1 - In the first page, Cleveland states "the hardware can come up with the answer, but have we asked the right question?" (34) I'm curious as to where we view the role of the information professional when it comes to "asking the right question," is our job to help people learn to work with hardware, to develop better answers based upon the questions asked, or is it everywhere in the question-answer spectrum?
2 - I'm inclined to challenge Cleveland's assessment of wisdom as "information made super-useful" (34). I consider wisdom to be far more intangible and permeating, such as critical thinking skills or the ability to create super-useful information, not necessarily the information itself. I think putting wisdom in a commodity box (which is what Cleveland does with information as well) makes it feel finite, and I'm interested in other students' reactions to this idea as well.
3 - Cleveland's final point is that information can act as a new form of democracy (39), but again, I'd like to challenge this idea. Do more informed people automatically make better decisions? While an informed public is incredibly important when it comes to political awareness, I maintain that informed people don't always make decisions that are better for the whole, as opposed to a distinct, privileged few. Will information-rich societies automatically yield more cooperative, useful, and efficient communities?
1. Cleveland writes that information exchanges are fundamentally “sharing transactions” (38), how does this attitude square with more modern notions of “piracy” or “intellectual property theft” as debated heavily in current events?
2. Cleveland also argues on the same page that laws governing privacy and technology are immediately outmoded, and this is only more true today than it was in 1982. Is it possible for lawmaking processes to be flexible enough to defend information rights including commercial and personal applications?
3. In the face of the ever-changing information economy presented by Cleveland, is it not wise to promote the study of broader areas and multiple disciplines in education, that informational needs may be met when they arise against our predictions?
Your first question is excellent, and I would love to see this discussed in class. The idea of "copyrighting" knowledge, and the ethical considerations behind it, are particularly important in this day and age. Two relevant discussions that I consider interesting real-world examples are Apple's copyright surrounding the packaging of their products (http://www.npr.org/2012/05/13/152590769/for-steve-jobs-patents-kept-beauty-of-design-alive) and this article about culinary "plagiarism": http://eater.com/archives/2012/12/03/attributing-sources.php.
1) I was especially interested in the discussion of how the capitalist economy keeps trying to force information to fit into the previously “thing-based” structure of exchange. Information-based industries (for example, the publishing and film industries) were previously able to monetize information by selling the physical “thing” that conveyed it: books for written information, tickets or home video for films, physical recordings of audio information, etc. The advent of mass communication has made it much more difficult for these industries to continue their “thing-based” exchange model, but so far they seem to be trying to artificially impose scarcity on digital resources rather than adapting to information’s unique qualities. What other options do these industries have in order to continue monetizing their products?
2) Even more than in 1982, information is “the central capital, the cost center, and the crucial resource of the economy” (35). If a majority of the economy’s labor and monetary resources go toward the exchange of information rather than toward the production of tangible goods, does exchange-based capitalism cease to be sustainable? “Aren’t we going to have to invent different ways to reward intellectual labor that are compatible with a resource that is both diffusive and shareable?” (38) This ties into the first question about some industries’ inability to adapt to the unusual qualities of information as a resource. At what point do old economic models cease to function, and what might replace them?
3) The article hinted at possible adaptations that education must make in the information society. If there is to be “a greater premium on integrative thought” (39) rather than on “information rather than knowledge” (35), how must education adapt to this shift in priorities? How can the field of education ensure that students do learn integrative thought and do not fall through the cracks?
1. Cleveland explains in this article that information builds knowledge and knowledge forms wisdom. He goes on to state that information is basically limitless in and of itself, and that the only “‘limits to growth’ of knowledge and wisdom are time” (36). In short, I understood him to mean that humans need time to process and analyze information and knowledge to therefore create wisdom. However, do you agree that the only limit to the growth of knowledge and wisdom is time? Wouldn’t that limit, in fact, be information itself? By Cleveland’s own arguments, knowledge can’t be present without information and wisdom can’t foster without knowledge – so wouldn’t someone with limited information be unable to form knowledge or wisdom. Also, if said individual’s information was incorrect, wouldn’t that also cause him/her to form false knowledge and/or wisdom, thus exemplifying that information is the real limit to knowledge and wisdom?
2. Another major point that Cleveland makes in this argument is that information is sharable (37). It is evident throughout the article that Cleveland believes this to be one of information’s more desirable attributes, as he compares its exchangeability to a “good kiss” – sharing a kiss/information makes it better because more than one person can have it at once (37). However, what if this information was actually misinformation? What are the implications of information traveling everywhere at once, to everyone at once, and it’s actually incorrect? My main question here is whether or not the rapid exchange rate of information should be considered one of its better qualities, or if Cleveland’s argument needs to be qualified?
3. In Cleveland’s article, he writes about the differences between an informed and uninformed society, and the importance of having “everyone partly in charge” (39). He also states that an informed society is more likely to exhibit “effective action”. These ideas lead me to believe that Cleveland assumes that, in an informed society, citizens want to participate in government. However, I would argue that simply being informed does not always guarantee participation – there are plenty of informed people in our society who don’t vote, for instance. My question is whether you agree that being informed creates participation? Furthermore, if, as Cleveland suggests, information is a driving force behind the advancement of modern societies, what does an informed society do with citizens who don’t want to participate, or perhaps don’t even want information at all?
1. Cleveland states that we are a society that "awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge" (p. 39) and stresses the need for integrative thought in an information society. As varying disciplines become more and more specialized, in what ways is the flow of information between these fields affected? Also, whose responsibility is it to design integrative thought practices that allow for serious discourses between these disciplines?
2. As information becomes the "central capital, the cost center, and the crucial resource of the economy" (p. 35) In what ways does this threaten the types of participatory deciscion making and openness that are required in a society envisioned by Cleveland? (For example, the goverments recent intelligence gathering operation uncovered by Edward Snowden). In other words, In a society where Information is a commodity rather than an inalienable right, how can a society function in a "collegial" rather than "command" structure format?
