Wednesday 6 March 2013

What is the difference between Knowledge and Information?

Knowledge consists of facts, truths, and beliefs, perspectives and concepts, judgments and expectations, methodologies and know-how. Knowledge is accumulated and integrated and held over time to handle specific situations and challenges.

Information consists of facts and data organized to describe a particular situation or condition. We use knowledge to determine what a specific situation means. Knowledge is applied to interpret information about the situation and to decide how to handle it.

Difference between Information & Knowledge


To illustrate the difference between information and knowledge, let us take an example. A customer contacts his broker to conduct a transaction and the distinctions between information and knowledge for this interchange are:

Customer: "I have an account with you, its number is 76190. What is the balance in my account?" (This is INFORMATION)

The customer-care executive possesses KNOWLEDGE on how to operate her worksation, how to talk to customer, how to verify that caller is authorized person, how to interpret customer request, how to interpret account data, and how to explain it to customer. That knowledge may be considered "How-to" knowledge. In addition, the executive possesses (or can obtain from others or from support systems) other kinds of knowledge such as concepts about customers, customer accounts, and brokerage in general. The exective obtains from her system INFORMATION such as: Account holder's name, needed password, type of account, account restrictions, account balances.

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