Business Writing & Communication, Human Resources - Intellectual, Capital & Knowledge Management, Organizational Behavior - General & Miscellaneous, Knowledge Management, Management - General & Miscellaneous

Infosense

Name: Infosense
Author: Keith Devlin
ISBN: 9780716734840

by Keith Devlin

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Overview

Information has been called everything from the new gold standard to the fundamental building block of the universe. No matter where we live or what we do for a living, it is ever present in our lives, and many of us are barraged with it daily. Yet few of us know how to distinguish information from mere data, worthwhile communication, or real knowledge—in short, few of us know how to make sense of it.

In InfoSense, noted mathematician Keith Devlin shows how to make sense of the constant flow of information that swirls past us daily. What is crucial, Devlin points out, is to understand the differences between data, information, and knowledge. By exploring the nature of each, and describing what distinguishes them from one another, he shows how businesses and individuals alike can benefit from better information management. Using clear, non-technical language, simple diagrams, and many real-life examples, Devlin explains

• Why people can beat computers
• How culture influences work
• The hidden rules of conversation
• How to conduct a successful meeting

As information becomes the single most valuable asset in many industries, the key to success lies in our ability to manage that information. With InfoSense, Keith Devlin offers an easy and accessible way to learn not only how to manage it but also how to use it to live and work successfully in the Knowledge Age.

About the Author, Keith Devlin

Keith Devlin is Dean of the School of Science at Saint Mary's College of California and Senior Researcher at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is the author of a number of books, including The Language of Mathematics; Life by the Numbers; Goodbye, Descartes; Logic and Information; and Mathematics: The Science of Patterns.

Biography

Odds are, John Grisham doesn’t get interview questions like this: "If you could meet any mathematician, who would it be?"

But author Keith Devlin does, this time from Discover magazine as part of a January 2001 article coinciding with the publication of his book The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip. His answer may go a long way toward explaining why he has managed to make the world of numbers not only understandable but also enjoyable to a segment of the population that can’t balance a checkbook without a net -- or backup from MIT.

“Isaac Newton,” Devlin told the inquiring minds at Discover. “He was a quarrelsome, egotistical person, but he also invented calculus. He did it, by the way, when he was a student at Cambridge. The Great Plague was going on, so the university was closed, and young Newton found himself without studies to do. Most 20-year-olds would think, ‘Whoopee! I’ll just have a good time.’ Newton went home and invented calculus.”

It is this same kind of passion for mathematics that has enabled Devlin, now the executive director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University, to persuade readers that arithmetic, geometry and calculus can be a bracing addition to the stack on the bedside table. In The Math Gene, he explains the “innate sense of number” that lives inside the human mind and how the development of mathematical thinking is closely bound to the development of language. In Goodbye, Descartes: The End of Logic and the Search for a New Cosmology of the Mind, he argues against the possibility of artificial intelligence, saying that computers are simply logic machines that cannot replicate the rational thought and communication that are part of human smarts. In his newest book, The Millennium Problems: The Seven Greatest Unsolved Mathematical Puzzles of Our Time, he explains a historic competition announced by a Cambridge, Massachusetts foundation in 2000: Anyone who could solve any one of seven of the most perplexing math problems of the current age would win $1 million.

In a 1999 review, the Economist noted that “Devlin succeeds both in giving us a glimpse of the internal beauty of the subject and in demonstrating its usefulness in the external world. The Language of Mathematics is lucidly written and richly illustrated, and remains accessible and enthusiastic throughout.”

On NPR’s Weekend Edition, where he has become a regular guest, Devlin is referred to simply as “The Math Guy,” or as host Scott Simon once put it “our white knight of the world of mathematics.”

And, going back to that provocative subtitle in The Math Gene, just how is math like gossip? “Mathematicians deal with a collection of objects -- numbers, triangles, groups, fields -- and ask questions like: ‘What is the relationship between Objects X and Y?. If X does this to Y, what will Y do back to X?’” he told Discover. “It's got plot, it's got characters, it's got relationships between them, and it's got life and emotion and passion and love and hate, a bit of everything you can find in a soap opera. On the other hand, a soap opera isn't going to get you to the moon and back. Mathematics can.”

Just don’t forget to carry the 1.

Good To Know

Devlin was the coauthor of the television special A Mathematical Mystery Tour, broadcast as part of the Nova series in 1984.

He once offered as proof of the human brain’s intuitive math skills the ability to judge speed and distance while driving and the ability to add up bowling scores.

Devlin once managed to explain the mathematical difference between a knot and a tangle to National Public Radio’s listeners.

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Editorials

Cindy Patuszynski

The book is targeted for the professional businessperson and is intended to provide a way for the average person to make sense out of the flow of daily information. The points are well explained via appropriate examples,a nd the short chapters and good summaries at the end of each chapter make this book easy to understand.
— ForeWord October 1999

Paul Bennett

He posits that all information transfer is limited by the context in which it occurs. The key, says Devlin, is not information, but knowledge, which he defines as information put into practice.
— Wired

Technology Review

Devlin and his colleagues have mathematically validated a number of interesting strategies for boosting productivity and innovation within a group. Readers immersing themselves in InfoSense will find there is far more to information than meets the I.