Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Infosense: Turning Information into Knowledge
Infosense: Turning Information into Knowledge
© 2001 by Keith Devlin
The value of information lies in knowledge of information that a person possesses in the form in which he or she can make immediate use. In our daily handling of information we need to progress from innocence to Infosense. The value of information lies in its potential to be turned into knowledge and the value of information depends upon the value of the knowledge for which it can lead. The majority of communication related problems in business can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of the nature of information. One quarter of the US GNP is linked solely to persuasion.
There are distinctions between data information and knowledge. Data is what newspapers report and computer information systems provide us with. For example list of stock prices. When people acquire data and fill into an overall framework of previously acquired information that data becomes information. Information equals data plus meaning. When a person internalizes information to a degree she can make use of it we call it knowledge. In organizations it often becomes embedded not only in document or repository but also in organizational routines, prophecies and practices and norms. Knowledge equals internalized information plus the ability to utilize the information. Information can be regarded as a substance that can be acquired, stored and transmitted. Knowledge on the other hand exists in the individual minds of people. Knowledge is harder to pin down than information. Knowledge exists within people part and parcel of human complexity and unpredictability. We think of information being stored in books and computer databases. During the course of a normal day we acquire information from a variety of physical objects and from the environment. One-way information can arise by virtue of systematic regularities in the world. The fact is anything can be used to store information. The thing to remember about information is that to recover information from a stored representation you need to know the rules of the encoding. Information equals representation plus procedure for encoding. The cost of information equals the cost of representation plus the cost of procedure for encoding. Human beings are type recognizers. Types are the regularities or commonalities shared by objects or situations. In general an object or situation represents information by being of a particular type. How to avoid contextual misunderstanding? How can you make sure that costly misunderstandings do not arise? How can you avoid your own equivalent of the disastrous charge of life brigade? The simple answer is you can’t.
Whenever you have two or more people communicating or one or more people communicating there are two contacts. What you can’t do is minimize the likelihood that it occurs. In the case of communication that is not face-to-face you can try to ensure that there are feedback possibilities built into the network. In a typical business meeting it is good to recap at periodic intervals and it’s good to summarize what has been agreed in writing and circulate to everyone else who is involved in the meeting. Your summary does not have to be long. You are just trying to summarize what was agreed as a result of the meeting. Make your notes informal. Information equals representation plus constraints. Constraints can be human made laws, rules, conventions, natural and physical laws, and so on. Information is always information about something. Information tells us something about something some object is of some type.
It is more likely for misunderstandings to arise when there are more than three people involved. The larger the group the more common is such lack of agreement but it happens whenever three or more people meet. The possibilities of error are reduced if one person in the meeting is declared the Chair‑in-charge with reporting what has been agreed. The wise chair pauses at various stages to summarize what has been agreed upon. Two and three person conversations are better than meetings involving larger groups. Mainly the likelihood that the group will exchange some new information rather than simply go over facts that was already familiar to all. Once participants have lost track of the common ground they lose the entire remainder of the conversation. They can neither fully contribute nor will they likely to understand correctly later contributions by others. In theory it can help to minimize the effects of different backgrounds and cultures if the meeting starts by having everyone contributed brief introduction to themselves. Write the purpose.
An analyst would say that the whiteboard is an example of a common artifact. Common artifacts provide information in such a way that it readily becomes common knowledge to everybody having simultaneous access to it. It is a public display. It is to keep distinction between a common artifact and a private source of information. In the absence of common artifact such as whiteboard this communication is highly likely in a meeting of more than three people.
The larger the group the greater proportion of time that will be spent discussing information already known to most or all of the participants. There are several facts that contribute to the tendency for a group to concentrate on information or rating them in for most or all. One is the physiological factor. Many people simply find it difficult to introduce any items into a group. The bigger the group the greater will be the disparity. Participants could be asked to write down prior to the meeting those points they think that should to be raised. The meetings could follow a round robin format. The major goals for individual are to bring new information to the group’s attention and to repeat to see instructions from time to time during the course of the meeting. Get participants to submit in advance the points they wish to raise about the round robin format list each new item introduced from the flip chart. Build up the team over time for everyone to be familiar with one another’s area of expertise and with their strengths and weaknesses.
