See how a handpicked breed of Exceptional Skippers worldwide navigate 'perfect storms'.
Your comments most welcome!
See attached pdf file or follow link, click on Business Parners periodical icon, and go to p.13
http://www.amcham.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144&Itemid=78
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Technology makes it easier than ever for you to connect and collaborate with your vendors. A great illustration of this potential is the Boeing 787. The design of this plane represented a new approach by Boeing. Using an electronic system, the company was on-line with the hundred or so key vendors that would manufacture components and parts for the jet.I, too, worry about American competitiveness and jobs. But I still stand by our statements above. Boeing came to the realization that, in the long run, it would be a smarter company if it let the expertise of each of its suppliers be maximized it they were able to have more of a say in the overall design. Boeing felt that the expertise that they needed to develop was in the coordination of this process. All these critics say that Boeing is giving away and/or losing control of knowledge.
More than ever before, Boeing pushed the design decisions out to the vendors, each of whom has specific expertise related to their part of the plane. The specifications that Boeing supplied were dramatically reduced from past plane projects reflecting the fact that Boeing gave each supplier greater freedom to innovate and design in their specific arena. But because all the suppliers were all on line together, the designs could be coordinated and integrated into the overall design. This approach reflected an increasing faith by Boeing in its relationship capital with its suppliers. It also reflected a change in Boeing?s view of its core competence away from design to design coordination, assembly and marketing of planes.
If you are familiar with this story, you may be surprised that I cite it here. Because the process has not gone smoothly and delivery of the plane is expected to be two to three years late. But despite all this, Boeing?s experience with this plane will provide incredible lessons about how to manufacture in the knowledge era. Boeing is learning these lessons long before many others in the market. It is a case worth following so that you can learn from it too.
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The wit is present in all people, not only those who have received a specific training. Wit is something natural to the person who has been born with it; and after living unfortunate events it surfaces in a unique way and place, just when the opportunity and the conditions are right.
Imagine the large amount of people today. How much thinking and reasoning capacity. It's just a matter of finding ways and opportunities, of setting the imagination free, of unlocking the genius and the will to do things. Talking about it is important. Do it even more. We need millions of opportunities to speed up Progress, but without losing sight of who we are. Do it well, doing good.
Value chain. Pyramid of the company’s resources
Level 1: Human Resources
2: Technology
3: Products
4: Customers
5: Intangible recognized
6: Available materials
7: Human Resources
HHRR at the base and the vertex, at the beginning and at the end of the value chain of each company. They act in a double front, providing and creating all the resources a company needs to be competitive and to become the business centre that it should be.
This scale has the appearance of a balance of assets. It has the usual components, with the striking difference that the entire purpose of HHRR is not among the recognized values, despite being the foundation on which the company is built. A part of it appears in the Income Statement. Of course, the intention is not to quantify the property of a human resource, as, fortunately, it does not exist.
The company has to earn the loyalty of the employee day by day, just as the employee has to earn the loyalty of the company every day, too. It is a loyalty game in which the two sides have a lot to win and also a lot to lose.
If there is no honesty in the relationship the continuous questioning causes exhaustion and weakness appear; when all forces should be directed into making every aspect of the company as competitive as possible
The company isn’t nor shouldn’t be an ethereal entity: it is formed by people who are present at every level of the decision-making. The relationship between those people is usually difficult, but that is the less important factor when the objective to achieve is concrete and well understood by all of them.
Let’s measure the performance of each person, the development of their task, position, job. Let’s turn their activity into numbers. Is there other way for accountability to collect information to help the management? It is not about control but about recording, of shaping numbers in a recognisable way, a way that is perceived but that cannot be set without reading the results.
We are not just talking about the Financial Result, but also about activities and their outcome. The results, either positive or negative, are the reflection, the consequence of the existence of the intangible assests whose quantification we need. And there is a system to do it.
The intangible assets that were admitted up to this day needed to register a goodwill when it came from a transaction. There is a trade from which a high amount results, which is the excess over the book value of the target company's business.
But there is a belief that the business manager does not want to know, in a constant and auditable way, the value of the goodwill if there is not a chance to sell the company. It is a matter of disclosure, because there is no manager who is not interested in improving his task, or owner who does not want to know the real value of its assets. The systematic quantification of intangible assests pretends to be an effective management tool.
Agustín Moreno Ruz
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Since not all people are equal, or between, or one person with herself in the time dimension, all uncorrelated actions differ, some better than others. Be unique, emotional causes irregular, training, educational, attitudinal environment for their business, personal, familial, social.
