Talk:Intangibles

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Re: Intangibles

Article is essay and/or original research. rhyax 09:56, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. (see below) &mdash;Rory &#9786; 11:45, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: It is original research. One is tempted to think it's nonsense, but it isn't.  Seems to be the original thinking of a non-native English speaker who dislikes personnel being treated this-a-way. Geogre 12:37, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. So its my first time contributing to wikipedia or is this a closed shop. Sure we can edit it down. Its a summary of 5 years of work on interviewing people what intangibles are and why they impact so much value in the networked world. The cat was let out of the bag on this in 2000 when the original research on the intangibles crisis was published as unseen wealth by Brookings and the European Union at http://www.euintangibles.net. Both institutes predicted these measurement problems are not new but have creeped on us as the industrial economy change to service chnage to knowledge but people were still treated as if they should not make a difference. Read also the 1.5 million interviews Gallup have done on how disengaged people feel when organsiations are still run as if machines were far more valuable than people. The perspective I have summarised also includes 21 years of conversation on how networking changes human opportunities to learn and work which I have discussed with everyone who shares the same curiosity. Could you give me an example of what offends you, and then I can start editing down or up or whatever - is it style or facts you are voting me down on?
 * Note: The above was posted by 195.92.67.70. Livajo 18:48, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * It's not style. It's not whether these are good ideas. The issue is whether this article is a) a description of the standard, accepted way in which intangibles are treated by economics or by corporate accounts&mdash;a description which could be backed up by citing e.g. textbook passages; or whether it is b) an essay suggesting that corporations are not treating intangibles properly and advocating some change in how they do it. If b it is not acceptable for Wikipedia, according to well-established policy noted by Livajo below. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:34, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Original research; see No original research Livajo 18:48, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep - The difficultly of accounting for intangible assets is well enough known, and I think this could actually be a start of some sort. Could also expanded to include some of the philosophy of intangible vs tangible more generally. Could probably use some of the general ideas from Human capital as well, or perhaps the human capital articles needs some of these ideas (briefly mentioned!).  Serious POV problems though, send to cleanup. - RedWordSmith 19:39, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * -sure - there are a lot of capital terms that need continuous clean up - as a volunteer editor for the last 3 years of the 5000 virtual community of the EU's www.knowledgeboard.com I try to link conversations on all the capital terms that professions & academics have spawned - human capital, social capital, intellectual capital, intellectual capital of nations etc- to value these in a relationship map (intnagibles system) we need to see these are all interconnected- interdisciplinary connectivity of a living system kind is much simpler to picture than to describe in words, but unless we try to make a start, your encyclopeadia wont help disciplines link together- a value that the intangibles communities of practice I belong try to link
 * Delete, unless a heavy cleanup performed. Term is known, but article is "original research", rather than description of the commonly accepted usage of the term. Mikkalai 22:35, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, original research or essay. One dictionary definition of intangible is "an asset that cannot be perceived by the senses." The article is clearly talking about intangibles in this sense. So far, so good. However, it quickly goes off the rails into original research and POV territory; for example, "the way to map intangibles is to start drawing a networked map of how relationships of productivity and demand spin multiplicatively around an organisation's unique context." I think this is the author's original suggestion of how to approach the problem, not a textbook description of a standard way of doing so. It is not about intangibles in general. It is an argument that corporations are currently not valuing intangibles properly, and that this improper valuation has had certain consequences. As such, it is not encyclopedic. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:29, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The stub is pretty useless for exploring how over half of all value in the world (see the Communal Intangibles Compass ) is now produced through human relationship connections now that we have service, knowledge workers and networkers and not only machine age hierarchy as systems to link into organsiation and demands to integrate from customers, societies locally and globally as well as of employees and owners. Regarding writing good articles around books considerMapping Intangible Assets introduces a simple new tool for helping organizations map the things they do—and the relationships they create along the way—to pinpoint what’s working, what could work, and what isn’t working. It helps companies discover the value of the people, knowledge, networks, culture, behaviors, brands, communities, and learning that form the basis of today’s value measurement.
 * I've rewritten this into a stub, all entries above relate to the old version. Please review. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 01:43, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * I still think it needs to mention who uses the term and in what context, but it has escaped my delete vote at least. Keep new version. &mdash;Rory &#9786; 01:47, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Now it is really just a dictdif. Maybe forward to Wiktionary. I agree that a good Wikipedia article could be written on intangibles, giving history of the word and concept use of it and claimed abuse of it and so forth. But it wouldn't need this dicdef to start it. Jallan 01:56, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Agree with Jallan that the revised version is essentially a dicdef. The old version was a worthwhile topic but read like original research.  A very good article could be written based on the work of Low and Kalafut - Invisible Advantage.  No vote yet.  Rossami 03:13, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, do not transwiki to Wiktionary. Original version was original research, revised version is a dicdef but not accurate. If I'm not mistaken, "intangibles" is much broader than qualities in an individual or group of individuals. Wile E. Heresiarch 08:49, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * The book cited has an Amazon sales rank of 2,402,151. It turns up 266 Google hits, but almost all of these are simply to places to buy it. It is by a legitimate publisher (Wiley) which has high standards and a publisher academic textbooks. Is this an important book? Can you tell us more about it? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 11:46, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well that's quite a good advance sales rank! The book is now in its 5th year of gestation because the journalist who is editing it is 18 months behind hand. I am the books mathematician and it connects my 3 previous valuation works on brand and networks and learning organsiation's value systems. The 3rd co-author is a retired partner in accenture but one who comes from the perspective of organisations can best connect human productivity by helping make emeployees self-confident as well as focused not by just throwing technology in. The book's word .doc version will finally be with the publisher by the end of this month. Happy to share it with serious subject reviwers of intangibles. A blog discussing chapter by chapter is here I dont know how many of you are aware of where the constructs of knowledge worker (Drucker) and telecommuting (my father norman macrae) came from. They are shocked about how organsiations are not linking the best of technology and the best of people transparently- see eg Csikszentmihalyi -one of Drucker's leading alumni for what really makes people productive in organisations.


