A record. A permit filed, a salary posted, a violation opened. True, but isolated.
The record, published and searchable. Still isolated — it describes, it doesn't explain.
The record connected to others, in context, with the reasoning shown. This is where meaning appears.
Given the evidence and the reasoning, a person chooses a course of action.
The decision, carried out — an appeal filed, a lease signed, a hearing question asked.
Take a single Philadelphia property tax assessment. As data, it's one row in an OPA export: a parcel number and a dollar figure. As information, it's searchable on a public portal — still just that one number, on its own.
As intelligence, that same figure is checked against six comparable sales nearby, and the gap between the assessment and the market is shown, with the comparables named. Now there's something to decide: is this worth appealing? And if the answer is yes, the action is a BRT-ready packet, not a blank form and a filing deadline to research from scratch.
Nothing in that chain required a new fact. It required connection, context, and an honest answer — including when the answer is "no, this looks fair."