As an anecdote, what better proof of this assertion is the observation of a popular marathon race. If you have 1,000 or 20,000 people, all are different is by weight, height, sex, color, clothing, anatomy and movements, ultimately genetically.
Human Resources Company is an important part in the composition of the product cost, as is the quality of the persons performing the activity. The company must have a culture of knowing how to delegate in each of the people in the organization, in its different levels and accountability. We must demand results and work quality. It is not productive police distrust the system constant.
It has to have an excellent system for selecting human resources. You must select the right people to each organization, enterprise and activity.
People grow when they trust them. Are neglectful or abandon us when it is not. It should be mentioned at least briefly in favor of the employee or employee who thrives in adversity cyclical business, committed to the continuity of the company that hired him and not to flee when circumstances are adverse and negative impact on the income statement. This is when most needed their experience, knowledge of the Company, the faithfulness, their drive, their collaboration and the enterprise, DG, must rely more on him, trying to keep him and not to provoke their departure is actively or passively.
This highly respectful treatment must be provided before and after the possible time of crisis. If one day the business manager "discovered" that some hundreds of workers are inefficient and decides to dispense with them, must assume the expense incurred in exchange for a zero rate of return obtained and consequently the possible "no" accumulated over months and years. Even where it should be the responsibility of this administration, perhaps the result of carelessness in maintaining such a highly competitive at the most malleable resource for the company. Possible exception of specific cases of conflict.
Much as mentioned the human resource, strategic pillar, mainstay of the company, base on which to build the corporate organizational structure, and as there are the first resources crisis of which is to be discarded. You can not preach that we must extend the retirement age not to overload the public deficit, as well as to exploit the venerable experience, and surprise gift from a company hundreds of early retirement by the public budget.
The company is interested in people who every day grow in value, whether by training, experience, teamwork, people who constantly be concerned about keeping company, struggling with competition for them.
A company that becomes manger for an employee, the category that is, her days are numbered as the occupational and professional passivity business slows until it stops, like pedaling a bicycle.
Properly treat the synergies between employees. A good partner attracts others. A bad partner also attracts some bad. Successful people are interested. The failure in the human resources policy drives away good people of all levels and want to hear about a change to a company where the valuation of the individual exists only as explained in the manual does not apply powdered and placed in a corner of a forgotten shelf, and forgotten in a highly prepared mind and possibly "mastered".
The mentality of either the person who is, operator, a leader of any person or persons, leader of medium and high, where space has solely the verb in first person singular and not plural, has doomed the project business. There must be an entity set of equipment to ensure compliance with business strategy, from its embryonic stage to completion and replacement by another strategy. From the smallest detail to the thick-transcendence.
We can not ignore any of the activities carried out in the company and to be or had to be filtered properly and justified its existence. All expenditure has to be under control. Expenses not bolted, are lightened the reins, girths are neglected and the thud is served.
We must prevent the sale is final only asset as a better way that shareholder recover some of its prestige, so it is imperative that the company has correctly selected individuals who accumulated or accrued training and experience to work led team is the basis of their work and able to take advantage of synergies from it and transmit them and understand the strategy in the short, medium and long term business. Only then there will be a highly competitive business project.
Quality in organizing tasks and people. Instruments and procedures, who does what, how and what gets done. People are the basis of the intangible value they are imaginative, creative, those who organize, decide, work and innovate.
But these qualities need to be placed in a perfectly organized system, where deliverables and see. If there is established a classical system and apply suggestions, study and report, the system flows. If not, the second suggestion received that falls on deaf ears, the system is ignored and lost a great value, the capacity for continuous improvement element that moves the company, the person.
A distinguishing feature between firms are also active. Investment in tangible instruments made due to what people investigate and propose, are computer programs that streamline the work, together with appropriate hardware, machinery production process is quick, easy format change, low-maintenance, appropriate to the size batch of the company. Matter much hit on what suits the company's business.
If that fact differentiator for tangible assets takes place, we must realize that this is due to the action and mediation staff, who have led and developed ideas about what is best for the company where they work, from view smaller than the charge that is, until the most important opinion, is the charge that is.
Establishment of standard operating procedures and appropriate standards-friendly manufacturing, whether imposed by government agencies as their own business organization, in this case expressing a desire to do good things and apart from the competition on the one hand and on the other distinguished himself over the past processes that have been improved.
