Human societies have always hoarded material assets across generations. People protect their possessions, their land, and their power by building heritage. This transmission underpins societies, territories, and the relationships that bind them. Today, however, such transfers are rare, uneven, and opaque; citizens are often excluded from the process.
Immaterial assets now fuel the ambitions of powerful actors. In the digital age, endless data collection lets them control daily life, seize resources, and dictate uses. Turning data into knowledge while preventing disparity and appropriation demands new systemic models.
A Fragmented Territory Under Reductionist, Siloed Thinking
Territories are fertile grounds for data‑collection, organization, and management projects. Many initiatives aim to share data for smarter, documented uses. Yet the core problem remains: territorial data live in isolated silos. Their thematic separation yields a fragmented view of reality.
Is this a purely technical flaw or a shortage of expertise? It would be dishonest to blame technology alone when vendors brag about innovation. ERP providers tout cross‑functional integration, claiming they can make heterogeneous data talk to each other. But these systems rarely consider the territory as a public space belonging to everyone. GIS tools and visualization modules can display selected datasets for professional purposes, but they stay limited to expert‑driven objectives. The data‑organisation model we advocate is strictly knowledge‑centric.
Practices That Dilute Knowledge
Current synthesis models oversimplify territorial complexity. They compartmentalize data into sealed sectors, ignoring or denying the value of other datasets. Behind simple collection practices, these systems build databases from a priori assumptions. In territorial contexts, there is no “good” or “bad” data—every piece, obvious or subtle, should be processed and integrated.
Understanding a territory cannot rely solely on big‑data harvesting. It must reveal how diverse elements interact, evolve together, and sometimes produce unpredictable configurations. Hence we champion a systemic approach—as opposed to reductionist methods—to territorial data modeling. This approach embraces complexity and singularity, incorporating all historically available aspects. The result is an exhaustive, practical view that enriches knowledge rather than flattening it.
From this perspective, underlying dynamics surface, and the system evaluates facts continuously. The added value does not enforce a static, expert‑controlled perception; instead, knowledge emerges from ever‑changing interactions among elements. The territory and its associated knowledge become dynamic and singular.
A Democratically Powerful System
Private or commercial data may require protection, but territorial data belong to everyone. Regulations vary, often reflecting power balances, yet the principle of universal ownership should prevail.
Our envisioned model opposes privileged control over territorial operations. It promotes continuous listening and inclusion, integrating any data that clarifies territorial intelligibility. Every interaction challenges existing knowledge—making it obsolete, refined, or more accurate. We seek a paradigm shift, not merely better analytics. The goal is a transdisciplinary, integrative vision that transcends data accumulation.
True innovation lies not in sharper analysis but in the ability to synthesize. While a summary reduces, a synthesis composes. It does not arbitrarily pick data; it builds a global understanding from the relationships that bind elements. Thus it does not simplify the world—it unveils its richness and complexity.
Knowing a territory means evolving with it, maintaining a moving body of knowledge. Only through this systemic, dynamic, participatory approach can we overcome current fragmented views and create a new knowledge model—responsive to contemporary realities.
Acting responsibly—individually, collectively, professionally, or for pleasure—requires increasingly fine‑grained, objective, shared knowledge.
S.of.T‑lab offers intelligence tools to support your territorial data strategy. Its novel data‑structuring model is a prospective, operational lever for inclusive governance.