A Revised Knowledge Pyramid

Abstract

The knowledge pyramid has been used for several years to illustrate the hierarchical relationships between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. This paper posits that the knowledge pyramid is too basic and fails to represent reality and presents a revised knowledge-KM pyramid. One key difference is that the revised knowledge-KM pyramid includes knowledge management as an extraction of reality with a focus on organizational learning. The model also posits that newer initiatives such as business and/or customer intelligence are the result of confusion in understanding the traditional knowledge pyramid that is resolved in the revised knowledge-KM pyramid.