Although numbers to guide us, consider again the activities in the large firms, relies on physical and intellectual development of human resources. As indicated Claus Möller must get the person to be involved intellectually, physically and emotionally in the project that the company performs.
Team, needed to run an activity. People do not talk individually or in the singular but of people in teams and in plural.
Agustín Moreno Ruz
Relationships and Interdependencies between Intellectual Capital and Strategic Innovation.
You may read published article - follow link Article_Craft Your Future Now.doc
Then, you may try to answer ...
How innovative is your Organization?
Take the Innovation Assessment (follow link below)
http://www.innovalue.gr/assessment.htm
Think others would be interested in this?
Your TINY SPARK may build a mighty flame! Spread the Word!
Share it with your friends and colleagues and compare your answers.
My Best Wishes for an 'intellectually' Innovative Future!
Constantinos
P.S.
Posted following Mary's commentary.
As you probably know, I was thrilled to be invited to speak at the Rutgers symposium, “Intangibles Come of Age” organized by Miklos Vasarhelyi. The final title also called it a discussion about “comprehensive firm valuation.” And it was a wonderful discussion even though it showed us that we have a long way to go. Most of the presentations are on line—and there will be video later.
Dean Yaw Mensah opened up and said that intangibles were very much on his mind when he heard about UCLA’s Anderson business school considering a plan to go private. Would the taxpayers get their share of the value of the school’s IP that they helped build?
Baruch Lev, who never gives up on intangibles, opened the day with some fresh case studies about work he has done around specific aspects of intangibles including ROI on R&D, IT investment and IP. Also described an interesting study for a software company as to whether internal growth or acquisitions gave a better return (the answer was internal growth).
Lev insisted that “everyone recognizes the importance of intangibles.” This was a theme repeated over and over during the day. When I spoke I opened by saying that intangibles may be old news to people at this type of conference but that in general, the average businessperson doesn’t know what we are talking about, why intangibles are important or what to do about it.
For this reason, it was great to hear Amy Pawlicki’s summary of all the reasons that businesspeople are hesitant to improve their intangibles reporting—including good answers as to why each reason should not be a barrier to taking on this important challenge.
Feng Gu presented a paper that he wrote with Baruch Lev on goodwill and write-offs that makes the case that large goodwill often results from companies making acquisitions during periods when their stock is “over-valued.” Earlier in the day, Lev had said that he advocated capitalization of intangibles but that his accounting brethren have been so resistant to this that he no longer talks about it. I brought the subject back up as did Janet Hao.
Janet Hao works with Corrado, Hulten et al at The Conference Board who have done so much of the valuable macroeconomic research that has now shown that intangible investment now exceeds tangible investment in the U.S. She presented a pro forma set of J&J financials which were adjusted (based on public information) to capitalize spending on intangibles. It was very enlightening—showing that increased assets, profits and equity (by capitalizing intangibles) paint a very different picture of a company in common ratios such as return on assets return on equity and leverage. This set up a conversation about valuation and value.
Right after Janet spoke, Benedetto Bongiorno presented based on his long experience in valuation of intangibles in the real estate sector. A lot of his themes were reflected in the practitioner panel after lunch with Steve Rivera, Kevin Tom, and Shawn Suttmiller. The valuation and accounting professions are focusing very heavily on fair value and have sophisticated approaches to value intangibles acquired in mergers. Listening to these professionals, I was struck by the complexity of their valuation models. I’m not totally convinced that this is the way balance sheets should be constructed…
The panel actually got caught in the middle of an energetic discussion of goodwill. Current practitioners believe that they are identifying all the intangibles that they can and that goodwill truly is excess value, synergies and the good will of stakeholders. Others (I’m in this camp) believe that we are missing a big portion of intangibles investment and that we can and should be able to explain the origin of almost all goodwill, even though some of the elements may not end up on the balance sheet. This is the logic behind what we call i-capex.
Marcus Spies presented a refreshing alternative to reporting, explaining a large project he worked on for the EU that extracted data of many kinds from corporate systems to create leading information on the performance of intangibles. This is very complex work—not surprising given the amount of data that exists within the average company. It is this kind of work that provides a clue how reporting and (assurance/auditing of that reporting) can become a continuous process.
Stefano Zambon closed the day with a sweeping summary of work being done around the world in the field of intangibles. Stefano brought me back to some of the work I have been doing lately. As some of you know from the IC Knowledge Center, I have been developing a table that details the sometimes starkly different perspectives on intangibles held by various professions (accountants and lawyers among them).
