How big is a commander´s head?-translating data into decisions

The paper examines the impact of information technology on senior managers, taking the military commander as an illustrative example. The relationship between data and information is explored, as is the difficulty of passing information across system interfaces. The human-computer interface involves the translation between data and information, and contextual understanding and human psychology are just as important as technology in this translation. Methods of helping the commander to deal with the data explosion are discussed and some potentially fruitful areas for future research by a new generation of information technologists are suggested