What kind of invisible value might you be overlooking in your organisation?
The Ideas Economy is the new way we do business. Value creation, wealth, and business reward are increasingly driven by intangible assets, such as intellectual property, creative intelligence, and human imagination. We are already seeing this eclipse that which is traditionally easier to measure — that is, through physical goods, manual service, and the like. This is great, and our economies globally typically see some mix of both ways in which we create value through business.
The interesting, sticky goo of this all is that intangible value, by its nature, can usually be quite hard to spot, and hard to articulate, let alone capture and systemise. How on earth might we be able to put a measurable value on reputation, goodwill, strong trust between parties? And then what about the value that is created from what I’ll call hygiene factors; things which prevent systemic dysfunction, toxicity, or at least slowness? And often, still, there are some things working, or not, which are instrumental to good business. If you don’t acknowledge what your actual drivers of business are, you can’t double down on them.
As humans in business, logic and methodology have taken us very far in harnessing value, and creating the wealth and business returns from it. But as our world progresses, so does its seeming complexity. We know intrinsically that good relationships are important for business. We know that being socially and culturally relevant are what increases loyalty, and therefore sales. We know it’s important to keep our employees and stakeholders happy. Great. But the things which contribute to those important things are usually not so easily found in a line-item within a spreadsheet.
Ideas Economy is your corner of the internet where we can uncover, name, and examine all those invisible dynamics which contribute to the value creation and propagation. Call it financial value, social value, relational value. It’s all value, and we can be intentional about how it’s yielded.
As a subscriber, you receive every week another parcel of insight which uncovers those systems, human dynamics, and such, which make or break value, in business and in life. With that knowledge, you equip yourself with the tools and the awareness to intentionally build the systems, communities, and lives, that you actually want to see in the world.
Expect two types of insight.
I write about the Ideas Economy from two angles:
Essays, delivered weekly, every Thursday. These explore a new invisible dynamic, and help you name all the things under the surface of what is going on.
Mental Models, delivered monthly, as quick, little, pocket-sized blueprints for decision-making.
About Rachel O’Brien, the author
MBA, BA (Design), Adv Dip (Contemporary Music).
My interest sits at the exact point where creative and relational thinking meets commercial structure. For over a decade, I’ve worked across branding, marketing, partnerships, and events — moving between luxury retail and FMCG, live music and theatre, industrial manufacturing, and arts and cultural institutions. This breadth has given me a rare fluency: the ability to identify value in ambiguity, and structure it into something clear.
My work, writing for Ideas Economy and consulting for brands and organisations, is the natural extension of this perpetual inclination to give structure, sustainability, and competitive advantage to what would otherwise be too elusive.