It is increasingly clear to me that we have to face these differences head on if we are to advance the cause of filling in the enormous (80% and counting) intangibles information gap. I continue to believe that this gap holds back our thinking and our collective action, limiting innovation and growth in a time when we desperately need both.
Thanks to Miklos, all the folks at Rutgers and all the attendees for keeping this important conversation going.
I inform you that we have finally published the Aiaf (Association of Italian Financial Analyst) white paper about the evaluation of the intangible assets and if is your interest to receive a copy you should send an email at the Aiaf secretary to the following email address info@aiaf.it .
Intangible assets are underestimated when it comes to the establishment of corporate strategies and there is often a lack of consensus on the definition of standard non-financial indicators by sector to measure them.
In other words, putting the issue of intangible resources among the priorities of CEO/CFOs is hard enough in times of economic prosperity and it is all the more so when a company is in a downsizing and cost cutting phase, when it is reconsidering marketing strategies and outsourcing processes, with banks cutting down on lending.
In spite of the above circumstances, we believe the current systemic crisis is boosting attention - not only in academic environments but particularly on a professional level - on how to use and monetize those intangible assets that are increasingly essential for a company’s corporate value, its profitability, market position, competitive advantages and sustainability in general. Indeed, it has become relevant for managers to:
1. identify the potential intrinsic value of these resources;
2. maintain control of the competitive advantages that can be attributed to intangible resources and the ability to seize their value. This is a top priority to get out of the current systemic crisis.
In my last posting I briefly mentioned the slightly disturbing notion of programming people in the knowledge factory. Let me first explain why that should not really be disturbing.
Programming, in this context has a specific word to describe it: memetics. In some ways memetics is another way of saying teachings, which we humans are the leading practitioners on the planet. A meme is a memorable item of culture that is taught, and then performed by others. No need to get into the technicalities of this, but when we mention programming of ourselves and others, it is the learnings that we have from teachings.
The kinds of teachings that occur in the knowledge factory include things like protocols and programs that correspond to various business situations. Let’s take a concrete example. Let’s say we run a garden supply retail business, and a new regulation says that we must post the concentrations of pesticides in a prominent manner for the retail customer. We strive for a relationship of trust and helpfulness with our customers, so we don’t minimize or grudgingly comply. We make bright bold signs, adorned with our corporate colors and logo at the location of the affected product on our shelves. We also highlight this information in our customer newsletter, and on our website.
What told us (the webmaster, marketing, and the store managers and clerks) to do these things? There is some cultural knowledge that combines the regulatory mandate and the customer relationship pattern that have been programmed into the business (people’s minds, instructional materials, etc.) to behave this way.
Who makes the protocols and programs that guide the actions in the knowledge factory? Well, the instructions here apply to processing knowledge in the factory. In other words who has the role analogous to Industrial Automation Engineers who provide protocols and programs to the processors on the manufacturing floor?
Who are the experts in processing knowledge, and setting up knowledge processing systems that create business value? It's you! It’s us!
IC Engineers, anyone?
I’ve just been reading Intangible Capital, by our own Mary Adams and Michael Oleksak. Yes, it’s out and available! In this book they formulate an interesting thought framework that they call the knowledge factory (KF). They visualize the components of this factory as color-coded Lego pieces that represent structural capital, human capital, relational capital, and the business recipe. This makes a nice mnemonic device to think about how combinations of these elements make up Google’s KF vs. the KF of a medical device company, in their example.
I would like to offer a complementary visualization of the KF. The image I have in mind is the shop floor in a manufacturing firm. The manufacturing factory starts with some raw materials or assemblies, and then runs through various processing steps, operating on work in progress to create finished goods inventory. Processors, composed of various automated and non-automated equipment and tools, perform these steps.
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) provides a good way of analyzing manufacturing operations. As developed by Eli Goldratt, TOC focuses on identifying the one bottleneck in a plant (or firm) that “constrains” the flow of revenue-producing throughput. Goldratt originally developed this theory for the manufacturing industry, and it has since been applied very widely in a variety of situations.
Each of the aspects that the TOC addresses has its counterpart in the knowledge factory. As Mary and Michael suggest, knowledge-based intangibles are the raw materials of the KF. This includes tacit and structuralized IC, and it also includes well-articulated problems, which are the feed that drives the factory. Finished goods inventory of the KF (its intended results) comprise the capabilities required to perform intelligent and well-informed activities that produce the firm’s products and services, maintain relationships with customers and partners, etc. Work in progress of the KF are half-solved problems, improvement projects underway, inventions that have yet to become market-ready innovations, etc.
