In the current global era, work on a project can be started by one part of a team in Singapore in the afternoon, continued in Paris in the morning on Paris time with other team members, with feedback coming from New York by the close of business that same day from "community of practice" network members, or even a customer. The threads of knowledge and communication know no boundaries. There is no reason not to capture the opportunity for a truly global, seamless wealth creation process.

Technology, in the form of teleconferencing, allows everyone to be in the room at the same time or to participate asynchronously. Spaces for teleconferencing can be designed so that participants actually experience their colleagues as being on the other side of the same table they are sitting at, even if they are on the other side of the world.

At the same time, e-learning, or distance learning, has broken down time and distance barriers. Monies that were spent on travel and class­room instruction can instead be put to individual laptops, continuous updating of content offerings, and technology infrastructure that a staff person can link to in Japan, Paraguay, or Nairobi with equal ease. The more expensive face-to-face learning can then be targeted to specific strategic sessions that require a much richer set of interactions and relationships. Learning and communication can become frictionless if the relationships are sound and the context for action is robust.

PREPARING FOR THE NEW GLOBALISM

Operating in the new global context requires appropriately preparing for it. The technology may enable communications, but that technology does not determine the quality or effectiveness of the communications. The ease of the network can be deceptive. If there is not a good understanding of the culture and respect for the diversity of values of the members of the network, the grand promise of the new globalism can turn into a quagmire.

Operating in the global environment means that both managers and team members who are bringing their intellectual capital to bear must learn to deal -with the social complexity of their far more open workspace.

THE GLOBAL DIMENSION

Robert Johansen and Rob Swigart of the Institute for the Future have seen that misunderstandings based on incorrect assumptions lead to costly, frustrating work situations too often:

"In spite of the growing necessity for cross-cultural co-operation on projects, an increased openness to cultural variables inbusiness, specific approaches to working across cultures are haphazard in most companies. Most companies today provide cross-cultural training only if an employee will be living abroad as part of an assignment. Typically, people working on cross-cultural teams are given no training whatsoever." Relationships as well as the technology permit knowledge to flow globally.

KNOWLEDGE: A GLOBAL PRODUCT

Knowledge products are a growing share of the total trade in the new global economy. Not only are organizations creating knowledge within their own extended enterprise networks for specific product development, but a sizeable amount of trade consists of knowledge transfer per se. According to Mary O'Hara Devereaux and Robert Johansen, "manufacturers are finding that it is more efficient to transfer ideas and have foreign nationals produce the goods and services as close to the local markets as possible." As knowledge moves across borders, instead of goods and services, it requires that enterprises learn how to manage their intellectual property portfolios, determine what elements of their R&D operations they want to keep where, and understand their entire business processes, so that they can translate them into the multiple cultural environments where they will be deployed.

On the other side of the coin, organizations must learn how best to seek out and accept new learnings as they become available on the global scene. Competition is no longer local. Competition can come from anywhere and any other industry in an increasingly unpredictable fashion. Enterprises need to be aware of opportunities and relationships that will be to their advantage and be able to act on them quickly. The stable, predictable, protected environment no longer exists. Again, being able to be agile, open, and responsive is part of the intellectual capital that must be actively and ongoingly cultivated.

PROTECTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN A BORDERLESS WORLD

Uncertainty and unpredictability are the enemies in intellectual prop­erty. Yet those conditions are embedded in the foundation of the new globalism. As the Brookings Institution Task Force on Intangibles noted:

"Once an intangible good has been defined by the law as a piece of property, and the rights associated -with that property have been delimited, it becomes easier to estimate a value associated with those property rights and to sell, or transfer, or enter into other transactions involving that piece of property ... Anything that increases certainty or clarity in laws that determine the scope, nature and enforceability of intellectual property rights should make it easier to assign a value to the intellectual asset in question."

When patent, copyright, or trademark laws in one country are at variance with similar laws of other countries, the rights of an owner can be compromised and value diminished. The implications of that are that the owner of a piece of intellectual property may be reluctant to license that property or allow knowledge transfers outside the home country. The risk of unauthorized use or piracy may not be worth it.

For some countries, particularly developing countries, there may not be an incentive to protect intellectual property. It may simply not be financially advantageous to pay for patented or copyrighted materials. However, as a country emerges as a significant economy and tries to be a substantial trading partner, disregarding intellectual property rights may come to bring too heavy a price. Companies in countries with advanced technologies may become reluctant to allow their valuable intellectual content to be made available or supported in violating countries. Additionally, inadequate intellectual property protection may be a serious disincentive for investment.

Another strategy in a world where intellectual property is not adequately protected is not to make that material available at all. A number of companies are deciding that instead of patenting, they are keeping their intellectual property as trade secrets.

The Berne Convention on copyrights established minimum standards for signatory nations that provided a great degree of certainty and stability for intellectual property covered by copyright protection. Patents, trademarks, and trade secrets have been significantly more difficult to harmonize across borders. There is a good amount of discussion and the beginnings of a movement to "create an international patent system to extend the territoriality of patent rights in the global marketplace."7 As the costs of filing and maintaining patents become too great to do business in various countries, the European Union and other regional bodies may become active participants in co-operating to bring such an agreement in place.

As a way to protect trademarks, the Brookings Task Force recom­mended the development of a centralized international registration system. Currently, anyone, in any jurisdiction, can replicate a trade­mark or domain name on the Internet, both of which are essential aspects of a brand. The Internet trademark protection system would provide for registration for Internet trademarks and adjudicate all related disputes.

The question is how to reconcile the rights of ownership to patents, trademarks, and copyrights with such a set of volatile conditions.

CHANGING TO CONFRONT THE GLOBAL THREAT

While the new globalism opens the world for trade and individual opportunity, it also has created unprecedented optionsfor international crime and even terrorism. The same Internet that carries the Bloomberg Market Minute also enables instant illegal money transfers, theft of materials that endanger national security, and provides a network for drug consortia and international terrorist groups.

Over the past decade, the United States Federal Bureau of Investi­gation (TBI) has recognized that crime not only is a domestic problem but has strong international origins as well. The FBI has revamped itself to create a global presence, and also has developed partnering relation­ships with both the US Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of State. This major change demands the development of the intellec­tual capital to effectively operate in a far broader landscape.