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Capitale intellettuale di Arian Ward
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First, I would like to challenge the concept of needing to define
something. I find definitions to be extremely limiting. They become
permanent representations of the thing being defined and leave no
room for interpretation, adaptation, or evolution over time. Instead
I like to think about the distinctions of something. This is
an evolving description -- a running list of the manifestations and
characteristics of the thing. Distinctions allow something to take
on different guises in different contexts. They allow you to accumulate
a list of those manifestions and characteristics over time. They also
allow you to include what something is not in addition to what
it is, to set boundaries around the thing being described.
They provide people with a much richer sense of meaning and understanding.
In short, something moves from being a dead set of words to
being alive in the mind of the receiver. Including different
people's definitions of intellectual capital or knowledge in a book
or article is a method of beginning to list their distinctions.
Some of the different distinctions of Intellectual
Capital that I use (in addition to the ones already expressed
by Tom Stewart and Leif Edvinsson in their recently published IC books
- both, by the way, really were developing a list of IC distinctions
at the beginning of their books, rather than classic definitions):
- The sum of an enterprise's:
- collective knowledge, experience, skills, competences, and
ability to acquire more
- work outcomes, services and other intangible manifestations
of the application of these to the strategic intent of the enterprise
- relationships and processes that facilitate this application,
its delivery of value to the marketplace, and its delivery of
strategic advantage back to the enterprise
- An enterprise's competences; the artifacts and measurements of
its intangible resources; the capabilities and interactions of its
formal organizations, informal communities, customers, and partners;
and the knowledge, skills, and potential of its employees and other
stakeholders
- Rather than a definition, the example I always use when I talk
about IC is:
For Microsoft, in a nutshell, IC is its intangible assets:
- the knowledge and skill of its programmers
- the software they write
- the licenses through which the software is protected and made
available to the marketplace
- the share of the market held by that software all resulting
in making Bill Gates the richest person in the country and Microsoft
one of its most successful companies
- Intangible material and relationships that have been or could
be formalized, captured, and leveraged to produce a higher-valued
asset
- the difference between book value and market value
- what investors really should care about, but have never had access
to
- What IC is not is what is shown on the balance sheet and
other financial statements
- What IC is not is what an enterprise understands and manages
as its most valuable asset
Some of the different distinctions of Knowledge
that I use:
- accumulated experience and learning:
- what, why, how, who, where, when, how much
- formal education and lessons from just everyday living and
working
- facts, stories, images
- documented, spoken, tacit
- conscious, unconscious
- a simple way to think about the difference between data, information,
and knowledge is that as you move through the data to knowledge
continuum the material takes on increasing levels of meaning and
the perceiver gains increasing levels of understanding
- Another way to look at this distinction:
I like to use the metaphor of the brain to help understand knowledge
and intelligence. Put simply, my conception is that the brain is
billions of neurons which store data. What gives us knowledge is
the links between them, as well as the access paths we have created
which allow us to follow the links. Together these let us make sense
of the data stored in all of those cells. We achieve intelligence
when we become aware that all of these cells in our brain and our
body are collectively one living being capable of reasoning, feeling,
and connecting to and impacting other beings and the environment
in which we live.
Organizational knowledge and intelligence are much the same.
When we just have a bunch of data and information scattered in
different sources -- databases, documents, e-mail messages, conversations,
people's heads -- little meaning is provided to the organization
or its individual stakeholders. It is only when we begin to link
these through technological and sociological connections, to provide
access through these links in meaningful ways that the organization
gains knowledge. And it is only when the separate entities are
linked and aware that they are connected and interdependent, that
the organization gains intelligence -- a deep sense of being "one",
of being whole. Of course, the existence of this knowledge or
intelligence doesn't add value to the enterprise by itself. Only
when the knowledge and intelligence is applied to the purpose
of the enterprise and its customers does it become a valued asset
-- intellectual capital.
- organizational knowledge takes many forms; internally it can be
knowledge of (just a sample):
- culture, history
- strategic direction
- organizations, partnerships, and other formal relationships
- communities of practice, communities of interest, networks,
and other informal relationships
- individual people
- processes
- products, services
- systems, tools
- patents, technologies
- written and unwritten rules
- where these are located; how to find or access them
- how to use or apply them -- how to get things done
- how to succeed around here
- who do or could we know or work with externally, it can be
knowledge of (just a sample):
- customers, markets, and their needs, wants, and activities
in the marketplace --existing and potential
- competitors and our position relative to them -- near term
& strategically, overall and in specific markets and situations
- laws and regulations impacting the enterprise now or in the
future
- emerging technologies and other trends of possible significance
to the enterprise
- suppliers, partners -- existing and potential
- investment market, sources of capital
- other parts of the extended enterprise -- owner, sister business
units or companies in a larger corporation or holding company,
subsidiaries
- global -- countries, cultures, climates - political and geographical,
economics, global locations of the enterprise operations and
markets
most knowledge remains in people's heads and never gets formalized,
documented, and shared; in addition to knowledge about the above,
there is much knowledge they carry we rarely try to find out about
or leverage for the purpose of the enterprise, for example:
- languanges spoken and cultures/customs understood
- outside interests such as hobbies that could be tapped by
the enterprise
- who do they know in the outside world where we could potentially
benefit from the relationship
- professional affiliations
- adult education, workshops, conferences and other non-work
related learning
- knowledge acquired in previous jobs that isn't being utilized
- all of the thousands of ideas and suggestions that everybody
thinks about, but rarely get heard or acted upon
- What knowledge is not is most of the stuff companies and
information systems functions have been paying all of their attention
to for decades and investing all of their billions of dollars in
with little or no return
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