In the knowledge factory there are tools, such as databases, search engines, and simulators, but the real processors are human minds. In the manufacturing world automated processors are programmed and adjusted based on what’s being produced. The humans of the KF might object to an implication that they are programmed, but there is no escaping the fact that the KF requires dependable problem solving, which involves a balance between talent and protocols.
Just to complete this cursory analogy between the KF and TOC factories, there is the issue of the KF constraint. TOC practitioners know that the one bottleneck at any given time could be any processor or process step, or it could be market demand when the factory too easily processes its orders with spare capacity. In the KF a few examples of possible constraints include cognitive functions such as sensing, sense-making, logical inferencing, domain knowledge, specific experience, the ability to articulate a valuable problem to solve, etc. The lack of capacity of any one of these can be the constraint at any point in time.
As in manufacturing, the constraint shifts from one place to another, as bottlenecks are remedied and as conditions change. So this kind of analysis of the knowledge factory provides a continuous feedback loop that applies a virtuous circle of improvements to the KF and to business performance.
Many thanks to Mary and Michael for their good work, which inspired this thought.
Preliminary estimates for several OECD countries show that firms now invest as much in intangible assets related to innovation (R&D, software, skills, organisational know-how and branding) as they invest in traditional capital such as machinery, equipment and buildings. ................... investment in intangible assets and MFP growth accounted for between two-thirds and three-quarters of labour productivity growth in OECD countries.
From the recent OECD Innovation Strategy 2010, may 27.
Perhaps firms should invest even more - as the Intangible Assets part of the firm most possible is worth more on the market than the Tangible Assets.
5/25/10
There seems to be a huge disconnect between the academic and intellectual discussions on this and similar sites and the real world of business. A business owner is interested in
IC/IP identification and valuation only to the extent that they positively
impact the bottom line, reduce taxes, or, at the time of sale, increase the
value of the firm.
Economic theory teaches that business owners should make decisions that maximize the value of the firm. This theory could be extended to maximizing profits of the firm as well. That
is the ideal but, for numerous reasons, rarely accomplished in the real world
of small to medium sized businesses (SMB).
The typical SME owner is more concerned with minimizing taxes, keeping customers, assuring that his banker is happy, and having sufficient cash flow to meet payroll.
Unless the identification, valuation and monetization of IC/IP can be brought down to the ground level of the firm, unless IC/IP identification and valuation has a direct impact on
those issues foremost in the minds of SMB owners, there is no way SME business
owners will care a hoot about intellectual capital or intangible assets.
At my current level of understanding of this very complex issue, which I have been studying and
researching off and on for the last five years, it seems to me that the
institution having the most impact on this issue for SMBs is the firms’
accountant. For the typical SME, that accounting firm is a local or regional
firm which may or may not be up to speed on the issues revolving around
identification and valuation of IC/IP.
Rather, the accounting firm works at the direction of the client who is most interested in minimizing the amount of taxes owed which thus controls the entire directional thrust and
activity of the relationship between accountant and client. It is unimaginable
to me that a CPA, while auditing the books or preparing taxes of a SMB client,
would take the time to explain the complex issues of IC/IP and its potential
impact on the client’s business.
Furthermore, with the accounting profession continuing to operate as if we were still living and
working in the 19th Century, there is little chance of this issue
ever being brought to the fore by the accountant on duty. His job is to bill
the most amount of time he can reasonably get away with and still keep the
client happy.
Thus it falls on the accounting profession itself to change its thinking, which in turn will affect
the rules promulgated by the Internal Revenue Service, which will then trickle
down to the level of the firm and guide the accountants’ work for clients who
wish to minimize taxes under generally accepted accounting principles while complying
with IRS regulations.
It is a fact that public companies already recognize IC/IP on their balance sheets. It only takes a quick perusal of balance sheets on the SEC’s Edgar site to confirm how
widespread that recognition is among publicly traded companies. Could it be
that the leading international CPA firms do, in fact, recognize and value
intangibles? Perhaps we should ask them.
