

Must Read! Groundbreaking Study of Urban/Suburban America
Chickenhead, O Chickenhead, how lovely are thy giblets!Truly Yours,
Baby Huey
Chickenhead, O Chickenhead, how lovely are thy giblets!Truly yours,
Baby Huey


The Four Components of Intellectual CapitalAs known, the subject of intellectual capital appeared on the business world in the 1990s. Patrick H.Sullivan writes, in his 'Value-Driven Intellectual Capital,' "this history actually began in the early 1980s, as managers, academics, and consultants around the world began to notice that a firm's intangible assets, its intellectual capital, were often a mojor determinant of the corporation's profit...By the mid 1990s it was becoming clear that there were two separate but related paths of thinking about intellectual capital. One path, the knowledge and brainpower path, focused on creating and expanding the firm's knowledge. The other path, the resource-based perspective, was concerned with how to create profits from a firm's unique combinations of intellectual and tangible resources."
In this context, Annie Brooking defines intellectual capital as the term given to the combined intangible assets which enable the company to function. And hence, she formulates her first IC concept as 'Enterprise = Tangible Assets + Intellectual Capital.' According to Brooking, the intelectual capital of an enterprise can be split into following four categories:
1. Market assets: all market related intangibles, including brands, customers, customer loyalty, company name, backlog, distribution channels, business collaborations, various contracts and agreements such as licensing, franchises and so on.
2. Intellectual property assets: know-how, trade secrets, copyright, patent, design rights, and trade and service marks.
3. Human-centred assets: education, vocational qualifications, work related knowledge, occupational assessments, psychometrics, and work related competencies.
4. Infrastructure assets: management philosophy, corporate culture, management processes, information technology systems, networking systems, and financial relations.
At last words, she says that "our method brings together intangible assets which most companies already have but fail to manage in a coherent way...Organizations that realize their ability to succeed in the third millennium will be dominated by intangible assets are already putting their intellectual capital teams together."
Highly recommended.
Recommended readings on Intellectual Capital:
* Johan Roos et.al. - Intellectual Capital
* Patrick H.Sullivan - Value-Driven Intellectual Capital
* Thomas A.Stewart - Intellectual Capital
* Leif Edvinsson and Michael S.Malone - Intellectual Capital
* Karl-Erik Sveiby - The New Organizational Wealth
Do We Really Know?The subtitle of Brooking's book introduces her perspective on intellectual capital: "Core Asset for the Third Millennium Enterprise." She identifies four categories of assets: market (the potential an organization has due to market-related intangibles), intellectual property (know-how, trade secrets, copyright, patent, and various design rights), human-centered (talents, skills, experience, loyalty), and infrastructure (whatever brings order, safety, correctness, and quality to an organization).
Throughout Intellectual Capital, Brooking includes a number of "audits" which enable her reader to measure value of an organization's brand, name, backlog, distribution, collaboration, patent(s), copyright(s), design, trade secrets, human-centered assets, employee education, vocational qualification, work related knowledge, occupational assessment, work related competency, corporate learning, management philosophy, corporate culture, information technology systems, database, networking, IT management, and IC management.
Brooking explains HOW to make accurate measurements of these and other intangible assets, and, suggests HOW to manage them with meticulous care. The "Corporate Culture for Collaboration" audit in Chapter 6, all by itself, is well worth the price of the book.
Unless and until organizations accurately measure both their tangible and intangible assets, it will be impossible to determine the real-world value of those organizations. This is especially true as dot.com companies proliferate.
Too good to be true. Another stunner from the mostress.

Excellent resource of games, plus much more!

i want something from you..

"Unseen Wealth" Helps Us See The Intangibles

A little gemThere will always be losers - as the book makes clear. But that's a fact of life whichever economic creed you follow. There are significantly fewer losers in Asia now that forty years of economic liberalisation have raised income levels from paddy field to first world standards. This book explains why - in crisp simple terms.
Excellent Information BUT Beware of Assumptions
The Very First Book To Read on GlobalizationAs nearly all economists understand net trade flows always equal net investment flows. Shockingly large numbers of media and congressmen do not understand this utterly simple formula. In a nut shell, with all the foreign money pouring into the USA treasuries market, stock market and direct business investments over the last several decades, it follows that the USA would run trade deficits equal to the net investment inflow over the same period. If you do not understand this or you want an ultra easy review of these simple facts, this book was made for you. In a grand gesture of national service these authors wrote the book that was needed for general understanding of what positive and negative points globalization means to the USA. It is not designed for academic kudos.
If every modestly educated voter would read this book, the future of the USA and the world would be significantly brightened. While this is a pipe dream, at least read this book before you say one more word about globalization otherwise you may embarrass your self in the presence of informed people. If you are informed on economics please forgive my heavy handedness. It is not meant for you. This is a critical issue for underdeveloped nations and the mature nations, there is so much to be gained by informed voters on this subject.
This book is carefully grounded in the proven principals of economics. While a reviewer or two gives an impression to the contrary, decades of reading in economics provides me the confidence to assure you that this book is profoundly well grounded. At each point where scholars may differ the authors and editors have carefully laid out its discussion. This is not a book written with a liberal or conservative bent. Modern economics encompasses a significant degree of science and mathematical logic. To view this book as otherwise, is to be illogical or unwilling to accept the most basic proven equations. Again you will not find an easier more meaningful book to read on economics.
The USA economy for a variety of reasons has sharply declining need for workers without a high school education and places a continuing rising premium on post college education. Increasingly, those that can graduate from the elite institutions lead nearly a charmed life in the USA. Immigrants that are able to enter the USA with limited education are having increasing difficulty as the decades roll by. It is not clear that globalization is a meaningful factor in placing the such great educational needs on the American worker. This book helps frame the questions that might be asked about the rising importance of education in the USA. The book being about globalization does not dwell on this issue, but it does strongly suggest that the potential understanding of this issue of the exponentially rising need for superior knowledge is much broader than the globalization trend.
The most provocative theme in the latter chapters of the book is the impact of globalization on those American workers that are poorly educated. The adverse impacts on this group comes from rapid technology changes, defective educational system, ineffective governmental assistance and to a very small degree open trade. The authors documentation about how little negative impact foreign trade has on a very limited number of workers is shocking. A source of another worthy book would be to provide a more exhaustive review of this aspect. The authors conclude that the popular obsession on this point should treated with a reorganized aggressive worker assistance program. Almost any reasonable assistance program would be a modest cost relative to the diverse and powerful benefits that all the rest of Americans get from open trade according to the authors.
The authors are very negative on the effectiveness of government sponsored retraining. The book is highly critical of the governments ability to define injured parties in open trade without it being a political football. The authors suggest an assistance program that is indiscriminate as to the cause of worker misfortune and focuses on programs that show imperial evidence of effectiveness. The focal point is intermediate assistance for any lower income workers need to find new employment. While the left and the right quarrel about where to draw the line, the authors contend that so few people are in need relative to the benefits of open trade that just focusing on a well designed assistance program would make all the difference in giving support and comfort to the aggrieved relative to the huge benefits of open trade.


Thought Provoking

A guideline for the Marshal Plan

A Basic, To-The-Point Book...VERY HELPFUL

This book gives an excelant overview of its subject matter.