3. Six characteristics of information are discussed in the article (information is exandable, compressible, substitutable, transportable, diffusive, and shareable) However, Cleveland does not discuss the notion that information is subject to manipulation. Is this a characteristic that should be included, why or why not?
1. In the article, Cleveland speaks about the directions that Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom take. By discussion and popular consent, information is considered horizontal, knowledge is hierarchical, etc. But I wonder if we changed the "direction" of these concepts, if it would change our understanding of what they are and how we apply them? Would that even be possible?
2. If information is an "expandable resource" as the author puts it, than human beings, by necessity, must become more and more efficient in order to handle the vast amounts of information. But at what cost? The more information expands, the harder it is for us to process it all. Will we be able to accept the fact that information is constantly growing out of our reach? In the future, will information become something even more undefinable akin to faith or a higher being?
3. Towards the end of his article, Cleveland writes about what information as a resource means for human life. He mentions how those who are undereducated will fall even further behind with the "informatisation" of society. According to the chart on pg. 37, only what we consider to be more "advanced" countries can be considered. From a developmental standpoint, if we helped underdeveloped nations gain access to information in all its forms, could we bridge the gap between what is considered advanced vs. third world? Is allocating access to information, on a long term scale, more important than allocating basic necessities?
1. Cleveland gives his own definitions of information,knowledge and wisdom, but goes on to say that they are subjective and depends on the person. So is it that knowledge and wisdom are inter related and ultimately mean they are chunks of information put together to make it useful for people? In this case,they need not be put into different levels and wisdom is more like common sense applied to knowledge.
2.Cleveland explains one of the characteristics of Information as Compressible and also points out that the compression can cause either a trivial data to be lost or maybe even a very crucially relevant one. In the latter case, if the crucial data is lost, and the rest is processed, won't that end up in incomplete information? Incomplete information can cause poor knowledge of things around us and end up useless. Are there ways to reduce the amount of information lost during compression? Or Can we perform compression such that the relevant information is always retained?
3.If information is treated as a key resource and the monopoly of power is distributed in the organization,I am curious as to how there will be more consensus and less conflicts. When the power is divided to a large class of people, opinions vary and this may cause hindrance to taking decisions at the appropriate time.
1. Cleveland says that there is both “nobody completely in charge, but everybody partly in charge, collegial rather than command structures are the more natural basis for organization. So if everyone is somewhat responsible for adding to the field of information who exactly can we look to as an authority of an entity that is always changing day by day? 2. In acquiring information Cleveland says we already have the flashy technology need to quickly acquire an answer we are looking for, but also asks whether the answer is as valuable if one hasn’t asked the right question? Would you agree that half of discovering knowledge/data/information is knowing where to find it and would you say that there are advantages to not asking the right question the first time you search for something? 3. This article was written in 1982 and describes six characteristics of information. “Information is expandable, compressible, substitutable, transportable, diffusive, and shareable. Since 1982 the information field has come far. What other words might you add to describe the characteristics of information now that it is 2013?
1. The idea that information is compressable is an interesting one. Yes, information can be compressed but it often times requires new information to learn what the compressed information is saying. Cleveland acknowledges that the potential to lose information is present and is it possible that that's because the user of the condensed information may not understand all the information that was used to create the condensed form?
2. The claim that information is diffusive is probably the most relevant (aside from possibly shareable) of the claims made in this article. Is secretive information an more secure (less diffusive) today than it was when this article was written?
3. Cleveland's thoughts about the implications of information on education are interesting. There has been a lot of criticism in the education sector for doing exactly what Cleveland mentions and only teaching narrow slices of information instead of wisdom. Is the rise of information as a resource correlated to the decline of wisdom and critical thinking being taught?
1. Cleveland says, “It is probably not important to search for universal agreement on the distinctions between knowledge, information, and wisdom” because these distinctions are subjective. Do you agree with this statement? If information is treated as a resource wouldn't these distinctions matter? 2. If information is a new kind of resource how is its value affected by technological advancements? Does the definition of information change as technology changes or as knowledge is gained? 5. On page 35, Cleveland makes several statements on the American workforce and information work, yet cites no sources or gives no definitions. What is meant by information work? How has it affected wages and workloads in the workforce?
1. Are there other types of "resources" that are also considered not to be a "thing"? Is money an example? It was once based upon highly valued metals (a resource), but has since become an accepted concept.
2. Is it really information itself that "leaks... striving to break out of the unnatural bonds of secrecy in which thing-minded people try to imprison it", or is it just the competitive nature of people "in the know" (or part of the "need to know group of people") showing off and one-upping others? If this competitive nature of humans (which was once used to gather things) were to be lost, would we see a decrease in the amount of information? Essentially, a recession of knowledge? And most certainly a decrease in information sharing?
3. "And as the education required to be functionally literate in an information society keeps growing in depth and breadth, what is to become of those who, because they lack basic education or the opportunity for continued learning, become the peasants of the knowledge society?" Really, we will never become entirely just an information society - there was always be things to produce and food to harvest. There will always be both industrial and agricultural labors. There will be a place for all types of people. For example, some labor professions (electrician, plumber, mechanic) bring home higher incomes than some information professions - (librarians, archivists). As there are less people performing a required skill, the value paid for that skill undoubtedly will go up.
1. To prove the "informatisation" of society, the author presents a very supportive fact which is 'A century ago, fewer force were doing information work; now more than 50% of us may be engaged in it.' Which kinds of jobs or work can be seen as information work?
2. In the latter part of this article, the author claims six characteristics of information. However, he does not provide sufficient evidences for them, and thus, some of these characteristics are not so persuasive as it stands. Such as the third characteristic--substitutable, he offers an example as 'robotics and automation in factories and offices are displacing workers', but what is the relationship between information and robotics? And how does this substituting process work?
3. The author claims that 'planning cannot be done by a few leaders, advised in secret by experts with detailed blueprints; planning has to be a dynamic improvisation by the many... after genuine consultation'. However, it seems that the former way of planning, to which he is opposed, is just the way how plans are made in current practice. And I think it is reasonable, since planning with many people might have a huge cost. So, my question is that how to make a balance between cost control and sufficient information feedback?