What was different was that the members of the second group had been visited two weeks previously by a different volunteer worker who had come to their doors to ask them to display a small sign that read be a safe driver. It was such a small request that most people complied willingly without giving matter much thought. By accepting their displaying of sign the homeowners have accepted the role of a public-spirited citizen which supports safe driving. A new contact has just been established. As a result two weeks later some three quarters of them were willing to comply with the truly preposterous request. Simply signing the petition made a huge difference roughly half of them subsequently agreed to have the large billboards erected on their front lawn. They now saw themselves as public-spirited citizens. Since they acquired a commitment and that commitment provided a powerful contact for future actions. Contacts provide some very powerful influence on most of our actions.
A very minor act can cause someone to make a commitment to a cause. The plain fact is we are social creatures and we live in a culture in which we communicate. One would typically say that you have the time you wonder that to respond in such a way would be both inappropriate and very impolite. Why do we say can we pass this all after all we know that they can? It’s a concept called social equity, a balance that members of society strive to maintain. The participants in a conversation will go to some length to ensure that nothing is said that would imply authority and be taken as aggressive. Research have shown just how well-established are these pro forma request and how uncomfortable most people feel when confronted with more direct mode of speech. Try the Colombo technique. Colombo questioning the suspect is first of all just an ordinary guy doing his job approach. Second he spends most of the conversation talking about general matters and then he brings the key issue in the same absentminded manner usually oh I almost forgot there is just one more think I want to ask. Specific expertise could be acquired with comparative use whenever new circumstances demand change. In contrast culture tends to endure and to resist change. Culture is the key to an efficient working infrastructure. Culture endures and resists change if specific expertise could be acquired. The wise person can turn information into knowledge most efficiently. People do all three deskwork, knowledge acquisition and creation and knowledge transfer. Deskwork is regular work knowledge acquisition is reading, watching a video, attending a workshop and knowledge transfer is gossiping. A number of companies have gone to engineer water cooler meeting talk rooms. What does it take to turn information into knowledge or what is required to transfer information for since that is required to transfer knowledge. Knowledge results when a person internalizes information to the degree that he or she can make use of it. Though information only arises as a result of human generated constraints it is somehow outside of the human. Knowledge on the other hand is fundamentally intrinsically inside people. Knowledge implies that there is a knower. The power of knowledge to organize, select, learn and judge comes from values and beliefs. Knowledge of information possessed in a form that makes it available for immediate use. Information can usefully be measured in volume. When we turn information into knowledge we add value to it and make it more expensive. Who knows you still think not many things is why.