I have personally been engaged in M&A transactions where millions of dollars of value was stated on balance sheets of several companies for such things as recipes, brands,
customer lists and engineering drawings; all of which, by the way, are recognized
by the IRS as Section 197 intangible assets which can be depreciated under
current IRS regulations. See this link under the title: normal"">“Section 197 Intangibles Defined”
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/ch08.html#en_US_publink1000208966
The only grey area remaining in my mind is if such intangible assets can be depreciated when
internally generated rather than acquired. The IRS does not allow depreciation
of internally generated IC/IP assets; they must have been acquired. Yet, again,
in the same M&A transactions previously cited, at least one company had
millions of dollars of value on the balance sheet for intangibles and had never
completed an acquisition!
While the intellectual discussions of these issues will go a long way to changing the accounting
profession’s treatment of intangible assets, it remains for practitioners to
raise the level of awareness among SME owners so they can, indeed, benefit from
the recognition of intangible assets that often make up the majority of their
company’s value.
Hi Mary, in answer to your question, my work on IC consists of academic studies, from a background of 12 years in KM consulting in Asia:
(1) Empirical study to disaggregate IC into its components (see my presentation in a 2008 KM conference in Kuala Lumpur which looks into cognitive and affective factors affecting work performance).
(2) Village-level studies showing that success of anti-poverty projects primarily arises from investment in intangible assets by the community (see Knowledge for Poverty Alleviation)
(3) Developing new frameworks for IC applied to the social sector:
3.1 - Expanding the concept of IC to "metacapital": KM conference at Singapore Management University:
3.2 - Paper read at the 2009 ICKM in Hongkong: "An expanded IC framework for evaluating social enterprise innovations"
3.3 - Presentation at the Global IC Summit in 2009 in Beijing: "Defining value for the social development sector" and 2009 Global Summit on Consumption Capital in Beijing: "Exploration of variants of consumer and employee ownership schemes."
3.4 - New trends on treatment of stakeholder capital."CSR and emergent models in management of stakeholder capital in Philippine conglomerates."
(4) I also made a rather bold estimate of global IC stock and the % of Gross World Product from intangible assets in my KM blog: "Towards a global balance sheet" and "Refining estimation of global stock of knowledge assets"
Cheers!
Apin
(my nickname)
“They make it look so easy!” How often do you say that about professionals in sports, public speaking and other human endeavors? Is this just your impression or are they really using less energy or incurring less wasted motion? Is that what the little old lady in New York City meant when the tourist asked her, “How can I get to Carnegie Hall?” and she immediately
advised, “Practice, Practice. Practice?”
Which of your peers seem to get certain tasks done quicker and better while other peers excel in yet other tasks? (Gilbert 1996) defined a term, Performance Improvement Potential, PIP, which denotes the ratio of a person’s performance at a given task to the performance of an exemplar at that task. Ratio’s as high as 15 are often seen, meaning that the subject person has the potential to improve 15 fold.
Is this related to power, the time rate of doing work? Not necessarily. Why does one race car driver lap the course in less time than another, even in the same race car? It isn’t because he is peddling harder. It seems that there is a knowledge factor involved.
What does ‘work smarter instead of harder” mean to you? Does working smarter mean accomplishing the same work in less time? How about accomplishing less work in less time yet producing the same result? Maybe there is more to be said than e = mc2. Perhaps e/k = mc2 because more knowledge with less energy yields the same result.
Intellectual capital, Human capital, and Knowledge management have been hot topics for two decades. Lots of organizations are paying lots of money to improve the production, sharing and utilization of knowledge. Although Gilbert’s PIP indicates that one person can do more than
another, what indicates that one person knows more than another? (Hawkins 1995) defines a Level of Consciousness scale and a questionnaire that has located several thousand persons on this scale. It seems that the higher the level of consciousness the less has to be communicated to impart meaning, especially about complicated, ambiguous subjects.
It has been almost 500 years since Machiavelli wrote, “Knowledge is power.” What branch of science has described the interchangeability of knowledge and power? What branch of engineering has shown how to make such tradeoffs when designing systems? Maybe we could do systems engineering Better, Faster, and Cheaper if we just learned how to think and used a higher level of language to express ourselves.
+ Gilbert, Thomas, Human Competence, Engineering Worthy Performance, HRD Press, 1996.
+ Hawkins, David, Power vs. Force, Hay House, 1995.
Intangible Capital: Looking Inside the Black Box - I often explain that the 70% of corporate value that is intangible in companies today is stuck inside a “black box.” This article I wrote for Strategy magazine tells the story of a company that looked inside the black box to let loose its potential for innovation and growth.