 * I'm willing to take a look at the word .doc version. My email address is dpbsmith@world.std.com . I have no competence in economics or accounting but I do have an undergraduate degree in mathematics. I would be looking at it to see whether the book contains material that could be reshaped into a suitable Wikipedia article on economic valuation of intangibles. The big question is whether the book includes material in it that gives a good survey of the traditional ways in which this valuation is performed. I want to be very clear on several points:
 * Wikipedia is not a vehicle for publishing or promoting new work. The article has to be primarily about established, accepted methodology. It is probably acceptable to mention the mapping methodology briefly in order to define or explain it, but it cannot be the subject of the article.
 * Anything included in Wikipedia has to be released under the GFDL, of course.
 * Wikipedia is not a promotional vehicle. Assuming that the rest of the article was good and was not simply a promotion for the methodology described in the book, it would probably be reasonable to mention the book in a "References" section. But the article cannot give the appearance of being a thinly disguised ad for the book.
 * Alternatively, maybe you can get your "journalist who is editing it" to help with writing a Wikipedia article. Again, I have to note that the main problem article you submitted is content. What I think we need is an article that surveys the issue of valuation of intangibles. The quality of the English writing in a Wikipedia article does need to be good enough for the meaning to be clear to someone who is not an expert in the subject matter. Many people here are willing to help with copyediting, spelling, grammar, etc. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:25, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well there's also another issue that comes up in such a heavy hyperliked or living document. Intangibles to be valued wholly need to build on many other constructs (so I now see they are a defintion that comes last not first in the way you explore meaning). Trying to find which of these sub-constructs exist within your accepted clusters of vocabulary will take someone like me who is new to wikin quite a lot of searching. It would be good of course to build on ones like Trust which I am sure you already have an encyclopaedic view of because almost everyone who has advocated merits in networking and worldwide has called for deeper understanding of relationship trust - your editors here might help if they have favourites but Francis Fukuyama, Manuel Castells. are two I see you already attend to. At the same time even fairly dipstick searches show there are some extraordinary gaps in the history of learning organisation understanding from a human system viewpoint. Do you have a chief human organsiation editor as well as chief technology editors?
 * No. However there is a thing called wikiproject, used primarily to coordinate and unify efforts in a particular area or knowledge. As soon as you understand the principles of creating wikipedia articles, we will oonly be grald to see you as "chief" for this article. Only remember: (1) it must be clear for non-expert; (2) it must describe (not discuss) well-established, commonly agreed theories and notions. Please see also What wikipedia is not. Mikkalai 00:02, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Delete - This isn't an article nor does it reflect the supporting discussion here. - T&#949;x  &#964;  ur&#949;  20:11, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Intangible assets which is the more commonly accepted term for this area of academic study. Rossami 23:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion

Order of disambiguation terms
I think this article completely misses upon the big picture of what intangibles are all about.