Knowsmosis - by talking with observing or working alongside an existing expert or by repeatedly trying to perform some task a human can acquire knowledge and expertise by a process reminiscent of osmosis the biological process whereby a cell absorbs nutrients through the cell wall. I like to refer to the acquisition of knowledge in this matter as knowsmosis. Rather it is the very human process of absorbing and interacting with the photo analyzer that led to the knowledge transfer. Most successful managers know instinctively that the most effective way to acquire knowledge is by interaction with another person. Computers have little to do with increasing knowledge or knowledge flow. For instance taking together the video, the owner’s photographs and a 360-degree workplace photograph provides human and social information that enables a PIF user to fill the mental aliments of the page owner as a person. If HP knew what HP knows we would be three times as profitable. Knowledge transfer via documentation that is via information failed in large part because the tumblers did not work in a culture where knowledge came from manual. The first obstacle is the question of who benefits from that knowledge. Set up this system whereby new ideas are evaluated by a team that is not informed of the source they are called blind evaluation. Knowledge creation and knowledge transfer can take place only in a supportive culture and in a manner with which the participants are familiar. For some groups face-to-face contact may be the only means to achieve effective knowledge transfer. The best way to support knowledge transfer is to develop a strong institutional culture knowledge sharing supported by a good knowledge sharing infrastructure of meeting, knowledge fairs retreat and a tolerance of mistakes. How do you train your employees to become experts in performing their duty. The five stages of skill acquisition - Stage 1 is novice stage. A novice approaches the activity by following rules which he or she follows in an unquestioned and concept free fashion. Stage 2 is called advanced beginner. They modified some of the rules according to contact. Stage 3 is confidence. The confident performer still follows rules but does so in fairly fluid fashion. Stage 4 is proficiency. The proficient performer does not select and follow rules. He is able to recognize situation as being very familiar to ones he encountered many times before and react accordingly by what has become an effective trade reflects quite unconscious instinct based on past experience of similar circumstances. Stage 5 is expert. Performs smoothly, effortlessly, and subconsciously. The expert performer does not make decisions, follow rules or solve problems she simply does what normally works. Thus an expert is not following rules at all not even subconsciously. Rules are like training wheels we use to help young children learn how to use a bicycle. Stage 1 is data. Stage 2 and 3 is information. Stage 4 and 5 is knowledge. Sheer expertise is not rule based. Genuine expertise arises when the rules are discussed with and such behavior cannot be encoded into a program computer program. Sheer expertise only and comes through experience. An observation reflected in the common view of the word expert and experience.
Reading books are valuable but they could only take you so far that is why there is an extensive internship for physicians where they practice medicine on real patients. Likewise airline pilots conduct many hours of practice in the flight. Many professions require a period of on the job training prior to certification. The greater the variety of circumstances that are provided in the initial on the job training period the more likely the individual would be able to cope with new situations. This is why businesses are increasingly turning to various kinds of stimulation to train their manager. Expertise consists primarily of ability to recognize type. We must get the right information from the right people at the right time in the right form context matters. Thus the company culture encourages support value reward innovation and knowledge sharing. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716741644
© 2001 by Keith Devlin
The value of information lies in knowledge of information that a person possesses in the form in which he or she can make immediate use. In our daily handling of information we need to progress from innocence to Infosense. The value of information lies in its potential to be turned into knowledge and the value of information depends upon the value of the knowledge for which it can lead. The majority of communication related problems in business can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of the nature of information. One quarter of the US GNP is linked solely to persuasion.
There are distinctions between data information and knowledge. Data is what newspapers report and computer information systems provide us with. For example list of stock prices. When people acquire data and fill into an overall framework of previously acquired information that data becomes information. Information equals data plus meaning. When a person internalizes information to a degree she can make use of it we call it knowledge. In organizations it often becomes embedded not only in document or repository but also in organizational routines, prophecies and practices and norms. Knowledge equals internalized information plus the ability to utilize the information. Information can be regarded as a substance that can be acquired, stored and transmitted. Knowledge on the other hand exists in the individual minds of people. Knowledge is harder to pin down than information. Knowledge exists within people part and parcel of human complexity and unpredictability. We think of information being stored in books and computer databases. During the course of a normal day we acquire information from a variety of physical objects and from the environment. One-way information can arise by virtue of systematic regularities in the world. The fact is anything can be used to store information. The thing to remember about information is that to recover information from a stored representation you need to know the rules of the encoding. Information equals representation plus procedure for encoding. The cost of information equals the cost of representation plus the cost of procedure for encoding. Human beings are type recognizers. Types are the regularities or commonalities shared by objects or situations. In general an object or situation represents information by being of a particular type. How to avoid contextual misunderstanding? How can you make sure that costly misunderstandings do not arise? How can you avoid your own equivalent of the disastrous charge of life brigade? The simple answer is you can’t.
