Philip here.  Apparently there’s a big issue involving the preference of Vampires versus Werewolves in movies (and the minds of teenagers) these days.  This feud is nothing new.  I’m familiar with similar trends from yesteryear (Star Trek versus Star Wars, Hot dogs versus Hamburgers, McDonalds versus Burger King, Dungeons & Dragons versus…well, everybody).

But there’s a one that’s been going on lot longer than all of these.

Data versus Information.  We often confuse one for the other (werewolves and vampires both have fangs, do wacky stuff in the night, and have *tons* of angst!).  But we run into trouble when we confuse them (I dare you to drive a stake into the heart of a werewolf…boy, will you be embarrassed!)

Data is just values that describe stuff.  It doesn’t become information until it’s actually useful.

Example…phone books (yeah, remember those?).  They include tons and tons of data…names, numbers, addresses.  But when you use one, you retrieve the information that you’re looking for.

Information is what comes out of using the data.

Data:  Phone book.

Information:  Name and phone # of nearby plumber that can fix the toilet.

Notice that there’s a process that’s undertaken that retrieves information from the data?

The challenge is when we look at the data and say “Wow, we’ve got all this data.  We’re really smart, and know what’s going on.”  If we never do anything with the data, it’s static.  Dormant.  Useless.

So, let’s say you’ve got a list of your Customers.  Cool.  That’s data.  And it includes when their last purchase was, what they bought, etc.  Yup, data again.

Now, let’s say “give me a list of customers who have not purchased from us, or whose total sales volume have gone down more than 50% in the past 6 months.  Now you’ve got a list that is useful…it tells you something!  That’s data, baby!

So here’s the problem.  It’s a lot easier to accumulate data.  And obviously, it’s a critical function, because you can’t have information without data.  And there are a lot of folks out there who think that a ton of data is useful.

And it can be.  But there has to be a process applied to it to get the information out of the data, that’s specific to a need (or a question).

So look at your organizations’ data.  And ask a critical question of your data.  How tough is it to get information out?  The tougher it is, the less valuable your data is.

This is something Sky Technology can help your company resolve.  Interesting proposition – coming from a ‘computer repair company’!  J I laugh because we have been called worse!