Rating: 
Summary: An invaluable introduction to IC Management
Review: "In 1999, CEO Magazine and Arthur Andersen hosted a roundtable luncheon for CEOs interested in discussing intellectual capital (IC) and its impact on the firm as we know it. The luncheon drew 17 CEOs representing both manufacturing and service industry companies. All were intrigued by the potential hidden value that the intellectual capital perspective suggests lies untapped within their businesses, but none knew what kinds of value they could obtain from their company's intangible assets or how they might go about it. They just knew that there was hidden value in their companies and that it was somehow wrapped up in the thoughts, skills, innovations, and abilities of their employees. They wanted to learn more about this value: how to harness it, direct it, and extract value from it. This book is written for those CEOs and for anyone else who wants to know how to extract the hidden value that resides within the firm's intellectual capital. As of this writing dozens of firms actively engage in extracting value from their IC. The people directing the activities for these firms have formed a community (called the ICM Gathering) to share their ideas and success stories. With the expectation of a very few proprietary bits of information that could be useful to competitors, these firms are willing to share their knowledge, and this book draws heavily on their experiences. The purpose of this book is to help businesses profit from one of their most important assets, their intellectual capital" (from the Introduction pp.3-4).In this context, Patrick H. Sullivan divides his book into three major parts as follows: I. The Relationship Between Intellectual Capital and Corporate Value (Chapters 1-4). In this part, he basically: * defines and discusses intellectual capital and its importance, and outlines some of the basic concepts underlying corporate value. * describes a three-dimensional IC framework that reveals the IC aspect of the firm, and outlines the four key elements of the IC framework. * discusses the kinds of value that intellectual capital provides to the firm, including direct and indirect, offensive and defensive, and internal and external value. * discusses the ways managers may determine which activities are required to produce the firm's anticipated IC value. II. Valuing Knowledge Companies (Chapters 5-7). In this part, he basically: * discusses the concepts that underlie determining the amount of value that intellectual capital has for an organization. * discusses the quantitative value of knowledge companies in two different kinds of situations: the value as a going concern (the stock market value), and the value in a merger or acquisition scenario. * discusses the following questions: When determining how much to pay for a knowledge company being acquired, how does the potential purchaser make the calculation? Is the frame of reference an accounting or financial one? Or is it an intellectual capital one? III. Managing Intellectual Capital (Chapters 8-12). In this part, he basically: * describes the key elements involved in extracting value from intellectual property, including key decisions and decision-making processes, including who is involved, what information is needed by the decision-makers, what work processes are necessary to provide this information, what databases are needed to store the information, and how each decision will be implemented. * discusses the similarities and the differences between intellectual property and intellectual asset and the implications this has for the intellectual capital management process. * describes the relationship between knowledge, knowledge types, and intellectual capital, and introduces the relationship between knowledge and profits, the concept of value creation and value extraction. * discusses management of the firm's core human capital and how they may be best employed. * identifies the steps required of companies that want to implement and intellectual capital management capability. In addition to these three parts, to reinforce the reader's knowledge, he discusses basic intelectual capital management (ICM) concepts and definitions, and provides a brief overview of the evolution of ICM as a working discipline in the appendix. I highly recommend this invaluable study to all executives and HR practitioners.
Rating: 
Summary: Good quick Introduction
Review: "In 1999, CEO Magazine and Arthur Andersen hosted a roundtable luncheon for CEOs interested in discussing intellectual capital (IC) and its impact on the firm as we know it. The luncheon drew 17 CEOs representing both manufacturing and service industry companies. All were intrigued by the potential hidden value that the intellectual capital perspective suggests lies untapped within their businesses, but none knew what kinds of value they could obtain from their company's intangible assets or how they might go about it. They just knew that there was hidden value in their companies and that it was somehow wrapped up in the thoughts, skills, innovations, and abilities of their employees. They wanted to learn more about this value: how to harness it, direct it, and extract value from it. This book is written for those CEOs and for anyone else who wants to know how to extract the hidden value that resides within the firm's intellectual capital. As of this writing dozens of firms actively engage in extracting value from their IC. The people directing the activities for these firms have formed a community (called the ICM Gathering) to share their ideas and success stories. With the expectation of a very few proprietary bits of information that could be useful to competitors, these firms are willing to share their knowledge, and this book draws heavily on their experiences. The purpose of this book is to help businesses profit from one of their most important assets, their intellectual capital" (from the Introduction pp.3-4). In this context, Patrick H. Sullivan divides his book into three major parts as follows: I. The Relationship Between Intellectual Capital and Corporate Value (Chapters 1-4). In this part, he basically: * defines and discusses intellectual capital and its importance, and outlines some of the basic concepts underlying corporate value. * describes a three-dimensional IC framework that reveals the IC aspect of the firm, and outlines the four key elements of the IC framework. * discusses the kinds of value that intellectual capital provides to the firm, including direct and indirect, offensive and defensive, and internal and external value. * discusses the ways managers may determine which activities are required to produce the firm's anticipated IC value. II. Valuing Knowledge Companies (Chapters 5-7). In this part, he basically: * discusses the concepts that underlie determining the amount of value that intellectual capital has for an organization. * discusses the quantitative value of knowledge companies in two different kinds of situations: the value as a going concern (the stock market value), and the value in a merger or acquisition scenario. * discusses the following questions: When determining how much to pay for a knowledge company being acquired, how does the potential purchaser make the calculation? Is the frame of reference an accounting or financial one? Or is it an intellectual capital one? III. Managing Intellectual Capital (Chapters 8-12). In this part, he basically: * describes the key elements involved