What`s the big idea?

The issue of intellectual property is one that has come to the forefront in recent months. There appears to be a swing towards an extension of the original definition of intellectual property as an idea, concept or thing that originated from a person and therefore belongs to them. The idea of intellectual property also now relates to the business sphere and the sum total of skills and intelligence held by employees of a company, which in turn is "owned" by that company for the duration of the employment contract.

While we live in a world where it has never been easier to communicate with each other, there is now very little sharing of ideas between people.

Jill Hamlyn, MD, The People Business

New implications of the concept of intellectual property lean toward an understanding that the more skills or intelligence a company has, as measured by its employees, the better that company is and the more advantages it will have in the market.

Going back to, and in keeping with the first definition of intellectual property, the ideas, concepts, solutions, inventions, thoughts, and images generated and communicated by the components (employees) of the corporate belong to that corporate. Thus, these ideas cannot be communicated by employees outside the parameters set by the company and before such communication is sanctioned, legal steps are usually instituted in order to retain the original claim of the corporate to these ideas, as well as an intellectual claim on the person or group who came up with them.

As our society gathers its wits during the explosion of the information bomb, more and more restrictions are being imposed on knowledge generated by those running at the forefront of technological, pharmaceutical, artistic and general societal innovation. Information clusters itself into discrete components, causing default groups of knowledge "haves" versus the "have-nots".

I believe that modern society presents ironies and paradoxes. While we live in a world where it has never been easier to communicate with each other, there is now very little sharing of ideas between people. While it is tacitly accepted as one of the basic cornerstones of success in business that one should not give away competitive-advantage indiscriminately, there is often more to be gained from sharing between groups in a particular knowledge arena than from keeping information close to your chest.

Many of the great ideas of our time have followed many little ideas and hunches that have been fine-tuned through talking about them with other people. In today`s market-based economy where a good idea has the potential to earn liberal pecuniary rewards for the originator, as well as peer and media recognition, a subtle paranoia pervades that prevents people from bouncing ideas off each other.

There seems to be an encouragement of the fear that if an idea is shared, the person who originally thought of it, and by extension, the company, will somehow lose out. However, imagine how powerful we would be in a collaborative world where we are free to tap into each other as resources, and share our creativity and experience between information clusters as opposed to within them.

Collaboration is also a means of obtaining information more quickly. This could be an idea that makes many people wince and ask whether we are not suffering from information overload already. The answer to this would be yes, we are bombarded with all sorts of information from all sorts of sources. However, collaborating could mean the acquisition of the right type of information at the right time and in the right dose.

I feel there are very few truly original ideas in the world now. While many ideas are a fresh perspective on an old situation or problem, they contain lots of little bits of other people`s concepts and viewpoints which have brought these ideas to the point where they are now. They would not have reached this current point if they had not had the input of other preceding ideas.

Placing restrictions on people as intellectual property ostensibly has its roots in prudence, and contravention of the restrictions tends to bring harsh penalties with it. Moonlighting for a company, and sharing your intellectual capital, while employed by another is generally frowned upon.

Poaching is condemned. Employees who leave in order to set up their own company in competition with their former employer are not encouraged.

I perceive that it is unlikely that there will ever be a scenario in which a clear rotation of people between companies for the purpose of sharing their experience, before moving on and again ending up at their original company, takes place. However, consider that there has been a significant paradigm shift in the past few years, from staying at one company and steadily moving up the ranks until retirement, to a culture of frequently moving between jobs. The lesson there for the taking is that intellectual capital in all its forms cannot be completely restrained.

As with anything, there will be proponents and antagonists of the movement of ideas and people. The subject will be hotly debated by all who have a vested interest, and even by those who do not. Humans will continue to question the established order of things as being the best one for all concerned, and paradigms will continue to shift.