Guiding Principles of Knowledge
I wish I had come up with this set of Guiding Principles of Knowledge from Knowledgeline:
When brainstorming with my colleagues came up with a list of things that we felt were the guiding principles of knowledge. When coming up with knowledge initiatives we tried to stick to these guiding principles in our designs.
- Knowledge is information in context.
- Information should be easily shared with and collaborated on by clients
- Knowledge is: what, how and educational
- We should learn from our mistakes
- We should formalize and disseminate the things that work
- Ease of access and use is part of the value of knowledge
- Practice group and local/regional boundaries should be removed
- Knowledge is to share, not to horde for personal use
- Capture knowledge when it is fresh -- know when it is stale
- Principles should not compromise activity/results
- Focus should be on supporting the core Business strategies
2 Comment(s)
» Knowledge is something in context from Knowledge Jolt with Jack
Some thoughts about the differences between data, information and knowledge, in response to a comment by Dale Emery on Knowledgeline's list of Guiding Principles of Knowledge. This is not an easy topic. Read More
I am intrigued by principle 1, because it interacts strangely with another principle that I like: Information is data in context.
If information is data in context, and knowledge is information in context, then hmmm... knowledge is data doubly contextualized? Ick.
So maybe there's a distinction between (1) the kind of context that turns information into knowledge and (2) the kind of context that turns data into knowledge. Or maybe there a distinction between (a) the relationship between data and the context that turns it into information and (b) the relationship between information and the context that turns it into knowledge.
To me, the essence of information is that it informs. More particularly, it informs someone about something relevant to the person. I usually construe that to mean that in order for data to be information, it must help a person to make a decision (or a kind of decision, or a suite of decisions). That is, the person's desire to decide something is exactly the kind of context that turns (relevant) data into information. (Perhaps this is too limited, and there are also other ways in which information could inform someone.)
So what does knowledge add to that? What does knowledge do beyond informing someone with regard to some set of decisions? Or am I using "information" in the way you use "knowledge?"