To understand the nature of information. the best analogies are not oil or electricity. Food and currency are…

When I first heard ‘data is the new oil’ many years ago, it somehow didn’t sit well for me. I liked it because it made the point that it was very valuable, and usable broadly. But I think I didn’t like thinking of information as a commodity or a homogenous lump of stuff. [I know data and information aren’t quite the same – please let that slide.] We have all been thinking a lot about information recently. So much so that it felt really weird when I read in James Gleick’s “The Information” that it is not until recently that the word ‘information’ conjured up the idea of an asset. Gleick reports that historically it was more used to refer to the act of informing. I have also been deeply embedded in the world of mis-, dis- and mal-information recently. All of this led me to think about two more useful analogies for information. 1. Information as food. This is great because it preserves the idea that it is an important fuel for the world. But not all food is the same. Some food is rotten. (Misinformation.) Some food has been poisoned. (Disinformation.) Too much food isn’t good for you - you get overstuffed and less agile. There is value in reducing food intake. (Dieting = deleting.) Some diets work better for some people. (Your information strategy must align with your business strategy.) 2. Information as currency. Currency has a number of functions – two big ones are ‘store of value’ and ‘unit of transaction’. When two currencies exist simultaneously in a country, the higher quality one is used to store value, and the weaker currency is used more for transactions, hence the weaker currency becomes more liquid, and wins. Similarly, academic studies show people prefer mis- and dis-information to high quality, accurate information. Mis/disinformation flows more freely, is more titillating, gets more attention, more hits, because it is not bound by the nuanced nature of the truth. All analogies and metaphors are useful, but also have limits. When you are thinking about information and related topics in your company and your life, why not take these two analogies for a test drive? See how you like them. #unthink #unask #unlearn #data #information #disinformation #misinformation