1.Harlan gives us some definitions of information,knowledge and wisdom. Just imagine if all the people are well and highly educated in the future, there will be more knowledge, and maybe someday all the information will be transformed into knowledge, so at that time, maybe we don't need to use information or the knowledge will be the 'information' in the future. What do you think about that?
2."If information is a resource, it is unique among resources(p36)." So why is it unique? Information may be not tangible like water or food, but knowledge and wisdom are also intangible. I think knowledge and wisdom are resources too.
3.At the last of the paper,Harlan comes up with a series of questions to show us how the information changes our lives. So does information change our lives or just we change information. What will our world be if the interaction between people and information goes on?
1. Cleveland states: "In accounting, what are we to do with a concept called 'depreciation' in a society where a large fraction of its resources does not depreciate with use?" Wouldn't the answer to that potentially be the system would work in reverse? Since information is only as good as a person subjectively deems it, wouldn't data start from a zero sum game of sorts? The more valuable it is in a certain context, the greater it appreciates?
2. While Cleveland stresses the importance of information workers and the need for laborers to learn skills for this new job market, why does he not give any suggestions or ideas on what fields these information workers could spawn from? He gives an estimate of how high of a percentage they'll occupy in the economy, but no indication of where.
3. "In education, doesn't the information environment place a much greater premium on integrative thought? Won't we have to take a new look at a system that awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge?" Wisdom has very subjective definitions for people who choose to touch on it. So how would you quantify someone as having a lot of wisdom but little knowledge? In what way could you award them recognition for something that ultimately results from the sum of your life experiences?
If information is a resource, as Cleveland adeptly points out, it is certainly a renewable one given its malleable and nebulous nature. Because the natural state of information seems to be so dynamic, as different individuals and organizations can use information in different ways, will this require more of an emphasis on the IS field by other disciplines in order for them to fully understand how information interacts with their fields?
Looking at individuals in the IS field as sort of information liaisons, I can see how Cleveland’s idea that information is shareable makes more sense than the trading of information being an exchange. But when people are involved in the process does an exchange take place on some level? Thoughts can be exchanged between a librarian and someone searching for information in an effort to track down specific data. Each are giving the other something and the end result becomes a sharing of the information.
I think the idea of information being our dominant resource exemplifies the place information has had, does have, and will have in our lives. As such Cleveland ends the article with the idea that an information society needs transparency and open dialogue. How then do we, as members of that society, make informed decisions if the information available falls short of being transparent?
One of the big things that the author of this article talks about is the increase in the number of information professions over the course of a short amount of time. Is this rise in information professions indicative of more information being created or of the fact that methods of storage and transmission of information are advancing allowing information to be built upon easier?
In this article the author makes a claim that information as a resource is substitutable. This means that information can be used in place of other resources to create new jobs. I argue that this is not true. I see information as augmenting instead of replacing resources. Information does not replace food supplies but instead makes it so that we can make better use of these resources.
This article brings up the question of how we should adapt our legal system to the advent of information as a resource that is sharable. Specifically how we should deal with things like copyrights. In recent years this has become important in relation to issues like net neutrality and services that require you to pay for certain types of information online and how law enforcement has had to adapt to enforce laws on these new systems.
1 In the page 3, the author mentioned the "informatisation" of society. The author said there was much more percentage of people working in information related field. How we define the work that is related information? Does people whose work needs computer then we can say he work at information field? How about today photographers who need digital camera to take pictures? And since there was not a lot tech in the ancient times, people who in charge of deliver message had nothing relate information?
2 The author stated in the page 5 that information is compressible. To bolstering this, the author give an example that we can store many complex cases in a single theorem, squeeze insights from masses of data into single formula. However, does the original information really change? We maybe could say that we come out a new information by synthesizing other information. Can we say we really squeeze the information?
3 In the final, the author proposed some implications for human life. In economics perspective, the author argued that why we are still focusing on the allocation of scarcities when there is a chronic surplus of information resources. In my opinion, only information with value can really benefit people, and which is not that surplus because human wisdom and knowledge is needed. And thus we need to create useful information or reorganized scattered information.
1. In my perspectives, wisdom is intangible and show its super-usefulness when people predicting or making decision. So, is it necessary to add these to make concept of wisdom clearer, but not only about create theory?
2. Why the author so sure that people will be caught up in a continual struggle to reduce the information overload and have more uncertainty about what to do in the future? With more and more consciousness about information overload, there might be a method for society delivering specific information to specific group of people.
3. The author mentioned "better information", which I think not precise enough, can hold sway over the rest of mankind. The author made an examples such as kings with spies to demonstrate that "such power monopolies that closely held information made possible were subject to accelerating erosion". However, I'm curious about people's reaction when they realize it since the author said "information is expandable and diffusive".
1. Cleveland said that when data was linked to anther rung or category of data, the result is knowledge. However, as we all know, the hierarchy is established as ordered from data, information, knowledge and wisdom. So is it right if we link data directly to knowledge. 2. Since Cleveland mention on page 39 that information, as a resource, does not depreciate with use, does it appreciate with use? Everytime we use information, we link it to another, will the new finding increase the value? 3. Cleveland assume that information can replace capital, labor, or physical materials to describe information is substitute. Is it subjective? I think physical material is basic of information, and cannot be replaced by information.
1. I'm intrigued by the term Cleveland uses, "doing information work" (p. 35). I understand he's talking mainly about the pull from labor and skill-based occupations, however, all things considered--is there a field of professional work is untouched by information? Isn't information (and having and using it) an inherent aspect of "work"? 2. In regard to education, what are the real implications of having more information--does having greater access to greater quantities mean that a person processes any of it differently? 3. Cleveland suggests that information is subsitutable (p. 37). I'm interested in how this has changed since the article was published, and what the social implications (outside of the demand for a different worker skill set) are?
