The Very, Very Inspiring “DIKW” Hierarchy

D I K W hierarchy

Image credit: Sean Wood

I want to discuss a framework that’s new to me, but not that new: It’s called the Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom Hierarchy, or the “DIKW Pyramid.”

I was turned on to it very recently, but it’s been around since at least 1982. It, or variants of it, have been used in fields as diverse as Information Science, Engineering, and Geography.

Different academics in different fields of study seem to disagree about how useful or smart the framework is, but I’ve been thinking about DIKW in terms of Web Analytics and Optimization (natch). And, it’s working just fine for me! 🙂

This framework helps explain the kinds of work I’ve been focused on for the last 10 years or so in Digital Marketing. Kindly allow me to explain…

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