In this conversation with Prof. Leif Edvinsson – Brain of the Year 1998 and winner of the Knowledge Management Award 2017 – I talked with him about his journey towards the fiel of knowledge management, the importance of intellectual capital in addition to financial capital and the development of future centers.

With friendly permission of Leif Edvinsson

Born 1946 in Uppsala (Sweden) / Education in Lund (Sweden) / Journey to reduce ignorance / Scholarship at University of California Berkley / Starting in a bank (1990) / Financial crisis / Joined Skandia (1992) / Paper Developing Intellectual Capital at Skandia / Value of Intangible Assets / Intellectual Capital / Metaphore of knowledge tree (see image below) / Human and Structural Capital / Function Director of Intellectual Capital / Book Intellectual Capital – Realizing your company’s true value by finding it’s hidden brainpower (1997) / Journal of Intellectual Capital / Book Corporate Longitude: what you need to know to navigate the knowledge economy (2002) / Management as navigation (position, direction, speed) / VUCA world / Phases of developing intellectual capital (Missionary, Measurement, Leadership, Technology, Capitalizing, Futurizing) / Skandia Future Center (1996) / Future Center as laboratory for organiational development / Future Center as prototyping space / Mercedes Benz Prototyping Space in Berlin / Xerox PARC / Research vs. Foresearch / Smell, music and facilitation to reduce fear / Booklet Open Futures – Operating Sytem for Future Centers (see also video Virtual Visit to 10 Future Centers) / 50 Future Centers in Japan (Wise Place) / Ikujiro Nonaka / Noboru Konno (see also presentation Future Center Initiatives in Japan, 2017) / Evolution of Management (from fruits to roots) / Future Centers & High Tech vs. High Touch / Booklet Future Center 3.0 – Creating Our Entangled Futures (2017) / Website futurecenteralliance.com / Future Center Summit (May 2018 Copenhagen) / Video Work in Progress – A Future Center Perspective (see embedded video below) / Future trends / Geopolitical shift / Shift from products to ideas (softnomics) / New currencies (e.g. blockchain) / The brain (neuroscience) / Firmamente – Theory of the firm / HAPPY FUTURE!

Video Work in Progress – A Future Center Perspective

Further Reading

Lin, C., Edvinsson, L., Stahle, P.: What National Intellectual Capital Tells. 2017.
Lin, C., Edvinsson, L., Chen, J., Beding, T.: National intellectual capital and the financial crisis in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. 2013.
Stahle, S., Stahle, P.: Towards measurment of National Intellectual Capital. 2012.
Lin, C., Edvinsson, L.: National intellectual capital: A comparison of 40 countries. 2011.
Stahle, P.: National Intellectual Capital as an Economic Driver: Perspectives on identification and measurement. 2008.

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