It started in a innocent enough way when, in a discussion about knowledge sharing and generation on the KM4Dev listserve, somebody cited the DIKW model as a way of describing how knowledge is generated in organisations. This provoked Dave Snowden into some sharp but illuminating posts (by the way, if you ever get bored and feel like doing some Dave-baiting, get yourself a false identity, sign up to one of the listserves he frequents, and make an enthusiastic post about DIKW, wisdom management, Ayn Rand or KM certification - or any combination thereof): “I That most hallowed of mental models and glib explanations, the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy has taken a bit of a beating this week.