-Cleveland argues that time and the capacity of people are the essential limits to the development of further knowledge and wisdom. Has Cleveland proved to be correct about people’s limited ability to absorb information or have we transcended this scholars expectations? -Have our laws concerning privacy, copyright, patents, etc. been properly adapted to fit our new use of information technology or do they still lag behind? What are the struggles facing politicians dealing with how to control and manage information? -Cleveland believes that access to information is essentially synonymous with democracy. Has the enormous growth of information technology enhanced participatory decision-making and wider participation in the leadership of our culture? How so?
1. In the section "Implications for Human Life" the author describes implications for several disciplines but not for individuals. What would some of those be?
2. The article was written thirty years ago. Did the authors predictions concerning those implications come true?
3. Cleveland omits data from the DIKW hierarchy. Why would that be the case? Does it have to do with the fact that the article was written so long ago?
1. It’s funny that both this reading and the Rowley bring up T. S. Eliot’s lines from The Rock to explain the origin of the DIKW pyramid, and yet both ignore the fact that the poet asks about losing wisdom and knowledge rather than gaining them. To be fair it’s probably out of the scope of their papers, but one would think they’d show at least a passing curiosity about this idea that information can lead us away from knowledge, and knowledge from wisdom. Or the notion that we once had wisdom but have lost it. Can we be pulled down the pyramid as well as led up it? Would it look something like information overload? What else might it look like?
2. Copyright, file sharing issues and issues with security and information leaks are some information-related problems that most of the modern world is familiar with at this point, but I’ve never thought of it as a result of using outmoded assumptions that are based on the idea of resources as things instead of the less-than-physical information. I feel like we have been trying to adapt our laws and practices with thing-based resources to information, with not entirely successful results (witness the recorded music industry), and wonder if the answer will not eventually be as revolutionary as Cleveland proposes? I was particularly intrigued with his idea that we’ll have to “invent different ways to reward intellectual labor.” (pg 38)
3. The fun thing about this article is that, since it was written over 30 years ago, we can actually start to assess the predictions that Cleveland made about information’s impact on society. Particularly interesting are his questions about education. Has it played out that the info revolution has encouraged more integrative thought and downplayed specialization? Has the system that “awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge” (pg 38) struggled that much to adapt? Lastly, in the same paragraph, Cleveland mentions “peasants of the knowledge society.” Do those people exist, who are they, do we think they are a different group than Cleveland would have predicted, etc?
1. Cleveland refers to the idea that information is compressible and writes that, in compressing information, naturally, "some information is bound to be lost". Are we, then, over-handling information and therefore losing some things which are vital? Is there a point of over-manipulation and over-compression? If information is a resource, as Cleveland says, then is it possible to refine it to a point of losing some of its strength?
2. As Cleveland suggests, is participatory decision-making an updated definition of decision-making? Do blogs, facebook pages, twitter, etc. allow for everyone to participate in social discussions?
3. Cleveland implies that information overloads lead to uncertainty. I'd like to discuss this idea in further detail.
This article suggests that information is hierarchical while "wisdom is organismic and flexible". If "organismic" wisdom is part of the system with "hierarchical" information, doesn't that imply that there must be a larger, broader, or deeper perspective to describe these related concepts?
1. The cartoon on p. 34 shows a pictorial representation of the DIKW hierarchy discussed in class and other readings, with the glaring omission of data from the set. Given this explanation, where, if at all, would data fit in the understanding of the author/artist?
2. In his final section, Cleveland argues that society must rethink our ideas of property rights and patents to allow for a new economy of information. In the thirty years since the article was written, the information landscape has changed dramatically--with it, so too has intellectual property law. How might the author react to the current state of affairs regarding intellectual property rights, creative commons licenses, and current copyright law?
3. Cleveland insists throughout his article that information is a shareable resource; that is, information can be transferred from one party to another with the original party suffering no loss of information himself. While I agree that this is true (that no information is lost by the giving party), it doesn't account for other capital lost by sharing information. We're all familiar with for-profit information (pay walls on newspapers' web sites, subscriptions to databases costing tens of thousands of dollars). How does the concept of "privileged information" fold into Cleveland's broad exposition of information as a resource?
1. In the paper, the author presented a number of features that information shares with generally resources such as oil or sunlight. However, most of resources are measurable by their weight or strength or the energy they can provide. In this point, how can we weigh the amount and the efficiency of a set of information as one kind of resources?
2. I doubt a logic foundation of the paper. One thing mentioned in the paper is that the definition of the information is still ambiguous, and another thing pointed out by the author is that more and more labors are involved with information. Here is a problem: what kinds of jobs are information-related? From my perspective, even a farmer in the ancient times were exposed to a variety of information and had his own wisdom.
3. Regarding the information overload, the author gave a huge concern about it. However, he seemed to ignore the increasing capacity of human beings on treating information. With more knowledge than ever before, will people have to suffer information overload in the future?
1. On page 39, Cleveland writes “Won’t we have to take a new look at a system that awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge?” What does he mean by this? I am uncertain what people he is referring to or based on the WKID hierarchy, how a person can have wisdom with little knowledge. 2. Cleveland writes that in past human history, those who held information (such as kings or generals) held a monopoly of power. Now that much of society has access to information and are information workers, he argues that power and society are more democratized with “more openness and less secrecy.” Is this true that our society and governing powers no longer have great power through information gathering? How does his argument hold when considering government information gathering through efforts such as the Patriot Act? How to events like Wikileaks and Edward Snowden releasing classified information play into this? 3. Cleveland writes that in regular market exchanges, there is a physical object passing from one to the other. How is information as a resource different than service as a resource?
1 - In the first page, Cleveland states "the hardware can come up with the answer, but have we asked the right question?" (34) I'm curious as to where we view the role of the information professional when it comes to "asking the right question," is our job to help people learn to work with hardware, to develop better answers based upon the questions asked, or is it everywhere in the question-answer spectrum?