in extracting value from intellectual property, including key decisions and decision-making processes, including who is involved, what information is needed by the decision-makers, what work processes are necessary to provide this information, what databases are needed to store the information, and how each decision will be implemented. * discusses the similarities and the differences between intellectual property and intellectual asset and the implications this has for the intellectual capital management process. * describes the relationship between knowledge, knowledge types, and intellectual capital, and introduces the relationship between knowledge and profits, the concept of value creation and value extraction. * discusses management of the firm's core human capital and how they may be best employed. * identifies the steps required of companies that want to implement and intellectual capital management capability. In addition to these three parts, to reinforce the reader's knowledge, he discusses basic intelectual capital management (ICM) concepts and definitions, and provides a brief overview of the evolution of ICM as a working discipline in the appendix. I highly recommend this invaluable study to all executives and HR practitioners.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and thought provoking
Review: An important story to tell. Pat's new book is both an eye catcher and recipe for success. "Value Driven" takes the subject matter out the hypothetical and moves it into the real world where the bottom line counts. This is definitely suggested reading for any business manager charged with the responsibility extracting maximum value from the firms intellectual assets or more broadly, intellectual capital. Written in a down-to-earth fashion, this is the first book of its kind to outline a roll-up-the-sleeves systematic approach to choosing the best options to leverage the firm's intangibles. Dr. Sullivan draws from his own experience as a leading consultant on the subject as well as that of companies who are recognized leaders in intellectual asset management. As a practitioner, I will use this book within my own firm to help guide our business leaders as they wrestle with how to better manage their IA portfolios in order to achieve maximum shareholder value. A daunting task viewed by many, managing intangibles is made workable, providing a disciplined and systematic approach is adopted as Sullivan describes in his book.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Teaching Tool within the Corporate Setting
Review: An important story to tell. Pat's new book is both an eye catcher and recipe for success. "Value Driven" takes the subject matter out the hypothetical and moves it into the real world where the bottom line counts. This is definitely suggested reading for any business manager charged with the responsibility extracting maximum value from the firms intellectual assets or more broadly, intellectual capital. Written in a down-to-earth fashion, this is the first book of its kind to outline a roll-up-the-sleeves systematic approach to choosing the best options to leverage the firm's intangibles. Dr. Sullivan draws from his own experience as a leading consultant on the subject as well as that of companies who are recognized leaders in intellectual asset management. As a practitioner, I will use this book within my own firm to help guide our business leaders as they wrestle with how to better manage their IA portfolios in order to achieve maximum shareholder value. A daunting task viewed by many, managing intangibles is made workable, providing a disciplined and systematic approach is adopted as Sullivan describes in his book.
Rating:
Summary: Non-Quantitiative & of Limited Value
Review: For individuals actually interested in quantitative measurements of intellectual property value, this book is largely a waste of time. The text is full of a lot of business school "value creation" idealism and has little practical value in my opinion. Indeed, for those really interested in valuing intellectual property and intangible assets, see the associated book by Gordon V. Smith and Russell L. Parr. This text has everything you are looking for and this book is unnecessary.
Rating:
Summary: Non-Quantitiative & of Limited Value
Review: For individuals actually interested in quantitative measurements of intellectual property value, this book is largely a waste of time. The text is full of a lot of business school "value creation" idealism and has little practical value in my opinion. Indeed, for those really interested in valuing intellectual property and intangible assets, see the associated book by Gordon V. Smith and Russell L. Parr. This text has everything you are looking for and this book is unnecessary.
Rating:
Summary: Intellectual Capital
Review: I found Dr. Sullivan's work to be an immodest dialogue of his (mostly) theoretical work that provides a somewhat weak framework for identifying and leveraging intellectual capital (IC). It provides a tangled treatment of IC yielding simplistic impracticable formulae and high-level stratification of IC concepts with very little applicable process. I'm afraid it falls short of its stated objective to offer an approach for extracting value from intellectual capital, and is not nearly as informative nor engaging as related works such as those by Thomas Stewart or Karl Erik Sveiby. -- Doug Laney, Senior Program Director, META Group
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and thought provoking
Review: I found this book to be extremely valuable in thinking about intangible assets in a new light. The use of charts and diagrams was especially helpful for me to grasp the value extraction concepts. This book will be valuable for anyone trying to realize value from the intellectual capital within their organization.
Rating:
Summary: Value Driven Intellectual Capital: How to Convert Intangible
Review: In this book, Dr. Sullivan provides valuable insight to not only identify intangible assets, but to levegage them for cash or strategic position. I have found that many theorists whose books pertaining to IP and IC offer little more than vague principles written with an exclusionary tone. This book begins with the basics, then quickly moves through detailed strategies for valuation, portfolio management and commercialization. Of particular interest to me was the chapter on human capital, focusing on employees whose ideas directly generate income for a company. This book is a must-read, and I will recommend it to my professional associates, as well as users of the Ventius on-line community for IP professionals.
Rating:
Summary: Value Driven Intellectual Capital: How to Convert Intangible
Review: In this book, Dr. Sullivan provides valuable insight to not only identify intangible assets, but to levegage them for cash or strategic position. I have found that many theorists whose books pertaining to IP and IC offer little more than vague principles written with an exclusionary tone. This book begins with the basics, then quickly moves through detailed strategies for valuation, portfolio management and commercialization. Of particular interest to me was the chapter on human capital, focusing on employees whose ideas directly generate income for a company. This book is a must-read, and I will recommend it to my professional associates, as well as users of the Ventius on-line community for IP professionals.
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