"Our industry and our companies have had their ups and downs, but people are the most important thing there is. Without our people, we can do nothing. People Matter!"

-- Boeing Engineer, during recent strike

I.C.ing on the Cake

Intellectual Capital Includes All Employees Paid to Think

Frances Richards
Managing Editor

Rumor has it that the entire U.S. steel industry now has a lower market value than the two basement-bound server boxes -- "Please Do Not Touch" -- that make up what we all know as Yahoo. It has come to this. Two hardwired boxes are now worth more than all the factories and mills that continue to decorate the American landscape with fume and flame rising from smokestacks. It's a dotcom world at the moment, with knowledge-intensive products carving out the future economy, a world where physical assets no longer have any correlation to market value.

Intellectual capital has become a popular term lately among the business gurus, but what does it really mean? Beyond structural capital such as databases and software, it also includes human capital, or people. Perhaps not every employee within a company could be counted as adding to the intellectual capital sum, but certainly the creative and strategic folks are covered. As the U.S. continues its paradigm shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a knowledge-based order, companies that appreciate and reward their human capital have the best chance of succeeding.

The good news is that human capital has become increasingly important. The even better news is that all of you design engineers (hopefully us editors, too) are part of that capital. Human capital should not be looked at as yet another expense on the corporate balance sheet, but as a precious asset and a huge factor in competitive advantage.

At the heart of the recent Boeing strike was the desire for better compensation and benefits (not to mention a little respect and increased communication) by a good chunk of Boeing's "intellectual capital" -- the company's engineers. While corporate mergers, acquisitions and downsizing -- all in the name of profit -- serve to diminish intellectual capital in many cases, it is human capital that finally determines the fate of an organization.

Do you feel appreciated by your employer? I hope so, for you readers are the human capital bringing innovation and profit to your organizations. As part of the "knowledge elite," your efforts should be rewarded. Make management realize that you are not merely I.C.ing on the corporate cake, you are truly the batter itself.

frichards@designfax.net