Cleveland's 7 Characteristics of Information

There are seven characteristics of information; human, expandable, substitutable, compressible, diffusive, shareable, and transportable. In this blog I am going to help you better understand what these characteristics are. Starting off is human. The easiest way to remember this characteristic is that it is mental. Humans are not the only species that communicate or interact to spread information, animals do so as well to either warn that danger is close or where food sources are. The second characteristic is expandable. Information is expandable due to the fact that it keeps growing. Every year more and more information is added to either the Internet or in books. The third characteristic is substitutable. Information is substitutable because it can replace capital, labor, and even land. Robots have now taken over the jobs that once were only capable of a human. Compressible is another characteristic. If information was not compressed then it would be impossible to store it. The fifth characteristic is diffusive. There is so much information that it is hard to hold onto it. For example, Illinois Governor Blagojevich sold Obama's senate seat. The sixth characteristic is shareable. Information can be shareable numerous ways, but the most common one that people think of is communication between others. Transportable is the last characteristic. Information is easily portable. An easy way to transport information is by carrying a laptop, book, and even the mind. We learn new information every day not just by reading or seeing it on a computer, but by other people telling us information that we didn’t know.