I offer a Theory of Intangible Capital, a conceptual framework that includes brand as well as other internally grown unaccounted assets that don’t appear on the balance sheet but are reliable drivers of corporate value. Intangible capital is about understanding how intangible assets that you manage fit into the big picture of the total market value of the company.

It is not news that the US labor market is very tight. That is, with the unemployment rate near historic lows, employers are facing significant recruitment and retention difficulties. What is less known is that the labor market is tighter for blue-collar and manual services jobs than for the highly educated white-collar jobs. The exact opposite of prevailing trends in recent decades.

The Conference Board Salary Increase Budget Survey, which was just released this week, provides a unique explanation for why wages have been accelerating more modestly than many analysts have expected in recent years: Employers have been slow to raise salary structures in their companies. So, while wages for new hires have been accelerating since 2011, salary increase budgets are holding back overall wage growth.

We need a new conceptual model that incorporates the idea that intangible assets directly connect to business strategy. That way, they can financially impact both revenue growth and shareholder value. After all, a company develops its brand to improve its bottom line because consumers prefer to purchase from companies they know and favor. The same holds true for investors who buy the stock of companies they know and trust.

Developing compelling strategic communications is essential to successfully creating and implementing strategy across the enterprise—but it also touches the preparation of annual leadership team and shareholder meetings, large M&A deals, investor roadshows, divestitures, reorganizations, and a host of other high value, high stakes strategic events. It is present at every moment when you need to move an organization forward.

The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine™ (HWOL) Index has been declining for much of 2019, indicating a slowdown in employment growth. While the HWOL index is certainly weakening, it is nowhere near recession territory. The current decline is about the same as the slowdown in 2015-2016, but much smaller than that of the Great Recession.