Chip Conley gives a good talk about he personally began to understand why intangible assets are an important thing for leaders to concentrate on.
There are a few things he says that I'd quibble with, but what really interests me here are two things that don't come up, but which his talk sparked:
(1) The equivalent generation to the Millenials -- the "Greatest Generation" -- were the people who took the precursor to the GDP, which was designed first as a measurement of national accounts, and then refined to manage World War II supply lines, and recast it as a country wide productivity measurement tool. "How many people don't have income or food?" is similar to "What happened to our systems: our food system? education? health system? protective services?"
So I wonder: Are we in the same historical place? Are the millenials poised to play the same role in bringing forward whatever the next measurement system will be? What WILL get us through this economic crisis? I doubt we'll pull out by looking even more critically at book value and EPS, just like I think our communities need to measure volunteerism at least as much as they need to measure household income.
(2) At the same time, many Millenials and GenX are trying to balance both the lowest and the highest of Maslow's levels: survival and self-actualization as it relates to one's community. It's transformation for extreme environments. There are many ways this is now spoken of, for example gift economy and relationship economy, but it's been around whenever there have been people who are relatively poor in increasingly oppressive environments who must help each other to survive. Just like during the depression.
The time-location similarities are really fascinating.
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