Unhealthy attractions to hierarchy (or, DIKW returns!)
Stephen Bounds — Thu, 30/04/2009 - 10:23
Despite the many problems with the flawed DIKW pyramid, it just won't go away. In fact, people seem to like the model so much they are extending it!
Bradley Horowitz (currently at Google) gave a speech at Next Web 2009 where he presented the following model that apparently represents the "Google approach to data":
- Signal
- Data
- Information
- Knowledge
- Wisdom
- Enlightment
So we're up to 6 layers now. (Isn't this getting a little ridiculous?)
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Comments
Adam Pope (not verified) — Tue, 08/11/2011 - 03:38
Some people in our organisation are clinging pretty firmly to the notion that 'explicit knowledge' is in some way fundamentally different to 'information'. That knowledge is 'information in context' or 'information that is applied' whilst information is data that has been categorized.
You mention that DIKW has been 'discredited'. Has there been a consensus agreement on that somewhere I can point these people to? Or is Wikipedia » DIKW » Criticisms, and perhaps Martin Fricke's article, the best to refer to?
Stephen Bounds — Tue, 08/11/2011 - 12:22
Hi Adam,
That's a good start. I consider Patrick Lambe's article the definitive rebuttal.
But also check out David Weinberger's HBR article and the KM4Dev wiki, which includes a lot more detail around the debate.
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