Data > Information > Knowledge > Insight > Ah-Ha!!
Now in case you blinked and missed it, we’ve zoomed passed the Information Age (digital revolution) into what is now referred to as the Knowledge Age (or Knowledge Economy). But most of us are still shovelling out information in the lazy hope that some of it might stick …
From Socratic Dialogue to Communication Brief
This form of inquiry is based on asking questions to activate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas. The basic form is a series of questions intended to discover the reality, truth and/or perceptions of a subject. It’s exploratory in approach. You not only nail general characteristics but also enable the ‘information gatekeeper’ to discover their own deeper understanding of the subject. Socrates was a master devil’s advocate (and sentenced to death for it in the end) which makes his method inherently adversarial — there is persistence, probing and (sometimes) courage in the act of digging deeper rather than settling for answers at face value. So you’ve got to project a genuine desire to want to know for the benefit of the one being questioned; this usually comes in the form of listening. It helps to be more like a psychotherapist than an investigative journalist.