ReplyDelete2 - I'm inclined to challenge Cleveland's assessment of wisdom as "information made super-useful" (34). I consider wisdom to be far more intangible and permeating, such as critical thinking skills or the ability to create super-useful information, not necessarily the information itself. I think putting wisdom in a commodity box (which is what Cleveland does with information as well) makes it feel finite, and I'm interested in other students' reactions to this idea as well.
3 - Cleveland's final point is that information can act as a new form of democracy (39), but again, I'd like to challenge this idea. Do more informed people automatically make better decisions? While an informed public is incredibly important when it comes to political awareness, I maintain that informed people don't always make decisions that are better for the whole, as opposed to a distinct, privileged few. Will information-rich societies automatically yield more cooperative, useful, and efficient communities?
1. Cleveland writes that information exchanges are fundamentally “sharing transactions” (38), how does this attitude square with more modern notions of “piracy” or “intellectual property theft” as debated heavily in current events?
ReplyDelete2. Cleveland also argues on the same page that laws governing privacy and technology are immediately outmoded, and this is only more true today than it was in 1982. Is it possible for lawmaking processes to be flexible enough to defend information rights including commercial and personal applications?
3. In the face of the ever-changing information economy presented by Cleveland, is it not wise to promote the study of broader areas and multiple disciplines in education, that informational needs may be met when they arise against our predictions?
Your first question is excellent, and I would love to see this discussed in class. The idea of "copyrighting" knowledge, and the ethical considerations behind it, are particularly important in this day and age. Two relevant discussions that I consider interesting real-world examples are Apple's copyright surrounding the packaging of their products (http://www.npr.org/2012/05/13/152590769/for-steve-jobs-patents-kept-beauty-of-design-alive) and this article about culinary "plagiarism": http://eater.com/archives/2012/12/03/attributing-sources.php.
Delete1) I was especially interested in the discussion of how the capitalist economy keeps trying to force information to fit into the previously “thing-based” structure of exchange. Information-based industries (for example, the publishing and film industries) were previously able to monetize information by selling the physical “thing” that conveyed it: books for written information, tickets or home video for films, physical recordings of audio information, etc. The advent of mass communication has made it much more difficult for these industries to continue their “thing-based” exchange model, but so far they seem to be trying to artificially impose scarcity on digital resources rather than adapting to information’s unique qualities. What other options do these industries have in order to continue monetizing their products?
ReplyDelete2) Even more than in 1982, information is “the central capital, the cost center, and the crucial resource of the economy” (35). If a majority of the economy’s labor and monetary resources go toward the exchange of information rather than toward the production of tangible goods, does exchange-based capitalism cease to be sustainable? “Aren’t we going to have to invent different ways to reward intellectual labor that are compatible with a resource that is both diffusive and shareable?” (38) This ties into the first question about some industries’ inability to adapt to the unusual qualities of information as a resource. At what point do old economic models cease to function, and what might replace them?
3) The article hinted at possible adaptations that education must make in the information society. If there is to be “a greater premium on integrative thought” (39) rather than on “information rather than knowledge” (35), how must education adapt to this shift in priorities? How can the field of education ensure that students do learn integrative thought and do not fall through the cracks?
1. Cleveland explains in this article that information builds knowledge and knowledge forms wisdom. He goes on to state that information is basically limitless in and of itself, and that the only “‘limits to growth’ of knowledge and wisdom are time” (36). In short, I understood him to mean that humans need time to process and analyze information and knowledge to therefore create wisdom. However, do you agree that the only limit to the growth of knowledge and wisdom is time? Wouldn’t that limit, in fact, be information itself? By Cleveland’s own arguments, knowledge can’t be present without information and wisdom can’t foster without knowledge – so wouldn’t someone with limited information be unable to form knowledge or wisdom. Also, if said individual’s information was incorrect, wouldn’t that also cause him/her to form false knowledge and/or wisdom, thus exemplifying that information is the real limit to knowledge and wisdom?
ReplyDelete2. Another major point that Cleveland makes in this argument is that information is sharable (37). It is evident throughout the article that Cleveland believes this to be one of information’s more desirable attributes, as he compares its exchangeability to a “good kiss” – sharing a kiss/information makes it better because more than one person can have it at once (37). However, what if this information was actually misinformation? What are the implications of information traveling everywhere at once, to everyone at once, and it’s actually incorrect? My main question here is whether or not the rapid exchange rate of information should be considered one of its better qualities, or if Cleveland’s argument needs to be qualified?
3. In Cleveland’s article, he writes about the differences between an informed and uninformed society, and the importance of having “everyone partly in charge” (39). He also states that an informed society is more likely to exhibit “effective action”. These ideas lead me to believe that Cleveland assumes that, in an informed society, citizens want to participate in government. However, I would argue that simply being informed does not always guarantee participation – there are plenty of informed people in our society who don’t vote, for instance. My question is whether you agree that being informed creates participation? Furthermore, if, as Cleveland suggests, information is a driving force behind the advancement of modern societies, what does an informed society do with citizens who don’t want to participate, or perhaps don’t even want information at all?
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ReplyDelete1. Cleveland states that we are a society that "awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge" (p. 39) and stresses the need for integrative thought in an information society. As varying disciplines become more and more specialized, in what ways is the flow of information between these fields affected? Also, whose responsibility is it to design integrative thought practices that allow for serious discourses between these disciplines?
ReplyDelete2. As information becomes the "central capital, the cost center, and the crucial resource of the economy" (p. 35) In what ways does this threaten the types of participatory deciscion making and openness that are required in a society envisioned by Cleveland? (For example, the goverments recent intelligence gathering operation uncovered by Edward Snowden). In other words, In a society where Information is a commodity rather than an inalienable right, how can a society function in a "collegial" rather than "command" structure format?
3. Six characteristics of information are discussed in the article (information is exandable, compressible, substitutable, transportable, diffusive, and shareable) However, Cleveland does not discuss the notion that information is subject to manipulation. Is this a characteristic that should be included, why or why not?
