At this stage the information flow is analogue, relative to whatever information we are concerned with. Despite emphasis upon 'analogue' and 'digital devices', 'data gathering', 'CPUs', 'flowcharts', 'resource management', and other 'infospeak' little is understood about data and information . Data is usually regarded as the most fundamental form of information. Usually the term 'data' suggests something raw and unrefined. Something that must be polished into a finished product.
Researchers actually talk of 'cleaning' their data.
Data in machine readable form may be unintelligible to people, for example, barcodes and sensor readings. Despite this ' data ' and ' information ' are often used synonymously. For example, a collection of data items commonly called a 'data set' may in fact include information. Executives 'mine' for data in their corporate databases. What they seek is information, hidden in vast quantities of data.