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What is your ROT, "return on talent?"

Pssst. Want to make a bundle?

In its latest issue, Rotman Magazine, the Rotman School of Management's award winning quarterly publication, tackles a number of themes related to the future of capital. There is, in particular, an outstanding piece on expanding financial performance measurements to capture the wealth creating asset too commonly ignored by traditional accounting - talent:

WE WOULD LIKE TO PROPOSE A SOMEWHATRADICAL IDEA: that companies redesign their internal financial performance measurements for the digital age. It is time for organizations to take measure of the real engines of wealth creation in the 21st century: the knowledge, relationships, reputations and other ‘intangibles’ created by talented people. Companies create wealth by converting these raw intangibles into the institutional skills, patents, brands, software, customer bases, intellectual capital, and networks that increase profits per employee and returns on invested capital. Intangibles are true ‘capital’ in the sense that they produce real cash returns....

Why, then – despite evidence that intangibles are the source of wealth in the 21stcentury – do companies tightly control discretionary spending on these assets? Why are advertising, R&D, new product development, training and development and knowledge creation almost always expensed on a ‘what-we-can-afford’ basis?

"Financial Performance Measurementfor the 21stCentury" is highly recommended if you get the time.

X-Prize for health care reform?

The X Prize Foundation, the outfit currently offering a prize for revolutionary breakthroughs in auto fuel economy and commercial space exploration, is considering offering a prize for health care reform as well.

MBA in "innovation leadership"?

Stanford's D.School is famous for bringing design thinking to business strategy. This new MBA in technology and Innovation Leadership promises to teach, among other things, the economics of technology change.

Kentucky Space on WEKU radio

Kentucky may soon fly its own spacecraft. WEKU devoted some radio time to a piece on Kentucky Space yesterday. Click here to stream it.

Wayne

Kentucky changing the game in Education

Gov. Beshear was in Lexington yesterday to announce significant educational grants targeting science and student development in the commonwealth.

A grant from the National Science Foundation, "which totals $12.5 million over five years, will fund university research in three key technological areas: biotechnology, nanotechnology and cybertechnologies," according to a University of Kentucky story this morning. The state will add an additional $5 million to that total.

A second grant totaling $2.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education will go to AdvanceKentucky, which is implementing a proven concept to expand the number of Kentucky high schools students enrolled in demanding math, science and English Advanced Placement (AP) courses. The money will be added to $13.2 million already allocated over six years.

AdvanceKentucky is affiliated with the National Math and Science Initiative.

The $2.1 million will enable another six schools to participate in the AdvanceKentucky program, which is currently providing support to 12 schools. The program hopes to serve ninety high schools statewide by 2012.

Innovation Principles: You are what you focus on

Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans, was a guest speaker at the recent Detroit National Association of Seed and Venture Funds conference, and he spoke on his experience in leading an innovation-based company. According to Dan, the Quicken Loans corporate culture is one of innovation and constant improvement. Here are a few of Dan’s philosophies (paraphrased) under which the company operates and which are enforced on the job daily to create an atmosphere of innovation and constant improvement. I encourage everyone to incorporate these principles as a means to be more efficient, particularly in times of economic downturn.

1. Innovation is rewarded. Execution is worshipped. Employees are strongly encouraged to make suggestions on how to improve the company or process improvement ideas. Employees are rewarded for their innovation.

2. Obsessed with finding a better way. Everyone in the company is encouraged to e-mail the CEO at any time with problems and potential solutions to the problems. “What you focus on, you become.” The CEO is encouraged to consider and implement employee solutions.

Choosing investment priorities

Data uploaded to the public data site, Swivel, whose mission is to improve our "numeracy." If true, this graph makes a point about investment priorities that's hard to miss.

Plug-in Hybrid Cars could reshape how consumers think of energy

What is the total cost of getting 106 miles to the gallon?

Taking auto hybrid technology one more step, plug-in hybrids cars could also change how people think about electricity and energy consumption, according to Alan Boyle at MSNBC. In one project, the U.S. Department of Energy is studying the total cost of PHEV technology by monitoring a small fleet of such vehicles belonging to a Seattle-based municipal utility.

Creativity loves constraints: Resource development

Creativity loves constraints. The IBM-sponsored blog Global Innovation Outlook notes how Singapore, a tiny city-state with absolutely no freshwater resources whatsoever has nonetheless managed to thrive as a "hydro-hub" of the world, boasting "some of the most sophisticated technologies and systems designed to collect, treat, and reuse water supplies."

Today, through a so-called 'four-tap' approach, Singapore boasts sufficient water supplies for its more-than 4 million citizens and multi-billion-dollar industries. It uses a water catchment system that collects rainwater from nearly half the land area of the island, recycling facilities that produce NEWater (a branded product for both potable and industrial use), some of the largest desalination plants in the world, and a continuing but diminishing import strategy from its neighboring Malaysia.

The lesson for Kentucky? Resource development sometimes has little to do with the resource. It has much to do with how you think about the resource.

Tales of money making and venture vanishing

What makes for a great business read?

New York Times business writer Joe Nocera recently offered this list of the top fiction and nonfiction in business writing. In this case "nonfiction" means gripping narratives of great businesses won and lost, and profiles of business titans, not business how-to's. A brief look through the list turned up some tales applicable to recent Wall Street melt down.