I’ll put the concept of communication into perspective and discuss the framework and related concepts like information, exformation, incitation and excitation.

Information theory is a confusing concept. In science it is developed in the telecommunication industry and only concerned with the cost of transmitting information, totally excluding the meaning of what is transmitted.

A core characteristic of communication is that it is transmission of information in a reduced state. A popular example of this is the famous exchange between Victor Hugo and his publisher after the publication of Les Miserables in 1861. After completing the Les Miserables Hugo left Paris for vacation. Being curious about the reception of his book he sent a letter to his publisher only writing “?”. The publisher answered with “!”. And indeed the Les Miserables was a success. Despite the very limited information exchanged they both understood each other perfectly.

What is information?

The common understanding of information is that it is an expression for manipulation and organization of data in a way that adds value to the receiver. It is common to talk about Data – Information – Knowledge – Wisdom (DIKW). In the DIKW chain data is the basic level, symbols, uninterpreted and “as is.” When manipulated, organized and put in a context data becomes information, when you know how to use the information you have knowledge and finally when you know when to use knowledge you have wisdom.

In this explanation data does not have meaning and information is subjective, the reciever of data decides how to manipulate, how to organize and in which context to put the data. Information can be transfered in various forms (newspaper, internet, email, picture, etc). Knowledge only exists in the heads of people, it is highly personal and is harder to transfer since it is concerned with how to use information and the possibilities are endless. A document used for knowledge transfer may cover the most plausible ways of how to use the information but hardly all, for this reason, amongst others, knowledge management is a tricky discipline. In wisdom you add morals and ethics to guide when to use knowledge.

Shannon‘s information theory

Information theory (Shannon and all variation on his theory) was developed to find the limits for compression and communication of data, thus a majority of the research in this field is done by telco industry. Information theory defines information differently than the . Information has similar characteristics as data in the DIKW-chain. The more information, meaning the harder a message is to express differently than itself, the more information is contained in the message. If the message can be expressed shorter than it self it contains less information.

Message 1: XCFEDTFST
Message 2: XCFXCFXCF

Which of the two messages above contain the most information?
Can the messages be expressed shorter than themselves?

Message 1 contains more information as it can not be expressed shorter than itself whereas message 2 can be expressed as 3(XCF), lets call that Expression 2. If we call message 1 and message 2 micro-states we call expression 1 and expression 2 macro-states. In 1 the micro-state equals the macro-state. In 2 the macro-state 3(XCF) represents the micro-state XCFXCFXCF.

Let’s take another example.
Which are the possible micro-states of the macro-state 6 ? Well, you have quite a few: 1*6; 1.5*4; 2*3; 1+5; 2+4; 3+3; 12/2; 666/111; √36; etc……. and that’s just the beginning.
Which are the possible micro-states of the macro-state 1 ? Let’s cover millions of possible micro-states in two expressions: n/n for n greater than zero; n-(n-1). You do the rest!

It has been argued that intelligence is about the ability to quickly see the connections between micro-states and it’s macro-state and vice versa.

What is more interesting, much information or little information?
Much information is or is approaching chaos.

Communication tree

The communication tree is an illustration to explain the communication process between humans (i.e. we are now going back to information in the context of the DIKW-chain).

We have already talked about information but to fully understand that we need to introduce exformation.

Exformation is produced when information is created. It is all the things that are not communicated. Nevertheless, often expected to be understood by the receiver. This presupposes that the sender and the reciever have a somewhat common understandning of the framework of communication.

Before the sender sends the message there is a process of removing unneccesary information. This process is called incitation. There is an unconscious incitation in which the sender’s values, ethics and mood are reflected. Also a conscious incitation based experience from previous conversations about the topic, previous conversation with the receiver, the current situation and the reason for sendning the message.

Upon recieving the message the reciever has to put the message in a context so that the message is (mis-)understood. This process is called excitation and is the process of adding information based on individual values, experiences, motivation, the situation and the reciever’s perception of the sender.

Summary

I hope that my incitation process in writing this article has (consiously and unconsiously) lead me to put this message in a way that your excitation process puts it in the context it was

intended. Consider the exformation process of the reciever in the consious part of your incitation process.

Finally, based on the above about DIKW-chain, information theory, and the communication tree, which of the following three pictures contain the most information?

S.M.A.R.T is an acronym widely used in all forms of people management with a couple of different read outs, a few examples are:

• Specific, Significant, Simple
• Measurable, Meaningful, Manageable
• Achievable, Attainable, Actionable
• Realistic
• Timebound, Timely, Trackable

I prefer to read it as Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Timebound.

Follow the S.M.A.R.T. concept and both you (tracking progress against the goal) and the person delivering on the goal will be much happier along the way and in the end.

• Specific: Well defined so it clear to all what should be achieved.
• Measurable: Define how you’re going to measure if the objective is met.
• Agreed: Agree with the person who is going to deliver on the goal and agree who he/she is going to report progress to.
• Realistic: Define the scope and resources so that it’s realistic to achieve the goal. You may need to adjust either the scope or the resources to make the goal realistic. Also agree how you prioritize scope and resources so that should you have challenges along the way you know where to first look to adjust, most commonly: Do you reduce the scope of the deliverable or do you add resources to complete in time?.
• Timebound: Define the deadline and if it’s goal to be achieved over longer time also some milestones for review of progress.

Practically then? I use S.M.A.R.T. as a mental check list. I have tried to use it as table but find it cumbersome and that I often got stuck trying to fill in the table correctly rather than setting the right goals. I have S.M.A.R.T. in mind in every discussion around setting goals, delegation and also accepting goals, projects and activities and carefully check for the five components of S.M.A.R.T. making sure to raise any unclarities before moving on.

Easy and it will spare you alot of headache.