[Sigia-l] RE: Data vs. Information

[Carol Butler]

CF writes:
"That said, I think that the substantive difference between oral
communication and media communication is not in the mode of *information
delivery*, but rather in the mode of *information storage*. And to that
extent, one might argue information is not really information unless it
is reliably stored."

Very interesting point about information storage.  Every day we make
decisions about what information to store, and mostly deciding to store this
[bit..infon..memory..whatever] also means deciding not to store some other
detail.  Rather than saying information isn't really information unless it's
reliably stored, I'd say that the sum total of the daily decisions made
about which information to store helps define companies, cultures, academic
disciplines, websites, etc.  (History is written by the winners.)
Information Architecture provides structure to some of those decisions, and
hopefully enables the organizations we work for to make better use of what
they know, including things *stored* in databases as well as in the minds of
experienced workers.

Sammy in Sales knows that 3 of his last 8 prospects hesitated to buy from
his company because a competitor was offering a longer service contract.
You've got to call that *information* whether or not it's ever written down
or stored in a database, and I have a problem with any definition that
excludes that kind of thing.


Regarding Ziya's example of the stock quotes:
There are at least 8 data points in your examples:  2 company symbols, 2
numbers, date, time, category label for the symbols (stocks) and numbers
(prices).  There's lots of other information in your examples and how much
is conveyed to the *receiver* of the data varies quite a bit.

There's an enormous amount of *information* perceived by most of us reading
your message:  Dell and HP both sell computers, these prices are on the
NASDAQ stock exchange, prices change frequently during a day for companies
like this,

There's other *information* perceived by a smaller number of readers:  do
they know enough about the recent prices for these stocks to perceive how
well the companies are doing?  do they know enough about Ziya to think it
likely she actually checked the stock prices?

How much of that information is useful varies depending on the context.
Certainly not all of it will be (or should be) measured.

Thomas writes:
"In a formal sense, a collection of data points create information and a
collection of information can create knowledge.  Data alone is not
information, but a collection of data points do create information.

Context can be used as a data point to help give understanding to other
data points, which creates information.  Metadata helps provide context
too.

A large report is a repository of smaller sets of information, which
ultimately are comprised of data at the root level."

I think of information as something that exists, whether we know it or
measure it, putting information at the root level(and not fully knowable).
Where Thomas uses *creates information* I would quibble *enables the
perception/communication of information*.  But I suppose that's not very
useful in a business environment.  Thomas's definition above seems to be
quite practical.  By putting data at the root level one avoids these
entertaining, theoretical discussions (great for discussion groups on an
occasional basis, but disaster at a staff meeting).   It's easy for
management to understand, and at some fundamental level it represents the
information we've decided is important enough to measure/store/organize/etc.
*CONTEXT* is the truly important thing.  We need to identify what context is
important for our users to make effective use of information, and make sure
that context is provided.  Isn't that part of what usability studies get at?

Later Thomas wrote:
"When we have distinguishable patterns we have information and when we don't
we have data. When we can act on those distinguishable patterns that make up
the
information we have knowledge."

Again, very practical.  Thanks, Thomas.

-- Carol Butler