpful in deciding what to do, not how to do it. For example, the information that you are driving at 120 mph will help you decide whether to speed up or slow down. But information won’t tell you how to do it.

  • Knowledge consists of instructions and know-how. Knowledge answers how questions. For example, your driving knowledge tells you how to control the car’s speed.

  • Understanding consists of explanations. Understanding answers why questions. For example, you understand why you are in the car in the first place: because you are driving your kids to get ice cream.

  • Wisdom is the ability to perceive outcomes and determine their value. It is useful for deciding what should be done. For example, the wise may decide that driving recklessly may lead their children to do the same in the future.




Enjoy!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Labels:

Comments

  1. Taghi GheisariFebruary 27, 2007 at 4:04 AM

    Trying to find a clear definition, distinction between, and common conceptual areas of the terms of "knowledge", "know-how", "technology", "technic", "information", "data", etc. to discuss with my students, I just found a blurred collection of opinions. Taking in account that we are not English language natives, one can imagine how difficult would be the conceptualizing of these terms.

    ReplyDelete
  2. sebleApril 14, 2007 at 4:35 PM

    Would you discuss Russell Ackoff,system theorist and professor of oranizational change,classification of human mind into five categories as

    Data: sysmbols
    Information: data that are processed to be useful;provides answers to who,what ,where and when question.

    knowledge: application of data and inforamtion; answers how qestions
    Understanding: appreciation of why
    Wsdom: evaluated understanding.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kernel-based Virtual Machine hits Linux

Many congratulations to my good friend Moshe Bar and his team over at (stealth-mode startup) Qumranet . Techworld reports that the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) project has been accepted into the 2.6.20 version of the Linux kernel distribution. KVM is an Open Source kernel driver that basically allows a Linux kernel to host virtual machines, as plain old Linux processes, that can run Linux or Windows (or other x86-based operating systems). It runs only on hardware that support Intel's VT instruction set (which is fine) and will soon support the AMD-V instruction set as well. This is cool for a number of reasons. It's Open Source, released under the GPL. It basically turns the Linux that we all know and love into a "hypervisor". Linux-as-hypervisor makes sense because Linux already knows how to manage devices, memory, processes, multi-cores, etc. VMware ESX is, essentially, a "hypervisor" - a small kernel, built on Linux as it turns out, that
2 comments
Read more

Bill Coleman Joins 3tera Advisory Board

I think this move surprised a number of people, since Bill recently wrapped up Cassatt Corproation, getting the technology and people  acquired by Computer Associates . However, I was not surprised at all. The announcement, via  3tera Welcomes Bill Coleman : You may or may not have seen the recent press realease.  Bill Coleman, IT/Silicon Valley luminary, Founder and CEO of BEA Systems, has joined 3Tera’s Advisory Board. Yes, this alone is a great testimonial to what we have accomplished in our field.  Getting dignitaries such as Bill does not come easy.  But here’s the best part - this has a lot more than just marquee value and I doubt that Bill would have joined us if that was the case.  Bill, especially since his most recent stint as Founder and CEO of Cassatt Systems, is an extremely knowledgeable visionary in the area of utility and Cloud Computing; and, data center automation. So, Bill will be extremely valuable, reviewing and tweaking both our business plans and techno
Post a Comment
Read more

Big In Japan Open Sources Their Ruby On Rails Tools

The kind folks over at Big In Japan have graciously decided to Open Source the code they used to build their demo web sites . It's all Ruby on Rails code, and it's being released with a GPL license. The code trees being made available include: elfURL ~ URL Shortner FeedVault ~ OPML file storage FrankenFeed ~ RSS feed merger InstantFeed ~ RSS feeds via email QwikPing ~ Ping Server SocialMail ~ RSS via email Very cool. I just love the Open Source community . I have actually been writing some code of late, and it's great to have some reference code to check out. Not sure if I'm going to go with Ruby on Rails yet, however. And, for the record. I have no idea if this is big in Japan. Tags: Open Source , GPL , Ruby On Rails , Big In Japan , Brian Berliner , brianberliner
Post a Comment
Read more