Warm Data

= “A relational understanding that reflects how the data is lived, remembered, and connected across multiple systems.” [1]

Contextual Example

CL:

Example: The early morning chill of 10°C in London in June reminded a local grandmother of how the climate has shifted over her lifetime. Her granddaughter, visiting from Nigeria, found it unexpectedly cold and wrapped herself in two sweaters. The sudden drop in temperature also affected a local bee population, delaying pollination patterns and disrupting a nearby community garden’s flowering cycle.

This is not just temperature. It is experience, ecology, memory, and adaptation. Warm data reveals how information is entangled in the lives and systems it touches.

(https://conversational-leadership.net/warm-data/)

Description

1. International Bateson Institute:

"“Warm Data” is information about the interrelationships that integrate elements of a complex system. It has found the qualitative dynamics and offers another dimension of understanding to what is learned through quantitative data, (cold data). Warm Data will provide leverage in our analysis of other streams of information. The implications for the uses of Warm Data are staggering, and may offer a whole new dimension to the tools of information science we have to work with at present.

In order to interface with any a complex system without disrupting the circuitry of the interdependencies that give it its integrity we must look at the spread of relationships that make the system robust. Using only analysis of statistical data will offer conclusions that can point to actions that are out of sync with the complexity of the situation. Information without interrelationality is likely to lead us toward actions that are misinformed, thereby creating further destructive patterns." (http://www.internationalbatesoninstitute.org/warm-data/)

2. Nora Bateson:

"Recognizing that complex problems are not susceptible to predetermined solutions, the International Bateson Institute has taken up the task of generating a category of information specifically dedicated to description of contextual relational interaction, calling it “Warm Data”. The units of knowledge by which reasoning and calculations are made namely, data, information, and facts, suggest processes of research into which we place our hopes for better understanding of the world we inhabit. But the subject being perceived must dictate the necessity of understanding in different ways, therefore producing different kinds of information. Warm data is the product of a form of study specifically concentrated on (trans)contextual understanding of complex systems. Utilizing information obtained through a subject’s removal from context and frozen in time can create error when working with complex (living)systems."

(https://hackernoon.com/warm-data-9f0fcd2a828c)

Discussion

Daniel Christian Wahl:

“Nora Bateson’s work on ‘warm data’ offers an important contribution to the emerging science of qualities. She warns that “Utilizing information obtained through a subject’s removal from context and frozen in time can create error when working with complex (living) systems. Warm data presents another order of exploration in the process of discerning vital contextual interrelationships […]”, and defines warm data as “transcontextual information about the interrelationships that integrate a complex system.” Paying attention to this ‘warm’ qualitative data offers “another order of exploration in the process of discerning vital contextual interrelationships” (Bateson, 2017).

Nora Bateson suggests:

- “To address our socio-economic and ecological crisis now requires a level of contextual comprehension, wiggly though it may be to grok the inconsistencies and paradoxes of interrelational process. Far from solving these dilemmas or resolving the conflicting patterns, warm data utilizes these characteristics as its most important resources of inquiry.” — Nora Bateson, 2017

Warm data describes the interactions, relationships and information flow in complex adaptive system from which health and wellbeing can emerge as positive systemic properties. Brian’s call for a science of qualities was motivated by the need for such an approach to inform appropriate participation in the ongoing process of life as a planetary process. He understood that a precondition of this process to continue was to pay closer attention to how our human agency in these nested systems either contributes to regenerative or degenerative patterns.

The most adequate qualitative indicator for judging whether we are participating appropriately is the emergence of health, resilience, adaptive capacity and well-being at the different scales of the living holarchy of nested complexity that supports life as a planetary process.

There is no destination sustainability or destination regenerative cultures — as some kind of end point we arrive at to live happily ever after — rather, the path towards human, community, ecosystems and planetary health and wellbeing is a continuous process of exploration, transformation and dilemma navigation.”

(https://designforsustainability.medium.com/avoiding-extinction-participation-in-the-nested-complexity-of-life-e0d44a63a675)

Alternative Terms for Warm Data

CL:

“Warm data” is a widely accepted term popularized by Nora Bateson. It’s a compelling phrase that has helped open up meaningful conversations about how we understand meaning within living systems.

That said, here are three alternative, more descriptive terms that capture key aspects of warm data and may suit different contexts: Context-rich information: Data that only makes sense when considering its surroundings, background, and circumstances. It draws attention to the layered nature of meaning in real-life situations.

Contextual information: A more familiar term highlighting the importance of setting and situation, reminding us that data detached from its context is often misleading or incomplete.

Relational information: Emphasizes connections. Meaning emerges not from isolated elements but from the relationships between people, ideas, or parts of a system.

These alternatives don’t replace “warm data,” but they can help clarify what it means, especially if encountering the idea for the first time.”

(https://conversational-leadership.net/warm-data/)