I found a sticky note in an old research folder that describes levels of content as:
- Information
- Knowledge
- Wisdom
I like this idea because it hints at the truth that just because you work with words, this does not mean that everything you write is one level of quality. You might be writing gibberish. You might be ranting and raving. But it takes a disciplined mind to gather and arrange information in a way that makes that information helpful to others. It takes time and understanding for that information to become knowledge, which is the beginning of expertise. And wisdom only comes to those who bring humanity into the content equation.
You can have all the information in the world and still be ineffective. You can even have knowledge and not be genuinely helpful to others. But once you have wisdom, this is where what you know and how you use it becomes win-win-win. And at that point, you have become wise indeed.
