Right now, every policy wonk in Washington is focused on this morning's release of President Obama's FY 2014 budget. I will have more on the budget and investments in intangible assets later. But right now I would draw your attention to an often overlooked accompanying document from the Department of the Treasury: the General…

We talk about intangible capital a lot. We even wrote a book on it. But we know that a lot of people think that IC is a very abstract concept. It’s not. It’s at the very heart of how you create value for your customers and get paid for it.

Your company already has extensive knowledge and…

Some executives think this thing called "engagement" is something either  HR needs to manage or marketing needs to do. Few understand the intangible value of engagement converts into tangible  bottom line results.

The Towers Watson 2012 Global Workforce Study — 32,000 employees across 30…

Words matter.

They shape our thinking and shape our conversations.

Here are some really common conversations I have with new business acquaintances:

I ask what they do. They ask what I do. I say (of course!) that I work with…

Today’s technological changes will be made a mockery of by what the advancements create tomorrow.

Imagine what your great grandparents would think if you were able to tell them that everyone would be connected to everyone and everything in the future. What if you told them that people would use a device in their hand that allows them to do voice & video…

Everyone knows that we live in a time of great change. The industrial economy is over and we live in a new social economy fueled by learning, knowledge and connections. 

One of the things that gets missed in most conversations about this shift is the mind-bending shift from scarcity to abundance. You see, knowledge is a new kind…

As we work with companies and consultants to optimize intangible capital management, we have ended up creating our own vocabulary. So we thought it would be helpful to provide a quick glossary for reference:

Intangible Capital is the collective set of intangibles of a group or organization. It includes people, relationships, knowledge, culture and, always a business model and shared purpose.

ICounts is our suite of tools (some open…

This is no time for conventional wisdom.

Mass production has given way to mass customization. What was relevant in the Industrial Age is irrelevant in the Digital Age. The nature of the firm is changing accordingly. The firm no longer represents a mechanical form, a bundle of owned and static assets arranged in the most…

By deploying Intangibles, The Ingenesist Project offers a simple Value Game worth upwards of 100 billion dollars.  This value is currently underwritten by the insurance industry as water damage risk that can be reassessed at pennies on the dollar and transformed to liquidity in the real estate market.   

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The Problem: 

The condominium maintenance and reconstruction industry is enormous.  Condominium associations are challenged to manage modern…

Today's organizations and economies run on knowledge fueled by social technologies. Knowledge in many ways is like oil, it is a commodity, widely used and widely available. It is hard to imagine the tangible economy without oil. It fuels our cars and trucks. It generates electricity to power our…

With so much knowledge being distributed through social media everyday what is it that helps us assimilate knowledge into meaningful use?  Knowledge is not useful unless it has meaning to us and meaning comes from relevance.

Relevance means the ability to "connect" something or somebody to our interest at any given time. Our interest vary at any moment and the variables that influence…

When we use the word cage what image does it create in your mind? The definition of a cage is a box or enclosure having some openwork for confining or carrying animals. When most of  think of the word cage we think about containment, restraint, controlled environments and the lack of freedom. Sound familiar?

Now think about "corporations" as cages. This inanimate…

David Chacko's newest mystery novel, The God App, is a story about a detective tracking down the killer of the professor who invented a computer program that anticipates major moves in the financial markets. Whoever holds The God App is far above the law as the people who rule the world come calling for their guaranteed returns. It would seem that the only problem with The God…

The Social Era is here to stay. But most organizations have not yet completely caught up with this seismic shift. In Intangible Capital, we address three ways to think about adapting your organization. The New Factory focuses on the performance of your intangible capital. The…

Digital Asset Management is a standard of practice that belongs within the management of intangible capital. I can't attend but recommend this webinar from a reliable analyst and consulting practice firm. Lynda Moulton…

I’m a little obsessed about the untapped intangible capital inside organizations. This IC represents potential growth, innovation and the prosperity we crave for our communities. But it often lies fallow because management and even the employees themselves fail to understand their collective power.

That’s why I…

What if the human species was SUPPOSED to evolve to a social organization system where everything that we now call 'intangibles', were in fact 'tangible'; and, everything that we now call 'tangible', were in fact, 'intangible'.  What would that world look like?

This not so far fetched actually because our species has already created an incentives based economy that rewards people who act in their own best interest.  We also created Calculus - one of the greatest achievements of the…

Some executives think this thing called "engagement" is something either  HR needs to manage or marketing needs to do. Few understand the intangible value of engagement converts into tangible  bottom line results.

The Towers Watson 2012 Global Workforce Study — 32,000 employees across 30…

Yesterday business was about managing the things that management could count. Today business is about managing the things that you can't count...or at least we didn't think we could.

It seems as though there has been a sudden awakening to the soft side of business. You know the value of stuff like culture, purpose, collaboration, human and relationship capital etc. All the…