... snip, snip ... Some major newspapers such as The New York Times use it either in the singular or plural.
In the New York Times the phrases “the survey data are still being analyzed” and “the first year for which data is available” have appeared within one day.[10]
In scientific writing data is often treated as a plural, as in These data do not support the conclusions, but it is also used as a singular mass entity like information.
British usage now widely accepts treating data as singular in standard English,[11] including everyday newspaper usage[12] at least in non-scientific use.[13]
UK scientific publishing still prefers treating it as a plural.[14]
Some UK university style guides recommend using data for both singular and plural use[15] and some recommend treating it only as a singular in connection with computers
... snip, snip ...
Data
The terms data, information and knowledge are frequently used for overlapping concepts.
The main difference is in the level of abstraction being considered.
Data is the lowest level of abstraction, information is the next level, and finally, knowledge is the highest level among all three.[17] Data on its own carries no meaning.
For data to become information, it must be interpreted and take on a meaning.
For example, the height of Mt. Everest is generally considered as “data", a book on Mt. Everest geological characteristics may be considered as “information", and a report containing practical information on the best way to reach Mt. Everest’s peak may be considered as “knowledge".
Information as a concept bears a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings.
Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation.
Beynon-Davies uses the concept of a sign to distinguish between data and information; data are symbols while information occurs when symbols are used to refer to something.[18]
It is people and computers who collect data and impose patterns on it.
These patterns are seen as information which can be used to enhance knowledge.
These patterns can be interpreted as truth, and are authorized as aesthetic and ethical criteria.
Events that leave behind perceivable physical or virtual remains can be traced back through data.
Marks are no longer considered data once the link between the mark and observation is broken
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Data
But data is not information.
Information is data endowed with relevance and purpose.
A company must decide what information it needs to operate its affairs, otherwise it will drown in data.
To organize in this way requires a new structure.
Although it is perhaps too early to draw an organization chart of the information-based organization, we can set out some broad considerations. — Managing for the Future
A “database,” no matter how copious, is not information.
It is information’s ore.
For raw material to become information, it must be organized for a task, directed toward specific performance, applied to a decision.
Raw material cannot do that itself.
Nor can information specialists.
They can cajole their customers, the data users.
They can advise, demonstrate, teach.
But they can no more manage data for users than a personnel department can take over the management of the people who work with an executive. — Managing In A Time Of Great Change
Find “information” in Books by Peter Drucker.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
Managing in the Next Society
From Computer Literacy to Information Literacy
Connections
Attention
Dense reading and Dense listening
The Manager and the Moron
Post-Capitalist Society
Information challenges
Try a page search for “information” and then “intelligence” in The Daily Drucker
The Information-Based Organization
From Computer Literacy to Information Literacy
Manage by Walking Around—Outside!
Six Frames For Thinking about Information
Drucker on learning to see (Peter’s Principles)
From Analysis to Perception
Back of the Napkin
Water Logic
Changing Social and Economic Picture
The transformation
Knowledge: Its economics and productivity
Knowledge system view
TLN conceptual resource file listing — topics and books
Organization evolution
Career evolution
Post-Capitalist Society deals with the environment in which human beings live and work and learn.
It does not deal with the person.
But in the knowledge society into which — we are moving, individuals are central.
Knowledge is not impersonal, like money.
Knowledge does not reside in a book, a databank, a software program; they contain only information.
Knowledge is always embodied in a person; carried by a person; created, augmented, or improved by a person; applied by a person; taught and passed on by a person; used or misused by a person.
The shift to the knowledge society therefore puts the person in the center.
In so doing it raises new challenges, new issues, new and quite unprecedented questions about the knowledge society’s representative, the educated person.
See knowledge
