Information Gathering

Man, the food-gatherer, reappears incongruously as an information-gatherer

-- Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian Philosopher. He predicted the World Wide Web much before it came into existence. He is also credited with having coined the term “Global Village.”

Most of us would have done at least one of the following:

1. Downloaded a data, story, article, etc., and forget about it
2. Sought Powerpoint slide from the speaker after the session, but never revisited the slides
3. Seek to be in a copy of emails for reference, but not review it diligently
4. Seek to get more data without even looking at what we have
5. Do not generate perspectives on the data we already have access to.
6. Have a book or magazine but not read them

The internet and smartphones have enabled us to these much quickly and also at no or minimal cost.

We have probably graduated to being an “electronic gatherer.”

Should we not consider gaining “knowledge” from what we have before searching for more data? Data by itself cannot create knowledge. We need a Kaleidoscope where we can put these data and see different shapes by rotating the Kaleidoscope.

We all have created the Kaleidoscope in our childhood and played with it to see forms and shapes with broken glass bangles inside it. Can we not recreate it and get a perspective that may change the way we look at our data?