Why does the article present the colloquial meaning first, then the more common uses of intangibles? It seems to me that the more direct, commonly accepted meaning of the word should be listed first, followed by the more conversational, street language. Intangibles is not primarely a sports term.

Some examples are... Research and Development - after you spent years on lab work and experiments on developing something new, where did all of the expense go? Afterall, you learned something. Work Force Know How - after you spent money on training, where did it go? Business Methodology - internal processes adn procedures on how to do something Franchise - there is a value to doing things repeatable. This is why people buy franchises. Intellectual Property - patents and trade secrets Brands and Trademarks - Coca-Cola and Walmart will certainly tell you Copyrights Goodwill

The sports example is only a small subset to the big picture. Aren't sports or office intangibles like team spirit, sportsmanship, and morale just part of this list?

Kgrr 21:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm adding this material back in:

It has been argued that in the context of practical decisions for business or government there are no "intangibles" if the word is meant to mean "immeasurable". Douglas W. Hubbard, the author of the book "How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business" shows how anything normally labeled an intangible can, in fact, be measured and monetized in a practical and economical way. He developed a method called applied information economics to quantify uncertainty and identify measurements for any type of variable in a decision, even those thought to be immeasurable.


 * I'll let someone else decide to add the above paragraph back in. If I add it, it will simply be dismissed as COI.  So, instead, I'll just make a case here in discussion why someone else should include it.  I argue in my book in a very practical way that there are no real "intangibles" in busienss.  If it has value at all, it has an observable effect of some kind.  If the effect cannot be detected in any way - directly or indirectly - then it cannot possibly have bearing on the organization. I argue that everything an organization thinks of as intangible is just a measurement problem they don't yet realize has a solution.  If someone gets the book (mentioned above) they can see the rest of the argument with detailed examples.  If that convinces someone, then they should add all this back in.  It is, after all, consistent with many of the articles about various concepts and methods to include some sort of "criticisms" section.  This would be a way to balance out the concept by acknowledging that there are many people who doubt whether intangibles are real or even releveant.  ThanksHubbardaie 20:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Not a disambiguation page
This page is violating nearly every rule of WP:D3 and I cannot find other articles that are possibly confused with this one article name in order for it to truly disambiguate. Therefore I am moving it to a stub to be modified into a useful article or possibly proposed for deletion by someone else. &sect; Music Sorter &sect;  (talk) 05:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Duplicates Intangible asset
This article duplicates Intangible asset. I propose that it should simply redirect to intangible asset as "Intangibles" is used as a synonym by accountants and describes precisely the same thing.

Shaun Steenkamp (talk) 14:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I was going to propose a merge but I think this article is more general than the bookkeeping, accounting perspective and it may have a useful independent purpose. Joja  lozzo  01:56, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that "Intangibles" could refer to quite a few different areas. Maybe it should be replaced with a disambiguation page? As it stands right now it is duplicating a large amount of information from the Intangible asset article, which is something specific to accounting. Shaun Steenkamp (talk) 11:02, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * There is some discussion of its use as a disambiguation page above, though it was in a different incarnation then I think. We'd need to review WP:D3 before going in that direction. Joja  lozzo  14:39, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I have had a go at setting up a disambiguation page for intangibles in my sandbox. We'll just need to go through the pages that link to intangibles and see if any of them specifically refer to this page for the content it currently has. Shaun Steenkamp (talk) 21:25, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * @Shaun: I'm good with your dab page. The bits you've left out look like they're OR anyway. Be bold and make it happen.
 * Is there anything we'd want to move over to Intangible asset? I don't think so. Joja  lozzo  22:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll copy it over. I'm also working on the Intangible asset page, which is why this page came to my attention. Everything that relates to intangibles as an asset class in accounting is already covered on the Intangible asset page. Shaun Steenkamp (talk) 02:55, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with the merge. This page is a mess, and the only well-specified topic referenced is the one treated at intangible asset.  Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so there is no need to treat every possible sense of the word "intangible". --Trovatore (talk) 22:11, 20 December 2012 (UTC)