Along came Awareness...

What about that old saying, "You don't know what you don't know"  How do you know that you don't have knowledge? How can you gather information to build the knowledge that you may not even be aware of in the first place?

So along comes awareness — 

• Awareness is knowing that something (such as a situation, condition, or problem) exists

The magic word for me in the definition of awareness is the word "exists". It is the understanding that something exists that leads to gathering the information that knowledge can be developed from.  

Awareness, knowledge and information... the triad is complete and the world is now a better place. 

With "awareness" thrown into the semantical mix I feel a little obliged to discuss it somewhat (I know... it's just getting better isn't it?) 

When looking at these three words I think it's fair to say that the importance of information, although the building blocks of knowledge, has been minimized with the advent of the Internet and that the focus really lies with knowledge and awareness. 

But what's more important to have? 

The ideal answer is to say both, but in the real world it is of course, "It depends". 

Like almost everything, it depends on context — awareness may be more important in one situation and knowledge in another, and remember knowledge can be acquired from awareness given enough time. In a practical sense you want knowledge when you need to "do something" and awareness when you want to "determine what to do". Awareness leads to better understanding of a situation, as well as solution and opportunity development whereas Knowledge leads to better execution of plans and ideas. 

Ultimately knowledge is a specialized form of awareness and in a simplistic sense everything starts with being Aware. 

It is here where I smile to myself because the next obvious question is, "Where does awareness come from?" Oh that's easy! Curiosity**... and that leads to everything. Curiosity leads to awareness which leads to knowledge. The more of one, leads to the more of another***. 

So be curious. Be it with yourself or within your teams; it leads to broader awareness and ultimately knowledge. Search out the curious, particularly if you need to look at your situation and the world differently. 

I bet you didn't see that coming.

iamgpe

* the original blog A Samurai and his Smartphone can be found in the blog archives at www.gpestratagem.com 

** I will be very surprised if you could have ever guessed we would end up at curiosity.

*** I have no data to support the ratios of "curiosity to awareness to knowledge" or aspects of diminishing returns, but on a day to day basis it's safe to say if you are curious about something and have a smart phone you can almost instantaneously have a working understanding and knowledge.