p.2 Data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events.
p.3 Like many researchers who have studied information, we will describe
it as a message, usually in the form of a document or an audible or visible communication. As with any message, it
has a sender and a receiver. Information is meant to change the way the receiver perceives something, to have an impact on
his judgment and behavior. It must inform; it's data that makes a difference.
p.4 Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information,
and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates
and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories
but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms.
p.5 One of the reasons that we find knowledge valuable is
that it is close -- and closer than data or information -- to action. Knowledge can and should be
evaluated by the decisions or actions to which it leads... We can use it to make wiser decisions about strategy
p.8 Knowledge is aware of what it doesn't know... Since what you don't know
can hurt you, this awareness is extremely important.
p.8 Unlike data and information, knowledge contains judgment.
Not only can it judge new situations and information in light of what is already known, it judges and refines itself
in response to new situations and information. Knowledge can be likened to a living system, growing and changing
as it interacts with the environment.
p.8 Knowledge works through rules of thumb: flexible guides to action
that developed through trial and error and over long experience and observation. Rules of thumb (or, in the language of the
artificial-intelligence community, heuristics) are shortcuts to solutions to new problems that resemble problems previously
solved by experienced workers. Those with knowledge see known patterns in new situations and can respond appropriately.
They don't have to build an answer from scratch every time. So knowledge offers speed; it allows its possessors to
deal with situations quickly, even some very complex ones that would baffle a novice.
p.9 The power of knowledge to organize, select, learn, and judge comes from
values and beliefs as much as, and probably more than, from information and logic.
p.10 A relevant variation on Sidney Winter's definition of a business firm
as "an organization that knows how to do things" would define a business firm that thrives over the next decade as "an organization
that knows how to do new things well and quickly."
