Data simply exists and requires human interaction to provide context and meaning, thus becoming information. This can be accomplished by a single person acting alone or by a community.

This information can be tacit, held by the individual or explicit, made available to the community. It is through the conversion of tacit and explicit information that knowledge is created. Knowledge is the ability to make a decision, to find an answer. Its creation necessarily requires a social component. Knowledge can not be created in isolation.

With knowledge, a decision can be made regarding how to collect new data, starting another cycle. Data to information to knowledge and back again.

Wisdom is the ability to make the RIGHT decision, the one that finds not just an answer but a solution to a problem. Wisdom comes from the accumulation of knowledge, both good decisions and bad.

This directly follows my experience as a researcher. The tacit-explicit cycle requires both individual and social interactions. Knowledge in science usually tells us what we don’t know and that answering a question only results in more questions. Eventually we crest this hill to create wisdom.

The problem we have today occurs at each step. Too much data makes it hard to provide context and create information. The tacit-explicit cycle is hampered and knowledge is harder to create. Wisdom is almost impossible to attain.

That is why I push Web 2.0 tools. They help the flow of data to information to knowledge by increasing the size of the social community that can be brought to bear, providing some needed lubricant to the whole system.