Metadata and information

I wrote a few days ago about reports which give statistical data. These reports provide metadata: data about data. Such reports tend to be more interesting and higher level than reports about 'ordinary' data, and in fact management should be interested only in such reports, but there is a natural tendency to sink down to the data level and start checking each specific order instead of looking at trends.

I participated in a course about knowledge management once; one of the simplest things to come out of this was the following hierarchical model. At the lowest level, one has data - eg specific orders. Above this level is information - eg what percentage of orders are being delivered on time. The highest level is knowledge - how to create conditions such that all orders are delivered on time. The transition from data to information isn't very difficult, but the transition from information to knowledge is much harder, and that is the reason why companies try to hang on to employees who have knowledge.

The course itself was about the formal storage of knowledge within an organisation: how to know what knowledge people have, how to formalise that knowledge and retain it, and even more important (my project in the course) how to know what knowledge does not reside within the organisation (that's where I first used the theta query). Unfortunately the course fell prey to problems within the college where it was taught, and so it didn't fulfill its initial goals.

Is it surprising that I work in information technology and not data processing?

Today is my best friend's birthday (you know who you are!) and tonight marks the beginning of the Shavu'ot festival.