Whenever you have two or more people communicating or one or more people communicating there are two contacts. What you can’t do is minimize the likelihood that it occurs. In the case of communication that is not face-to-face you can try to ensure that there are feedback possibilities built into the network. In a typical business meeting it is good to recap at periodic intervals and it’s good to summarize what has been agreed in writing and circulate to everyone else who is involved in the meeting. Your summary does not have to be long. You are just trying to summarize what was agreed as a result of the meeting. Make your notes informal. Information equals representation plus constraints. Constraints can be human made laws, rules, conventions, natural and physical laws, and so on. Information is always information about something. Information tells us something about something some object is of some type.
It is more likely for misunderstandings to arise when there are more than three people involved. The larger the group the more common is such lack of agreement but it happens whenever three or more people meet. The possibilities of error are reduced if one person in the meeting is declared the Chair‑in-charge with reporting what has been agreed. The wise chair pauses at various stages to summarize what has been agreed upon. Two and three person conversations are better than meetings involving larger groups. Mainly the likelihood that the group will exchange some new information rather than simply go over facts that was already familiar to all. Once participants have lost track of the common ground they lose the entire remainder of the conversation. They can neither fully contribute nor will they likely to understand correctly later contributions by others. In theory it can help to minimize the effects of different backgrounds and cultures if the meeting starts by having everyone contributed brief introduction to themselves. Write the purpose.
An analyst would say that the whiteboard is an example of a common artifact. Common artifacts provide information in such a way that it readily becomes common knowledge to everybody having simultaneous access to it. It is a public display. It is to keep distinction between a common artifact and a private source of information. In the absence of common artifact such as whiteboard this communication is highly likely in a meeting of more than three people.
The larger the group the greater proportion of time that will be spent discussing information already known to most or all of the participants. There are several facts that contribute to the tendency for a group to concentrate on information or rating them in for most or all. One is the physiological factor. Many people simply find it difficult to introduce any items into a group. The bigger the group the greater will be the disparity. Participants could be asked to write down prior to the meeting those points they think that should to be raised. The meetings could follow a round robin format. The major goals for individual are to bring new information to the group’s attention and to repeat to see instructions from time to time during the course of the meeting. Get participants to submit in advance the points they wish to raise about the round robin format list each new item introduced from the flip chart. Build up the team over time for everyone to be familiar with one another’s area of expertise and with their strengths and weaknesses.
What was different was that the members of the second group had been visited two weeks previously by a different volunteer worker who had come to their doors to ask them to display a small sign that read be a safe driver. It was such a small request that most people complied willingly without giving matter much thought. By accepting their displaying of sign the homeowners have accepted the role of a public-spirited citizen which supports safe driving. A new contact has just been established. As a result two weeks later some three quarters of them were willing to comply with the truly preposterous request. Simply signing the petition made a huge difference roughly half of them subsequently agreed to have the large billboards erected on their front lawn. They now saw themselves as public-spirited citizens. Since they acquired a commitment and that commitment provided a powerful contact for future actions. Contacts provide some very powerful influence on most of our actions.
A very minor act can cause someone to make a commitment to a cause. The plain fact is we are social creatures and we live in a culture in which we communicate. One would typically say that you have the time you wonder that to respond in such a way would be both inappropriate and very impolite. Why do we say can we pass this all after all we know that they can? It’s a concept called social equity, a balance that members of society strive to maintain. The participants in a conversation will go to some length to ensure that nothing is said that would imply authority and be taken as aggressive. Research have shown just how well-established are these pro forma request and how uncomfortable most people feel when confronted with more direct mode of speech. Try the Colombo technique. Colombo questioning the suspect is first of all just an ordinary guy doing his job approach. Second he spends most of the conversation talking about general matters and then he brings the key issue in the same absentminded manner usually oh I almost forgot there is just one more think I want to ask. Specific expertise could be acquired with comparative use whenever new circumstances demand change. In contrast culture tends to endure and to resist change. Culture is the key to an efficient working infrastructure. Culture endures and resists change if specific expertise could be acquired. The wise person can turn information into knowledge most efficiently. People do all three deskwork, knowledge acquisition and creation and knowledge transfer. Deskwork is regular work knowledge acquisition is reading, watching a video, attending a workshop and knowledge transfer is gossiping. A number of companies have gone to engineer water cooler meeting talk rooms. What does it take to turn information into knowledge or what is required to transfer information for since that is required to transfer knowledge. Knowledge results when a person internalizes information to the degree that he or she can make use of it. Though information only arises as a result of human generated constraints it is somehow outside of the human. Knowledge on the other hand is fundamentally intrinsically inside people. Knowledge implies that there is a knower. The power of knowledge to organize, select, learn and judge comes from values and beliefs. Knowledge of information possessed in a form that makes it available for immediate use. Information can usefully be measured in volume. When we turn information into knowledge we add value to it and make it more expensive. Who knows you still think not many things is why.
