Some thoughts on Knowledge

There has been a bit of debate about what ‘knowledge management’ actually is. Some argue that it is the same thing as information management, whereas others see it as something different. The usual distinction is that knowledge is in people’s heads, whereas information is recorded.

TS Eliot

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

(Choruses from The Rock, 1934)

The 'Eliot' model separates knowledge from information thus:

In our lecture, we discussed as a group what the pyramid could represent. There was a general consensus that, in this model, wisdom comes from knowledge, which in turn comes from information, which comes from data. The best way to represent this is to use an example.

120

This is data. On its own, how useful is it?

It is 120 miles to Birmingham from London.

This is information, which is arguably more useful than the data.

It is 120 miles to Birmingham, and the quickest route by car is to take the M40.

This is knowledge, which builds upon the information.

It is 120 miles to Birmingham, and the quickest route by car is to take the M40. However, if you are travelling during a busy period you might do better taking the train!

This is wisdom, which builds further on the knowledge.

So how does one acquire knowledge and wisdom with this model? Can it be shared? There was some debate about this. We eventually decided that wisdom seems to come with experience, and we couldn’t easily establish whether it could be shared – can someone else’s experiences become our wisdom, or is it then only knowledge or information?  This theory states that you can share knowledge – people can write it down, for example. There are those who do not subscribe to this theory, and argue that tacit knowledge cannot be passed on...

Karl Popper

Here we are going to dip a toe into the rather big pool of philosophy, and look at Popper’s worlds as states of information. I will try to simplify this if I can. He argued the case for three worlds:

1.         ‘Real’ physical World
2.         Inner World, our subjective, personal view
3.         Communicable Information between the two, or the sum total of worlds 1 and 2

He argues that knowledge is in world 2, as it is tied up with one's own experiences, and is mental not physical. It is impossible to share actual knowledge, because it is unique to a person in world 2. Instead, it must be converted into information to be passed on. It can then be ‘converted’ back into knowledge by someone else, but their knowledge will be different from the original knowledge. This has also been expressed by Michael Polanyi, who said that we know more than we can tell. Another way of thinking about this is to try to explain to someone how you brush your teeth. It sounds easy, but strictly speaking you need to tell them how to hold the brush, how to brush and even when to breathe.

This has been a very brief thought, and I’m still not decided on knowledge management. It strikes me as a very difficult area, as knowledge is not a tangible thing – it’s difficult to measure, to value or even to prove whether it’s there. For now, I’ll finish with a video which I think demonstrates the difficulties involved in knowledge sharing. It’s a bit of fun really – 'expert' gamers trying to teach non-gamers how to play Battlefield. Be warned – it does contain some bad language and violence (as well as heavy product placement!).