IC for Public Relations and Investor Relations Professionals

Mary Adams, co-founder of Trek and I-Capital Advisors, will be appearing on a panel on June 10 at the Public Relations Society of America in Boston.

The program is entitled: New Era, New Valuation Shift: Communicating Intangible Assets.

We’re still emerging from an economic downturn, marketing budgets are flat at best, and yet we’re still charged with moving marketing and PR forward for our organizations.  At any moment, someone could flip the switch and we’ll be off and running on the next wave of productivity and profitability.  Will you be ready?

A turbulent economy aside, today’s communications professionals and corporate PR/IR staff face an interesting challenge: how do we communicate our company’s ‘intangible assets’ — intellectual capital, corporate culture — to the market, customers, media and investors?  Increasingly, even consumer-based companies will be expected to play a thought leadership role in our knowledge-based economy and if we aren’t doing it already, we should be.

Join us for a discussion on how to incorporate new values into your existing system of corporate communications and demonstrate real value of the assets inside your organizations.

Panelists will include:

• Mary Adams, Founder of
  I-Capital Advisors and co-author of Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work
  in the 21st Century Organization
• Todd Fromer, Managing
  Partner, Investor Relations, KCSA Strategic Communications, an
  integrated IR/ PR firm
• Nir Kossovsky, M.D., CEO of
  Steel City Re, a reputation risk solutions company, and the author of
  IAM magazine’s reputation case study series.

More information and registration

Exciting book about the economics of intangibles: From Poverty to Prosperity

If you took economics in school, your mind is trapped inside a box. It’s not alone. Most minds in our business and economic communities today are still inside that box.

But it’s time to break out of the box because the knowledge economy is here to stay. And the knowledge economy breaks some of the fundamental rules of economics as we know them. That’s because the economics we learned is based on the concept of scarcity. I sell you a shirt and I have one less in inventory.

Knowledge, in contrast, is not a finite asset. If I share an idea with you, my inventory of ideas doesn’t go down. We will probably collaborate to improve the idea. If I sell you a software license, my software doesn’t decrease in value, it will probably increase in value because I’ll get user feedback. Read more

I will be speaking at the ICAP Ocean Tomo event on March 24-25

ICAP Ocean Tomo will be hosting an IP Think Tank before their latest auction.  I will be speaking and participating in a panel discussion about the Growing Intangible Asset Marketplace — Looking Beyond IP to Other Intangible Assets.  I’ll be sharing my thoughts on emerging intangible capital investment opportunities like processes, networks and teams. I will also provide the IP professionals in the audience  with a way of modeling the ecosystem that monetizes key intellectual property assets. The auction will be held at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco.

Please let me know if you are planning to be there or if you have any suggestions on folks I should meet while I am in San Francisco. Here’s the Spring Think Tank site.

Accounting for Intangibles – The Income Statement is Not the Answer

I guess it’s time to talk about Accounting for Intangible Assets: There is Also an Income Statement by Stephen Penman. When this new paper first came out from the Center for Excellence in Accounting & Security Analysis at Columbia University, I decided to ignore it as an apology for current accounting standards–which are completely inadequate for the knowledge era.

But now the paper is getting more attention so I feel the need to answer it.

We are not talking about some theoretical accounting issue.  70% of the value of the average M&A deal is intangible. 60% of the average corporate investment is intangible. 50-80% of the average public company is intangible. That means that intangibles are ignored by accountants (the only real exception is in the case of a merger, when the lack of understanding ends up as 50% of the purchase price going to goodwill). None of this is helpful to the cause (and stated mission of Columbia’s center) of “excellence in accounting and security analysis.” Read more

Five Reasons to Focus on Optimizing Intangibles in 2010

I am more and more convinced that 2010 will be the year of intangibles, intangible assets, intangible capital, intellectual capital, knowledge assets or whatever else you want to call them. There are five big reasons why:

1. Intangibles already get the majority of your  investment dollars. Estimates are that at least 60% of the money organizations invest in their future productive capacity is in intangibles. If you are already spending money, isn’t time you created a way to track intangibles performance? Read more

Don’t miss this program: Intangibles in the Coming Decade

I’m really excited about the program that we are developing at the Intangible Asset Finance Society for Friday, January 8 at noon EST.

Each of the leaders of the Society’s core committees is going to introduce what they view to be the top three critical issues for intangible asset management  in the coming decade. Then we are going to have a discussion of the various themes put forward. This is a do-not-miss event. The call is free that day but you will have to pay to get the recording after the fact. More info and registration.

Intangibles Measurement

I just took a quick break from my vacation week to participate in the IAFS monthly conversation about intangibles. Here’s the presentation I made on Intangible Asset Performance and Financial Results.

It builds on the recent video we posted that shows how to model the intangible factory. Read more

Call on Intangible Asset Risk and Reputation Metrics

Intangible Asset Finance Society Monthly Call: The President of Intellectual Capital Advisors, Mary Adams, will be hosting Nir Kossovsky on the IAFS monthly call this Friday, July 10th at noon EDT.

Nir is the Chief Executive & Director of Steel City Re, a firm focused on innovating new ways of managing intangible risk. He is also an entertaining speaker and will surely keep Mary on her toes! The call is free but you must register to get the conference information. Hope you can join us!

Program on Relationship Capital Risks this Friday

Mary Adams hosts the monthly call of the Intangible Asset Finance Society on the first Friday of every month. This month’s call on Friday, April 3rd at 12 noon EDT is entitled: IMPOSING PERFORMANCE (BEHAVIOR) REQUIREMENTS ON A COMMERCIAL PARTNER:

Cadbury Schweppes, Kellogg, Mattel – all iconic firms whose products, cash flows, and reputations have been sullied by their business partners through ethical breaches including melamine in milk, salmonella in peanut butter, and lead paint. Read more

Intangible Definitions

One of the most frustrating parts of working in the “intangibles” management business is the lack of accepted definitions and (more importantly) shared understanding of what we mean.

Just the name is challenging. Here are a few of the most common: Read more

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