1. Data wisdom
Welcome back to the world of data. There are a lot more exciting concepts on the way. Come with me.
2. Mental models
Mental models give us a framework to understand the world around us and uncover the relationships hidden within the vast data landscape.
With so much data being generated every day it is vital that we employ a mental model to simplify our understanding and focus our attention on uncovering value.
3. The DIKW pyramid
Enter the Data, information, knowledge and wisdom pyramid. This pyramid, more commonly known as DIKW, highlights the journey data takes in order to become valuable wisdom. Each step of the pyramid requires refining the level below to extract more and more meaning until we finally achieve wisdom.
Lets take a deeper look at each section of the pyramid.
4. Raw data
Data forms the base of the DIKW Pyramid. Data can be comprised of many different things. Words, numbers, dates, images, or even sounds. On its own, data isn't very useful. Look at these two examples, without meaning or context this data is useless for making any decisions or drawing a conclusion.
These single data points in both examples are meaningless at this point. To get more value from this data, we need to add meaning to understand the context of the data. You probably find yourself automatically trying to add meaning to the data points. We do it all the time, and it is a source of unconscious bias.
5. Creating information
Taking the raw data and adding some context we can begin to understand more what the data means and transform it into information.
6. Creating information
Before the number 2 meant nothing to us but now we see that it is the age 2. Adding context revealed a whole new level of the pyramid and turned our raw data into information. You can probably piece even more together by looking at the other data points.
7. Knowledge is power
Information on its own isn't enough to make decisions. Instead, we need to tie these pieces of information together in order to understand their relationship. These links or connections between the different pieces of information is what allows us to add more meaning and transform our information into knowledge.
8. Knowledge in action
We're so close to wisdom. Everything is starting to come into focus. There is only one more step until wisdom. This might feel basic, but for more abstract data sources or problems being able to trace the path from data all the way to wisdom can help break down big problems into manageable steps.
9. Achieving wisdom
Transforming knowledge into wisdom is arguably the hardest of the entire pyramid. There are many strategies for achieving this and going heavily into detail could easily be its own course.
From a very high level, transforming knowledge into wisdom requires us to add more meaning to the information at hand and understand the relationships between each piece of information. This final level of meaning allows us to make decisions and apply our knowledge the world around us. We have achieved wisdom.
Let's wrap this up by revisiting our example.
10. Wisdom achieved!
Because it will probably rain tonight and make the park muddy, James' parents should plan some alternative games for their fifteen guests. You might have been close to this when you looked at the raw data, but stepping through each level of the pyramid highlights how data alone isn't enough to make good decision. You need data, a dash of context, a heap of meaning, and a helping of understanding.
11. Let's practice!
Let's get some practice in distilling data into wisdom with some exercises.