Quote of the Day - 03/01/2012

The most promising words every written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita - unknown territory. - Daniel J. Boorstin in The Discoverers

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The unknown. It is appealing and a little scary at the same time. There are so many areas ‘on the map of human knowledge’ that are still unknown. New bacteria...planets and stars…how the complex chemistry of the human body actually works. As a society, we still have a lot to discover.

On a more individual level - there is our own personal ‘unknown territory.’ Focusing on it requires us to retain the curiosity of our younger selves for our whole life; it is the drive that keeps us learning new things. What ‘unknown territory’ are you exploring today?

Quote of the Day - 1/31/2012

Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us – Plotinus, 205-270 CE

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Data

Information

Knowledge

Wisdom

No matter where we are along the continuum - action is required to translate our understanding into reality. Simply knowing is not enough. Today - think about how you can more fully leverage what you know to hone what you are doing.

Note: This is a widely used quote. I ran across it in a book by Philip Armour (The Laws of Software Process: A New Model for the Production and Management of Software) which proposed that software development should be viewed and managed as a knowledge acquisition activity. The author provides a thought provoking perspective on the history and future of the way we capture then transfer knowledge.