Knowsmosis - by talking with observing or working alongside an existing expert or by repeatedly trying to perform some task a human can acquire knowledge and expertise by a process reminiscent of osmosis the biological process whereby a cell absorbs nutrients through the cell wall. I like to refer to the acquisition of knowledge in this matter as knowsmosis. Rather it is the very human process of absorbing and interacting with the photo analyzer that led to the knowledge transfer. Most successful managers know instinctively that the most effective way to acquire knowledge is by interaction with another person. Computers have little to do with increasing knowledge or knowledge flow. For instance taking together the video, the owner’s photographs and a 360-degree workplace photograph provides human and social information that enables a PIF user to fill the mental aliments of the page owner as a person. If HP knew what HP knows we would be three times as profitable. Knowledge transfer via documentation that is via information failed in large part because the tumblers did not work in a culture where knowledge came from manual. The first obstacle is the question of who benefits from that knowledge. Set up this system whereby new ideas are evaluated by a team that is not informed of the source they are called blind evaluation. Knowledge creation and knowledge transfer can take place only in a supportive culture and in a manner with which the participants are familiar. For some groups face-to-face contact may be the only means to achieve effective knowledge transfer. The best way to support knowledge transfer is to develop a strong institutional culture knowledge sharing supported by a good knowledge sharing infrastructure of meeting, knowledge fairs retreat and a tolerance of mistakes. How do you train your employees to become experts in performing their duty. The five stages of skill acquisition - Stage 1 is novice stage. A novice approaches the activity by following rules which he or she follows in an unquestioned and concept free fashion. Stage 2 is called advanced beginner. They modified some of the rules according to contact. Stage 3 is confidence. The confident performer still follows rules but does so in fairly fluid fashion. Stage 4 is proficiency. The proficient performer does not select and follow rules. He is able to recognize situation as being very familiar to ones he encountered many times before and react accordingly by what has become an effective trade reflects quite unconscious instinct based on past experience of similar circumstances. Stage 5 is expert. Performs smoothly, effortlessly, and subconsciously. The expert performer does not make decisions, follow rules or solve problems she simply does what normally works. Thus an expert is not following rules at all not even subconsciously. Rules are like training wheels we use to help young children learn how to use a bicycle. Stage 1 is data. Stage 2 and 3 is information. Stage 4 and 5 is knowledge. Sheer expertise is not rule based. Genuine expertise arises when the rules are discussed with and such behavior cannot be encoded into a program computer program. Sheer expertise only and comes through experience. An observation reflected in the common view of the word expert and experience.
Reading books are valuable but they could only take you so far that is why there is an extensive internship for physicians where they practice medicine on real patients. Likewise airline pilots conduct many hours of practice in the flight. Many professions require a period of on the job training prior to certification. The greater the variety of circumstances that are provided in the initial on the job training period the more likely the individual would be able to cope with new situations. This is why businesses are increasingly turning to various kinds of stimulation to train their manager. Expertise consists primarily of ability to recognize type. We must get the right information from the right people at the right time in the right form context matters. Thus the company culture encourages support value reward innovation and knowledge sharing. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716741644
