Why Should You Model Your Intellectual Capital?
July 15, 2009 by Mary Adams
In my last post, I shared a video that I recently posted on YouTube called You Can Grow Like Google. It uses Legos to build a model of Google’s intellectual capital “factory,” in an effort to illustrate how the distinct pieces of IC–human, relationship and structural capital–fit together to create a cohesive system that works together to create value.
You can download a worksheet to make your own model: Want to Grow Like Google? …Build a Knowledge Factory. I hope you find the process fun and informative. I think that the act of identifying the critical components and fitting them together is a valuable exercise in itself. But I don’t recommend this just because it’s fun. I recommend that you build a model of your intellectual capital because the future of your business is dependent on intangible knowledge assets.
As many times as you may hear that, it is still a very abstract idea. We came up with this approach because we needed a way to make it more graphic for our clients. You need it to make it more graphic for all your stakeholders: management, board members, employees, partners, investors, and lenders.
But don’t stop there. This model can become the focus of a new approach to intangibles management in your company. Treat this model like it really is a factory. Ask all the questions you were taught in business school about managing:
Assess
- How does this knowledge factory work right now?
- Where are we at risk?
- Is this model as scalable as it could be?
Strategize
- What should we do about the assessment (from previous section)?
- What are we missing from today’s model?
- How can we build innovation into this model?
Manage and Measure
- Who has the responsibility for each of these pieces?
- Who has the responsibility for the combined whole?
- How is this strategy going to be monitored and measured?
Keep this model on your desk. Use it as a reminder of what’s important in your business. Here’s a worksheet Want to Grow Like Google? …Build a Knowledge Factory that will help you create your own model. Let me know if it helps.
If you build a model, please post it here or on YouTube. Please also share your suggestions on ways to improve the approach. And if it helps you, don’t forget to pass it on to others that may need it.
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[...] The simple linearity of the value creation process in Porter’s graphic was in a way a representation of the production line in a factory. You will need a different vision of the value creation process that is more appropriate to the knowledge era such as the Lego model below (explained in this post on the knowledge factory): [...]
[...] The simple linearity of the value creation process in Porter’s graphic was in a way a representation of the production line in a factory. You will need a different vision of the value creation process that is more appropriate to the knowledge era such as the Lego model below (explained in this post on the knowledge factory): [...]