1. In the article, Cleveland speaks about the directions that Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom take. By discussion and popular consent, information is considered horizontal, knowledge is hierarchical, etc. But I wonder if we changed the "direction" of these concepts, if it would change our understanding of what they are and how we apply them? Would that even be possible?
ReplyDelete2. If information is an "expandable resource" as the author puts it, than human beings, by necessity, must become more and more efficient in order to handle the vast amounts of information. But at what cost? The more information expands, the harder it is for us to process it all. Will we be able to accept the fact that information is constantly growing out of our reach? In the future, will information become something even more undefinable akin to faith or a higher being?
3. Towards the end of his article, Cleveland writes about what information as a resource means for human life. He mentions how those who are undereducated will fall even further behind with the "informatisation" of society. According to the chart on pg. 37, only what we consider to be more "advanced" countries can be considered. From a developmental standpoint, if we helped underdeveloped nations gain access to information in all its forms, could we bridge the gap between what is considered advanced vs. third world? Is allocating access to information, on a long term scale, more important than allocating basic necessities?
1. Cleveland gives his own definitions of information,knowledge and wisdom, but goes on to say that they are subjective and depends on the person. So is it that knowledge and wisdom are inter related and ultimately mean they are chunks of information put together to make it useful for people? In this case,they need not be put into different levels and wisdom is more like common sense applied to knowledge.
ReplyDelete2.Cleveland explains one of the characteristics of Information as Compressible and also points out that the compression can cause either a trivial data to be lost or maybe even a very crucially relevant one. In the latter case, if the crucial data is lost, and the rest is processed, won't that end up in incomplete information? Incomplete information can cause poor knowledge of things around us and end up useless. Are there ways to reduce the amount of information lost during compression? Or Can we perform compression such that the relevant information is always retained?
3.If information is treated as a key resource and the monopoly of power is distributed in the organization,I am curious as to how there will be more consensus and less conflicts. When the power is divided to a large class of people, opinions vary and this may cause hindrance to taking decisions at the appropriate time.
1. Cleveland says that there is both “nobody completely in charge, but everybody partly in charge, collegial rather than command structures are the more natural basis for organization. So if everyone is somewhat responsible for adding to the field of information who exactly can we look to as an authority of an entity that is always changing day by day?
ReplyDelete2. In acquiring information Cleveland says we already have the flashy technology need to quickly acquire an answer we are looking for, but also asks whether the answer is as valuable if one hasn’t asked the right question? Would you agree that half of discovering knowledge/data/information is knowing where to find it and would you say that there are advantages to not asking the right question the first time you search for something?
3. This article was written in 1982 and describes six characteristics of information. “Information is expandable, compressible, substitutable, transportable, diffusive, and shareable. Since 1982 the information field has come far. What other words might you add to describe the characteristics of information now that it is 2013?
1. The idea that information is compressable is an interesting one. Yes, information can be compressed but it often times requires new information to learn what the compressed information is saying. Cleveland acknowledges that the potential to lose information is present and is it possible that that's because the user of the condensed information may not understand all the information that was used to create the condensed form?
ReplyDelete2. The claim that information is diffusive is probably the most relevant (aside from possibly shareable) of the claims made in this article. Is secretive information an more secure (less diffusive) today than it was when this article was written?
3. Cleveland's thoughts about the implications of information on education are interesting. There has been a lot of criticism in the education sector for doing exactly what Cleveland mentions and only teaching narrow slices of information instead of wisdom. Is the rise of information as a resource correlated to the decline of wisdom and critical thinking being taught?
1. Cleveland says, “It is probably not important to search for universal agreement on the distinctions between knowledge, information, and wisdom” because these distinctions are subjective. Do you agree with this statement? If information is treated as a resource wouldn't these distinctions matter?
ReplyDelete2. If information is a new kind of resource how is its value affected by technological advancements? Does the definition of information change as technology changes or as knowledge is gained?
5. On page 35, Cleveland makes several statements on the American workforce and information work, yet cites no sources or gives no definitions. What is meant by information work? How has it affected wages and workloads in the workforce?
1. Are there other types of "resources" that are also considered not to be a "thing"? Is money an example? It was once based upon highly valued metals (a resource), but has since become an accepted concept.
ReplyDelete2. Is it really information itself that "leaks... striving to break out of the unnatural bonds of secrecy in which thing-minded people try to imprison it", or is it just the competitive nature of people "in the know" (or part of the "need to know group of people") showing off and one-upping others? If this competitive nature of humans (which was once used to gather things) were to be lost, would we see a decrease in the amount of information? Essentially, a recession of knowledge? And most certainly a decrease in information sharing?
3. "And as the education required to be functionally literate in an information society keeps growing in depth and breadth, what is to become of those who, because they lack basic education or the opportunity for continued learning, become the peasants of the knowledge society?" Really, we will never become entirely just an information society - there was always be things to produce and food to harvest. There will always be both industrial and agricultural labors. There will be a place for all types of people. For example, some labor professions (electrician, plumber, mechanic) bring home higher incomes than some information professions - (librarians, archivists). As there are less people performing a required skill, the value paid for that skill undoubtedly will go up.
1. To prove the "informatisation" of society, the author presents a very supportive fact which is 'A century ago, fewer force were doing information work; now more than 50% of us may be engaged in it.' Which kinds of jobs or work can be seen as information work?
ReplyDelete2. In the latter part of this article, the author claims six characteristics of information. However, he does not provide sufficient evidences for them, and thus, some of these characteristics are not so persuasive as it stands. Such as the third characteristic--substitutable, he offers an example as 'robotics and automation in factories and offices are displacing workers', but what is the relationship between information and robotics? And how does this substituting process work?
3. The author claims that 'planning cannot be done by a few leaders, advised in secret by experts with detailed blueprints; planning has to be a dynamic improvisation by the many... after genuine consultation'. However, it seems that the former way of planning, to which he is opposed, is just the way how plans are made in current practice. And I think it is reasonable, since planning with many people might have a huge cost. So, my question is that how to make a balance between cost control and sufficient information feedback?
