A Compound of Alchymie

Knowledge Really is Power

I stumbled across a great book in one of those discount bookshops recently. It's called 'Information Feudalism - Who owns the knowledge economy?' by Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite.  It looks at how corporations supported by rich economies are influencing intellectual property rules in the pursuit of even greater profits. Clearly corporations need to see a return on their investments in intellectual capital and locking up knowledge in intellectual property such as patents appears to be acceptable behaviour. However the book's authors make a compelling argument that this often goes too far and that knowledge is effectively being locked-up at the expense of much of the developing world. It's an interesting read, and charts the history of intellectual property strategies right up to today's World Trade Organisation's involvement. A short excerpt below:

"The basic strategy of the players in the knowledge game came to this. Their laboratories would produce knowledge that would be developed into products, for which their legal divisions would secure an impregnable patent position. Use was also made of trade marks, trade secret law and copyright. The quest for knowledge was really the quest for monopoly. Competition could be kept out or made to pay high royalties, depending upon the way the numbers panned out. Alternatively, intellectual property rightsand licenses could be used to structure a global knowledge cartel. "

Knowledge really is power - but then we always knew that.

Balanced Scorecard

As usual, I'm trying to read a number of business books at the same time. The latest addition to my bedside reading pile is 'Kaplan and Norton's 'Balanced Scorecard - Translating Strategy Into Action'. I've been aware of the Balanced Scorecard for quite a few years and though some clients do use it their engagement seems fairly shallow - possibly it's been forced on them by zealous senior executives. My interest stems from my current efforts to do some more joined-up thinking on the value of knowledge and intangibles in organisations. From what I've read so far it ties in quite well with both Karl-Erik Sveiby's and Leif Edvinsson's approaches to intellectual capital and I'm keen to draw some comparisons between the different approaches - Balanced Scorecard after all is much more prevalent that either Karl-Erik's Intellectual Asset Monitor (IAM) or Leif Edvinsson's IC Navigator.

Referring to the over reliance on financial measures in business Kaplan and Norton say:

"At its heart, an overemphasis on achieving and maintaining short-term financial results can cause companies to overinvest in short-term fixes and to underinvest in long term value creation, particularly in the intangible and intellectual assets that generate future growth."

And this of course is what intellectual capital is all about - exploring the realtive merits of investment in different intangibles in order to build long term value.

I will post an update once my research is complete but in the meantime Karl-Erik has already done a comparison between IAM and BS.

The New KM

This evening I ordered ‘Key Issues in the New Knowledge Management’ by Mark McElroy and Joseph Firestone which I came across in a discussion on KnowledgeBoard. Looking on Amazon I see that the introductory chapter deals head-on with the issue of a definition of KM and also investigates the crossover between KM and IM. Quote from the Amazon synopsis - "how you define knowledge determines how you manage it" – naturally! Should be an interesting read – I will review it in a future entry. Anybody else read this book? Unusually there are no reviews on Amazon.co.uk.