The Genius of Intangible Assets

Picasso (1907) Source: Wikipedia

Richard Ogle described how Picasso came to paint ‘the first real masterpiece of the 20th Centrury’, the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. In his book ‘Smart World‘ Ogle argues that there is no such thing than the lonesome Genius who came up with the idea overnight.

Regardless of profession or calling, Ogle argues, that humankind has a collective consciousness in which trailblazers like Picasso delve to retrieve their ground breaking ideas. Picasso is quoted in referring to African art for the inspiration of this painting.

By thinking outside the brain and tapping into the extended History and wealth of experience of the extended Mind (Ogle 2007, 10) we see how all great inventions actually came to be. Think of the internet itself- Wikipedia is just one example of such an extended external brain in action.

It is interesting to look at intangible assets in firms that way. Perhaps intangible assets (Intellectual Property, Trademarks and Patents) and their nature of ’suddenly leaping onto stage’, thus ‘disrupting the status quo’ are just an expression of where we are going as a human society. Look closely and we can see how the collective conscious is opening up individual creativity, for example with the ‘Open Source’ concept.

Not one company can claim to ‘own the ideas’ since everything is connected through history, material, memory. This is a scary thought for economists and accountants alike. Yet, this disruptive idea space (Ogle) was first named by Schumpeter as prerequisite to entrepreneurship.

The intangible is quickly becoming a new stage of consciousness, a way forward to the next new thing. It is true that our current Western business models  can’t put a price tag on it- which I assume means ‘making the intangible tangible’ in current economic thinking. If the summary of collective social networks are actually creating the new value in our economies than it is time to investigate the consistency of this mix instead of denying its contribution to firm assets as not quantifiable.