What is the difference between information and knowledge?
In everyday language, the words “knowledge and “information” are used loosely and interchangeably.
Knowledge is frequently defined as something like this:
Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating new experience 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.
As Knowledge Management (KM) definitions go, this is good. However, to manage information and knowledge, I think making a clean, clear, crisp distinction between the two concepts is essential.
Difference between Knowledge and Information
Some people say that knowledge can only exist in people’s heads. Anything else, such as stuff written or stored in databases, including voice, video, etc., is information.There’s no such thing as knowledge management; there are only knowledgeable people.
Information only becomes knowledge in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it.
Others distinguish between tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is stored in people’s heads. In contrast, explicit knowledge is stored elsewhere, such as on paper or digitally in a computer system, and is, in various ways, different from information. Larry Prusak makes that distinction above.
However, the distinction is never straightforward, and so-called explicit knowledge is always tangled up with data and information.
Tom Wilson clearly and eloquently distinguishes between knowledge and information below. He references human knowledge, as many other creatures have minds and knowledge.
Knowledge only exists in the human mind. Everything else, however, is information.
Knowledge is defined as what we know: knowledge involves the mental processes of comprehension, understanding, and learning that go on in the mind and only in the mind, however much they involve interaction with the world outside the mind and interaction with others.
Whenever we wish to express what we know, we can only do so by uttering messages of one kind or another – oral, written, graphic, gestural or even through ‘body language’.
Such messages do not carry ‘knowledge’, they constitute ‘information’, which a knowing mind may assimilate, understand, comprehend and incorporate into its own knowledge structures.
Credit: The nonsense of ‘knowledge management’ by Thomas D. Wilson
But there is no right or wrong definition. As human beings, we get to choose how we define things.
There is nothing wrong with living with two or more definitions—using the one most appropriate to the context in which we are working. It is a little like scientists living with the dual nature of light—both a particle and a wave simultaneously.
It’s also nice to minimize the use of the terms explicit and tacit knowledge. There is nothing wrong with these terms, but the additional jargon tends to alienate many people.
We should also remember that our brain is not a computer. It does not process information, retrieve knowledge, or store memories like a computer.
Difference between Knowledge Management and Information Management
So, if we consider that knowledge only exists in the human mind and everything else is information, what is the difference between Information Management (IM) and Knowledge Management (KM)? Well:
Information Management is practiced by improving the systems that capture, store, categorize and transmit information.
It’s about databases, records management, libraries, books, reports, document repositories, videos, taxonomies, etc. And although information exists in many forms other than digital, it is very much about Information Technology (IT). On the other hand:
Knowledge Management is practiced through activities that support better decision-making and innovation.
It’s about understanding information, making better sense of the world, improving decision-making, creativity, and innovation. Only human beings can do this; computers cannot. Simply put, IM is about technology, and KM is about people.
Reports aren’t knowledge.
Of course, you need to focus on people to do a good job of KM, but you also need a good IM foundation. Does everyone in the KM world agree on this? No. Will they ever agree? No. Does it matter? I don’t think so.
You can make sense of things independently by reading, observing, and thinking. But as individuals, our capabilities are limited, and our thinking has many biases and flaws.
If we wish to make real sense of the world, we need to pool our minds and think together. We do this through conversation. Let’s take an example.
Many organizations have a small team dedicated to what is often called market or business intelligence.
Knowledge is the capacity for effective action.
There is no capacity for effective action in a database.
They look out into the big wide world and note new technologies, new products and services, new competitors, changes in regulations, risks, etc.
They then produce a regular report that they circulate to relevant people in the organization. This is mostly IM – getting high-quality information to the right people.
But this is all they do. Often, this is seen as a KM role. It is not – it is an IM role.
The smarter organizations add an additional step to this work. When they discover things of significance, they convene a Knowledge Café to make sense of the changes.
This is the KM part, and it can only be done by people in conversation.
We need both – IM and KM to do good KM. IM on its own is just that, IM!
For all our knowledge, we have no idea what we're talking about.
We don't understand what's going on in our business, our market, and our world.
Knowledge Management shouldn't be about helping us to know more. It should be about helping us to understand.
So, how do we understand things? It's through stories that we understand how the world works.
Knowledge only exists in the mind. Anything written down or stored in a computer or any other way is information.
Information Management is practiced by improving the systems that capture, store, categorize, and transmit information—in other words, about IT. Knowledge Management is practiced through activities that support better decision-making and innovation—work that only people can do.
Things To Do
- Reflect: Read the resources below, then reflect on the difference between information and knowledge.
Resources
- Article: The Future of Knowledge: Can It Exist Without a Human Mind?
- Article: Can only humans have knowledge?
- Blog Post: You don’t have to be human to have knowledge
Detailed Resources
- Article: Embodied Cognition by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021)
Posts that link to this post
- The Global Information Ecosystem We live in a vast sea of information
- Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) Distinguishing Knowledge Management from Information Management
- The Four Levels of Knowledge Management The relation between Conversational Leadership and Knowledge Management
- Knowledge and Information ** Knowledge and information are different substances
- Data, Information and Knowledge What's the difference?
- The Importance of Tacit Knowledge Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is difficult to transfer
- From Mind to Information – the Role of AI in Knowledge Encoding The Evolution of Knowledge Encoding
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Tags: David Weinberger (15) | extended mind (8) | information (28) | information management (5) | knowledge (64) | knowledge management (50) | Larry Prusak (2) | mind (35) | Peter Senge (17) | tacit knowledge (10) | Thomas D. Wilson (2)
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