Who was Platon?
Plato (Greek name: Platon) (427 – 347 BC) was one of the greatest Greek philosophers.
Plato advocated that a society’s progress was conditioned by an increased insight of the citizens. He actually believed insight to be a precondition to participation in a democracy. If this philosophy is to be applied to today’s businesses, this means that business insight is a precondition to rational decisions in all levels of the organization.
In one of his books Plato describes a cave in which a group of people have been imprisoned with their backs to the entrance of the cave since birth. At the entrance of the cave is a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners, people parade across throwing shadows on the far wall of the cave – shadows which the prisoners can see. These shadows form the real world of the prisoners.
The point is that some people live in a shadow world believing that the shadows are the real world. Therefore, these people act irrationally. Even though it is difficult to free oneself from the bonds that keep one a prisoner, it is possible to move out of the cave into the light and the real world.
We take the liberty of drawing a parallel with Information Management. With the right information, knowledge and access to data, Information Management will try to bring business decision makers into the light – enabling them to base their decisions on matters which are more than mere ‘shadows of the real world’.
In one of his books Plato describes a cave in which a group of people have been imprisoned with their backs to the entrance of the cave since birth. At the entrance of the cave is a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners, people parade across throwing shadows on the far wall of the cave – shadows which the prisoners can see. These shadows form the real world of the prisoners.
The point is that some people live in a shadow world believing that the shadows are the real world. Therefore, these people act irrationally. Even though it is difficult to free oneself from the bonds that keep one a prisoner, it is possible to move out of the cave into the light and the real world.
We take the liberty of drawing a parallel with Information Management. With the right information, knowledge and access to data, Information Management will try to bring business decision makers into the light – enabling them to base their decisions on matters which are more than mere ‘shadows of the real world’.