Statement of Purpose
The primary purpose of this organization is to promote and foster a better understanding of (i.e. educate the general public about) how to value, trade-off, and otherwise manage time spent pursuing activities other than pecuniary or material wealth. Our aim is to recognize the limitations of money as a source of comfort, and account for real equivalent value in all of the things (including work) that money can't buy, but that make life meaningful and well worth the effort to enjoy. Our intent is to offer a basis for comparing, integrating, and balancing measures of quality-of-life with standards-of-living. We believe this is possibly enabled by introducing and explaining an Intangible Capital Value Unit (“ICVU”), that competes with, yet also complements and destigmatizes, the legitimacy of money.
One of our core operating principles is that “profit,” “success,” "growth," "prosperity," and "progress" must be (re)defined to include social values alongside economic interests. Our approach is to quantify aesthetics so that subjective preferences (or best-interests) are aligned with objective results (or best-intentions). Our aim is to empower individuals with the necessary and sufficient tools to wisely bet on the chances they take, or investments they make, in themselves. And we assume everyone’s pursuit of happiness includes: loving relationships; an honest day’s work & wage; and giving back (somehow) to a community.
The foundation for the Book of Intangibles is decades of (mostly unpublished) original notes and writings about capitalism by its President, Robert H. Kenmore, who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics ’80 from Stanford University, as well as M.B.A. ’93 and Ph.D. ’02 Degrees in Business from the University of Chicago.
The Book of Intangibles is structured as a portal through which methods to quantify intangible value as robustly as tangible value can be collected, developed, and disseminated. Our mission is to transform and broaden general perceptions about capitalism. Our vision is to significantly enhance capitalism's positive potential to combine individual(ized) professional fulfillment, actual(ized) personal satisfaction, and sustained global stability.
Through a collection of models, empirical or experimental research, mathematical and scientific algorithms, and/or functional applications, our expectation is that we may help nudge people to self-actualize, if they wish to, by sharing publicly and freely our perspective(s) on how to appraise and consolidate tangible utility with intangible value(s). Principles of business & economics, along with statistics & physics, are relied upon to rationalize healthy behaviors and overall well-being.
Validated through market-acceptance of informal and random peer-discussions, the results of our efforts are freely available on this website, for the public good, who may be interested in self-educating itself, on various practices, that have been proven to work, better than others.
This project is currently self-financed. Self-published materials are designed and meant to be non-technical self-help references (e.g. inspirational poems). In furtherance of making more capable the application of our principles, more formal self-instructional support (e.g. educational teaching & learning curricula) may one day be made available, for reference by commercial establishments, non-commercial organizations, and households of individuals.
