I have spent most of my scientific career acting as a conduit for conversations between biologists and IT, neither of which are known for their communication skills, so I know of what you speak.

What we tried at Immunex that enjoyed some success was to create a Research IT group. It supported the need for innovation required for biotech research while being separate (almost in its own bubble) from the rest of IT.

Then the innovations could spread out with a more defined process. That is how our intranet started - first in Research then in the rest of the company.

Part of the solution could also be that managers would not only be selected on the basis of their knowledge of economics and finances, but also on the basis of their knowledge of technology. And you must admit: communication skills (I mean communicating with humans) are presently not the strongest point of IT professionals

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.

Chris Moran

But this is not a feature of the technology. Just how it is being used right now.

Facebook, Flickr etc. all are really for play (although there are some interesting experiments for corporations) and the money that follows them is not much different than that which funds Superbowls or TV.

So, not surprisingly, most of the conversation deals with things that I find ephemeral, even if they account for a large part of our consumer society. It is as though everyone want to be the digital equivalent of Tickle Me Elmo or a Cabbage Patch Kid - the latest fad.

That is not where these tools will have their biggest impact. It is their ability to leverage human filtering processes, permitting much larger amounts of data to be examined, more information to be distributed and more knowledge to be created.

I have seen first-hand how these tools can help researchers solve difficult problems. They have permitted me to overcome barriers that would have taken months to solve if at all.

Properly used, human social networks and these digital tools can disperse information widely, putting it in the hands of people who can use it. In research, they are simply a means to an end. Out in Bubbleland, they are the end.