1.Harlan gives us some definitions of information,knowledge and wisdom. Just imagine if all the people are well and highly educated in the future, there will be more knowledge, and maybe someday all the information will be transformed into knowledge, so at that time, maybe we don't need to use information or the knowledge will be the 'information' in the future. What do you think about that?
ReplyDelete2."If information is a resource, it is unique among resources(p36)." So why is it unique? Information may be not tangible like water or food, but knowledge and wisdom are also intangible. I think knowledge and wisdom are resources too.
3.At the last of the paper,Harlan comes up with a series of questions to show us how the information changes our lives. So does information change our lives or just we change information. What will our world be if the interaction between people and information goes on?
1. Cleveland states: "In accounting, what are we to do with a concept called 'depreciation' in a society where a large fraction of its resources does not depreciate with use?" Wouldn't the answer to that potentially be the system would work in reverse? Since information is only as good as a person subjectively deems it, wouldn't data start from a zero sum game of sorts? The more valuable it is in a certain context, the greater it appreciates?
ReplyDelete2. While Cleveland stresses the importance of information workers and the need for laborers to learn skills for this new job market, why does he not give any suggestions or ideas on what fields these information workers could spawn from? He gives an estimate of how high of a percentage they'll occupy in the economy, but no indication of where.
3. "In education, doesn't the information environment place a much greater premium on integrative thought? Won't we have to take a new look at a system that awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge?" Wisdom has very subjective definitions for people who choose to touch on it. So how would you quantify someone as having a lot of wisdom but little knowledge? In what way could you award them recognition for something that ultimately results from the sum of your life experiences?
If information is a resource, as Cleveland adeptly points out, it is certainly a renewable one given its malleable and nebulous nature. Because the natural state of information seems to be so dynamic, as different individuals and organizations can use information in different ways, will this require more of an emphasis on the IS field by other disciplines in order for them to fully understand how information interacts with their fields?
ReplyDeleteLooking at individuals in the IS field as sort of information liaisons, I can see how Cleveland’s idea that information is shareable makes more sense than the trading of information being an exchange. But when people are involved in the process does an exchange take place on some level? Thoughts can be exchanged between a librarian and someone searching for information in an effort to track down specific data. Each are giving the other something and the end result becomes a sharing of the information.
I think the idea of information being our dominant resource exemplifies the place information has had, does have, and will have in our lives. As such Cleveland ends the article with the idea that an information society needs transparency and open dialogue. How then do we, as members of that society, make informed decisions if the information available falls short of being transparent?
One of the big things that the author of this article talks about is the increase in the number of information professions over the course of a short amount of time. Is this rise in information professions indicative of more information being created or of the fact that methods of storage and transmission of information are advancing allowing information to be built upon easier?
ReplyDeleteIn this article the author makes a claim that information as a resource is substitutable. This means that information can be used in place of other resources to create new jobs. I argue that this is not true. I see information as augmenting instead of replacing resources. Information does not replace food supplies but instead makes it so that we can make better use of these resources.
This article brings up the question of how we should adapt our legal system to the advent of information as a resource that is sharable. Specifically how we should deal with things like copyrights. In recent years this has become important in relation to issues like net neutrality and services that require you to pay for certain types of information online and how law enforcement has had to adapt to enforce laws on these new systems.
1 In the page 3, the author mentioned the "informatisation" of society. The author said there was much more percentage of people working in information related field. How we define the work that is related information? Does people whose work needs computer then we can say he work at information field? How about today photographers who need digital camera to take pictures? And since there was not a lot tech in the ancient times, people who in charge of deliver message had nothing relate information?
ReplyDelete2 The author stated in the page 5 that information is compressible. To bolstering this, the author give an example that we can store many complex cases in a single theorem, squeeze insights from masses of data into single formula. However, does the original information really change? We maybe could say that we come out a new information by synthesizing other information. Can we say we really squeeze the information?
3 In the final, the author proposed some implications for human life. In economics perspective, the author argued that why we are still focusing on the allocation of scarcities when there is a chronic surplus of information resources. In my opinion, only information with value can really benefit people, and which is not that surplus because human wisdom and knowledge is needed. And thus we need to create useful information or reorganized scattered information.
1. In my perspectives, wisdom is intangible and show its super-usefulness when people predicting or making decision. So, is it necessary to add these to make concept of wisdom clearer, but not only about create theory?
ReplyDelete2. Why the author so sure that people will be caught up in a continual struggle to reduce the information overload and have more uncertainty about what to do in the future? With more and more consciousness about information overload, there might be a method for society delivering specific information to specific group of people.
3. The author mentioned "better information", which I think not precise enough, can hold sway over the rest of mankind. The author made an examples such as kings with spies to demonstrate that "such power monopolies that closely held information made possible were subject to accelerating erosion". However, I'm curious about people's reaction when they realize it since the author said "information is expandable and diffusive".
1. Cleveland said that when data was linked to anther rung or category of data, the result is knowledge. However, as we all know, the hierarchy is established as ordered from data, information, knowledge and wisdom. So is it right if we link data directly to knowledge.
ReplyDelete2. Since Cleveland mention on page 39 that information, as a resource, does not depreciate with use, does it appreciate with use? Everytime we use information, we link it to another, will the new finding increase the value?
3. Cleveland assume that information can replace capital, labor, or physical materials to describe information is substitute. Is it subjective? I think physical material is basic of information, and cannot be replaced by information.
1. I'm intrigued by the term Cleveland uses, "doing information work" (p. 35). I understand he's talking mainly about the pull from labor and skill-based occupations, however, all things considered--is there a field of professional work is untouched by information? Isn't information (and having and using it) an inherent aspect of "work"?
ReplyDelete2. In regard to education, what are the real implications of having more information--does having greater access to greater quantities mean that a person processes any of it differently?
