by Kris Kennedy

Created on: November 24, 2009   Last Updated: November 27, 2009

Good vs. Bad Information

The information age has arrived. Everyday individuals, business, nonprofits and government bodies generate and disburse or even just placed on shelf vast amounts of information. The rule of whether the information is good is that it is truthful and helpful and causes positive action.and that it has personal understanding and relevance. These five characteristics can flux with the information and the individual so good information lacks a concrete nature.

Purpose of Information generation

Government is one of the main generators of information that may not produce any useable information. There are many government agencies, commissions and elective bodies that generate information as the means to justify there existence. Without the ability to generate and dispense the information these agencies and commissions might not actually exist.

One Government body spends thousands of dollars every few years to examine the needs of the mentally ill in the community. The same information disclosed in the previous report and the current joins the past reports on the shelf or in the file cabinet. The information may have been truthful but it did not generate action.

A lot of information becomes routine. A sales representative was ignoring a certain sales report that he did not believe anyone was reading anyway because the information never surfaced again. When forced to do report he placed a certificate for a dinner in the middle report and stated it belonged to the first person who found it. No one redeemed the certificate. Failure of redemption confirmed his point of view.

Truth of Information

Two sides of an argument give and mix truthful and false information to prompt action. It causes a challenge to sort out all the truthful information that finds the most logical solution in the middle.

Information that prompts action may not be good information because it was not truthful in the first place. A propaganda surface to cause action, but the information is not truthful. If prior to the action information is disclosed as false, the action might not have occurred. Elections frequently use this skill to dispense information with small amount of truthful information mixed with a lot of false information so the electorate votes according to desired action. Keep an open and skeptical mind so you can determine good and bad information.

Open mind

Examine the source of the information, the realistic appraisal of the reliability information and determine what to do with the information. Do not act on the information until you yourself know it will produce the results you view as most promising. Good and Bad information by you is information that you can use. If it lacks relevance to you, it does not matter whether or not the information is good or bad.

Information is a commodity generated, dispersed and used. Sorting through the information determines whether it is good or bad.

Learn more about this author, Kris Kennedy.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.