Why visualization is so important for intangible capital
One of the big reasons that folks don’t do more explicit thinking about intangible capital is that they have no frameworks or mental models about IC. We see this disconnect in a lot of businesses. Just about every manager knows that our economy has shifted. They know that knowledge is an important driver of their [...]
The Knowledge-Era Plant Tour
When we were bankers, one of the required parts of our jobs was a “plant tour.” Managers would walk a banker (or sometimes a gaggle of us) from the raw materials warehouse along the production lines to the finished goods stocking and shipping departments. Of course, bankers are not manufacturing experts. We couldn’t really critique [...]
Intangible Capital is the New Factory
The core of the tangible economy is the factory. Simply put, a factory is a building where production equipment converts raw material into finished goods. Companies make their money by selling these finished goods. The story of the tangible economy is the story of organizing and running these factories. The modern knowledge business can also [...]
Relationship Capital and the Growing Importance of Partners
When thinking of relationship capital, most people default to customers, who obviously are fundamentally important to your business. However, relationships with other kinds of partners are growing stronger and more important for the same reasons as those described yesterday for customers: increased outsourcing, increased linking of systems and the need for co-creation and innovation. I’ll [...]
The Two Families of Organizational Assets in a Knowledge-Era Organization
As we move through this chapter and really the rest of the book, there is a distinction we want to make about the organization of businesses. It is inspired by the Value Chain graphic created by Michael Porter back in 1985. This simple graphic is a great illustration of the generic business model for the [...]
The Dangerous Secret of Our Economy: The Intangible Information Gap
Although intangibles are more and more important, few companies can provide a description of their own knowledge factory. Nor can they provide an inventory of its critical components. How much it cost to build, maintain, and operate the factory. How well it is performing. The knowledge factory is essentially invisible in most companies. Experts [...]
Your invisible, intangible production facility
What if one day your phone rings, and it’s a colleague who wants to talk with you about a company. This company has been around for decades and has grown steadily in recent years. It has good people. Although it has had a rough time in the last recession, it is holding its own and [...]