3. Cleveland suggests that information is subsitutable (p. 37). I'm interested in how this has changed since the article was published, and what the social implications (outside of the demand for a different worker skill set) are?
-Cleveland argues that time and the capacity of people are the essential limits to the development of further knowledge and wisdom. Has Cleveland proved to be correct about people’s limited ability to absorb information or have we transcended this scholars expectations?
ReplyDelete-Have our laws concerning privacy, copyright, patents, etc. been properly adapted to fit our new use of information technology or do they still lag behind? What are the struggles facing politicians dealing with how to control and manage information?
-Cleveland believes that access to information is essentially synonymous with democracy. Has the enormous growth of information technology enhanced participatory decision-making and wider participation in the leadership of our culture? How so?
1. In the section "Implications for Human Life" the author describes implications for several disciplines but not for individuals. What would some of those be?
ReplyDelete2. The article was written thirty years ago. Did the authors predictions concerning those implications come true?
3. Cleveland omits data from the DIKW hierarchy. Why would that be the case? Does it have to do with the fact that the article was written so long ago?
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ReplyDelete1. It’s funny that both this reading and the Rowley bring up T. S. Eliot’s lines from The Rock to explain the origin of the DIKW pyramid, and yet both ignore the fact that the poet asks about losing wisdom and knowledge rather than gaining them. To be fair it’s probably out of the scope of their papers, but one would think they’d show at least a passing curiosity about this idea that information can lead us away from knowledge, and knowledge from wisdom. Or the notion that we once had wisdom but have lost it. Can we be pulled down the pyramid as well as led up it? Would it look something like information overload? What else might it look like?
ReplyDelete2. Copyright, file sharing issues and issues with security and information leaks are some information-related problems that most of the modern world is familiar with at this point, but I’ve never thought of it as a result of using outmoded assumptions that are based on the idea of resources as things instead of the less-than-physical information. I feel like we have been trying to adapt our laws and practices with thing-based resources to information, with not entirely successful results (witness the recorded music industry), and wonder if the answer will not eventually be as revolutionary as Cleveland proposes? I was particularly intrigued with his idea that we’ll have to “invent different ways to reward intellectual labor.” (pg 38)
3. The fun thing about this article is that, since it was written over 30 years ago, we can actually start to assess the predictions that Cleveland made about information’s impact on society. Particularly interesting are his questions about education. Has it played out that the info revolution has encouraged more integrative thought and downplayed specialization? Has the system that “awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge” (pg 38) struggled that much to adapt? Lastly, in the same paragraph, Cleveland mentions “peasants of the knowledge society.” Do those people exist, who are they, do we think they are a different group than Cleveland would have predicted, etc?
1. Cleveland refers to the idea that information is compressible and writes that, in compressing information, naturally, "some information is bound to be lost". Are we, then, over-handling information and therefore losing some things which are vital? Is there a point of over-manipulation and over-compression? If information is a resource, as Cleveland says, then is it possible to refine it to a point of losing some of its strength?
ReplyDelete2. As Cleveland suggests, is participatory decision-making an updated definition of decision-making? Do blogs, facebook pages, twitter, etc. allow for everyone to participate in social discussions?
3. Cleveland implies that information overloads lead to uncertainty. I'd like to discuss this idea in further detail.
This article suggests that information is hierarchical while "wisdom is organismic and flexible". If "organismic" wisdom is part of the system with "hierarchical" information, doesn't that imply that there must be a larger, broader, or deeper perspective to describe these related concepts?
ReplyDelete1. The cartoon on p. 34 shows a pictorial representation of the DIKW hierarchy discussed in class and other readings, with the glaring omission of data from the set. Given this explanation, where, if at all, would data fit in the understanding of the author/artist?
ReplyDelete2. In his final section, Cleveland argues that society must rethink our ideas of property rights and patents to allow for a new economy of information. In the thirty years since the article was written, the information landscape has changed dramatically--with it, so too has intellectual property law. How might the author react to the current state of affairs regarding intellectual property rights, creative commons licenses, and current copyright law?
3. Cleveland insists throughout his article that information is a shareable resource; that is, information can be transferred from one party to another with the original party suffering no loss of information himself. While I agree that this is true (that no information is lost by the giving party), it doesn't account for other capital lost by sharing information. We're all familiar with for-profit information (pay walls on newspapers' web sites, subscriptions to databases costing tens of thousands of dollars). How does the concept of "privileged information" fold into Cleveland's broad exposition of information as a resource?
1. In the paper, the author presented a number of features that information shares with generally resources such as oil or sunlight. However, most of resources are measurable by their weight or strength or the energy they can provide. In this point, how can we weigh the amount and the efficiency of a set of information as one kind of resources?
ReplyDelete2. I doubt a logic foundation of the paper. One thing mentioned in the paper is that the definition of the information is still ambiguous, and another thing pointed out by the author is that more and more labors are involved with information. Here is a problem: what kinds of jobs are information-related? From my perspective, even a farmer in the ancient times were exposed to a variety of information and had his own wisdom.
3. Regarding the information overload, the author gave a huge concern about it. However, he seemed to ignore the increasing capacity of human beings on treating information. With more knowledge than ever before, will people have to suffer information overload in the future?
1. On page 39, Cleveland writes “Won’t we have to take a new look at a system that awards the highest credentials for wisdom to people with the narrowest slices of knowledge?” What does he mean by this? I am uncertain what people he is referring to or based on the WKID hierarchy, how a person can have wisdom with little knowledge.
ReplyDelete2. Cleveland writes that in past human history, those who held information (such as kings or generals) held a monopoly of power. Now that much of society has access to information and are information workers, he argues that power and society are more democratized with “more openness and less secrecy.” Is this true that our society and governing powers no longer have great power through information gathering? How does his argument hold when considering government information gathering through efforts such as the Patriot Act? How to events like Wikileaks and Edward Snowden releasing classified information play into this?
3. Cleveland writes that in regular market exchanges, there is a physical object passing from one to the other. How is information as a resource different than service as a resource?