[Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?

[bill pawlak]

> call the stuff is not a black-or-white issue.  Probably it is a
> matter of context.  It's Info when the stuff is critical for
> a decision; it's Data when it's just that pulsing gooie
> subtance that holds a system together ... that maintains the
> routine flow of bit patterns among cooperating nodes.

Context.  That's the operative word.

Richard Saul Wurman's take on it: "... information is that which leads
to understanding.  Everyone needs a personal measure with which to
define information.  What constitutes information to one person may be
data to another.  If it (the data) doesn't make sense to you (has no
meaning), it doesn't qualify (as information)."

It's my opinion that doing research on "information" without
establishing meaningful context is - not a fruitless endeavor, but -
not really going to get you very far.

I don't think we need "a Newton to work out the laws of information"
because I don't believe there are any - or at least there aren't any
that are truly meaningful across all contexts.  

We all do IA research, but on a micro level.  Every project I'm on, I'm
trying to experiment to find the best way to take data and reorganize,
reclassify, and re-label it to make it meaningful - and thereby
transform the data into information - to the person reading/working
with/otherwise experiencing that data.

Going out on a limb here, but it seems to me to once again be the
difference between basic and applied research.  What it seems like
people are looking for is the basic, University-lab-type of IA
research.  (Pay a bunch of undergrads $10 to work through a data set
and call it information research.)  

But in my experience, it's the applied research - solving real-world
problems - that really changes the world.  There is no "science" behind
IA work, there's multiple sciences... cognition, memory,
decision-making, psychology, problem solving... those disciplines all
provide the scientific basis for "IA research" that gets done on a
project-level, within a specific context.

bill

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