We’re looking at it all wrong: the intangible information gap

I have been really heartened to see more attention to the way that the intangible information gap skews investors’ understanding of what’s really going on in today’s knowledge-driven companies. This latest article comes on the heels of a Reuters piece last month calling for getting intangibles on the balance sheet.

Yesterday, this new examination came in Jeff Saut’s Market Call column where he quoted Steve Vannelli of the GaveKal Platform Company fund talking about technology and intangible capital (I added the bold):

To this technology point, I asked Steve to discuss his “knowledge,” or intangible capital, theme. He responded by stating that our current accounting system doesn’t value “intangible capital accumulation” appropriately. Most certainly, intangible capital accumulations are “expensed,” not capitalized. Such accumulations increase productivity, foster more efficiency, and drive better financial money flows than are currently measured. Moreover, if you are not measuring such metrics correctly, you are also not measuring our country’s “economic output” correctly. For example, “What is Amazon’s (AMZN) “search engine” worth? Read more

Problems ordering Intangible Capital? Here’s the solution.

Our book launch has been going well. Maybe too well. Amazon quickly shifted from offering delivery in a week to posting it as available in 2-4 weeks!!

Please know that this is not the case. A new shipment of books is on the way to them. But we haven’t been able to get through to them to get this reflected on the site.

We are very faithful customers of Amazon and intend to build our presence on the site. However, for now, the Buy buttons on our website will be going to our publisher Preager/Greenwood Publishing Group. We haven’t sold out the first run yet and Greenwood will get a book right out to you! If you are interested in a bulk order, let us know and we can help arrange it for you.

Thank you for the support!

The Growing Importance of Community and Relationship Capital

Two of my recent Tweets @maryadamsica told stories about the growing importance of relationship capital:

What is Buddhist Economics – Showed the incredible difference in the growth of Business Week’s print edition versus their BW Exchange, where  readers choose the topics. Read more

Bookstore as Printing Location?

Wow. Just read a post from Intangitopia about the Espresso Book Machine. This is basic a digital printing press that has 500,000 titles pre-loaded, most of which are apparently out of print.

You pay for the book and it is printed right there in the store. Interesting way to disrupt Amazon. Or should Amazon buy it? Or will Amazon become a re-seller of these books (I buy many more used books than I do new ones on Amazon through their marketplace).

Of course, Amazon has already made a play toward electronics with Kindle. This is just another example of how the knowledge economy is changing almost every intellectual capital market…