Big Data Maslow’s Pyramid
Created by Amy Hodler (Hitachi Data Systems) and Anjana Bala (Stanford University):
- Data are discrete symbols that represent facts. You might think of them as recordings or statistics.
- There is no meaning or significance beyond the data’s existence.
- Data may be clean or noisy; structured or unstructured; relevant or irrelevant.
- Information is data that has been processed to be useful. I like to think of it as adding the first bit of context to data relating to “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when”.
- Information captures data at a single point in time and from a particular context; it can be wrong.
- Knowledge is the mental application of data and information. Most consider this as addressing questions around “how”.
- Some consider knowledge a deterministic process, which is to say the appropriation of information with the intent of use.
- Wisdom is the evaluation and internalization of knowledge. It applies insight and understanding to answer “why” and “should” questions.