Knowledge Architecture

I’m attending a workshop this Friday 27th June 2008 based around the idea of Knowledge Architecture which will help to inform a new role I’m undertaking within the JISC.  As part of the workshop particpants have been asked to think through their own definitions of: architecture; information; and knowledge.  So I thought I’d share my ideas.

• Architecture. What, where?  Architecture for me establishes a means by which someone understands (not knows) what they should be looking for and where it can be found.  In terms of knowledge it may be understanding the organisation structure whereas with information it could be the management of key records i.e. the current up-to-date strategy.
• Information. From my education I’ve always been brought up with the idea that information is formed through the synthesis of data.  Data is useless, information is useful.  I’m gonna stick with that simple definition for the purposes of this workshop.
• Knowledge. A book I’m currently reading denotes a quote from Confucius (Kong Qui), ‘I hear, I know. I see, I remember. I do, I understand’ which I believe was during a time when Confucius was a student.  Looking at the quote we see that knowledge is gained from listening to the teacher and therefore has a strong relationship to experience and education.

In terms of the three identifiable attributes above, I feel that they in essence depict what an organisation is.  An organisation must have architecture to help people understand where they should be looking for the information and knowledge they require from it.  A key point to raise is that this is important both internally and externally to the organisation.