Professionals and sources of inspiration

Richard L. Daft

Richard L. Daft is a professor and author in the fields of organisation theory and management, and for several decades has been an important academic voice in understanding how organisations function, develop and adapt to change. He is particularly well known for books on organisation and management that have been widely used at universities and colleges internationally. Daft combines classical organisation theory with modern perspectives on innovation, technology, culture and change management, making his work highly relevant in today’s digital society.

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Daft is particularly interesting because he clearly demonstrates that organisations are not simply about structure and hierarchy, but about people, culture, communication and the ability to manage complexity. He describes how organisations must balance stable operations with innovation and development, and how leadership involves far more than control and reporting. This perspective is particularly relevant to digitalisation, where technology alone rarely solves challenges unless the organisation also develops its culture, expertise and ways of working.

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In the context of The Invisible Capital, Daft provides an important academic framework for understanding how organisations can develop their capacity for learning, collaboration and adaptation over time. His work helps explain why some organisations succeed in managing change and development, while others become trapped in silos, cumbersome processes and short-term management. Daft also emphasises the importance of leadership as the ability to create direction, meaning and effective interaction between people, which aligns closely with the project’s focus on value creation through relationships and expertise.

Thomas Hayes "Tom" Davenport, Jr.

Tom Davenport is a professor, author, and one of the most prominent voices in knowledge management, analytics, and data-driven business development. He has spent decades working on how organizations can use information, technology, and analytics to improve decision-making, innovation, and value creation. Davenport was an early proponent of how data and analytics could become a strategic competitive advantage, long before terms like artificial intelligence and big data became commonplace in public debate.

Through books such as Competing on Analytics and Working Knowledge (not available), he has shown how businesses need not only technology, but also culture, expertise and organization to succeed with digital transformation. Davenport is particularly relevant in the work on Invisible Capital because he focuses on knowledge as a strategic resource and emphasizes the importance of combining technology with human insight and experience.

His perspectives are also highly relevant to the public sector and the development of digital services. Davenport shows that data alone does not create better services or better decisions. What is crucial is how organizations manage to translate insights into action, improvement and learning over time. This connects directly to challenges related to digitalization, user understanding and implementation, which are central themes in your project.

Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond is a professor, historian and author known for his analyses of how societies develop, succeed and collapse over time. He combines perspectives from history, geography, biology and the social sciences to explain why some societies have created stable structures and sustained development, while others have stagnated or collapsed. Diamond is particularly well known for his books Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, in which he examines how technology, resources, culture and leadership influence the development of societies.

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In the work on The Invisible Capital, Diamond is particularly interesting because he looks beyond individual companies and demonstrates how long-term thinking, collaboration, knowledge and the ability to adapt are essential to sustainable development. His perspectives provide a broader understanding of how societies, organisations and economies are shaped over time, and why short-term decisions can often have significant consequences in the longer term.

Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker is considered one of the founders of modern management theory and has had an enormous influence on how organisations are managed and developed. He was among the first to place a clear focus on the knowledge worker and the importance of management as a distinct discipline. Drucker’s perspectives connect strategy, organisation and people in a way that continues to make his work relevant, and he provides an important academic foundation for understanding how value creation occurs in practice.

John Doerr

John Doerr is an investor, venture capitalist, and a key figure in the development of Silicon Valley through his work at Kleiner Perkins. He was an early investor in companies such as Google and Amazon, and is best known for popularizing the goal-setting method OKR – Objectives and Key Results. Doerr has had a major influence on how technology companies work with focus, prioritization, and execution, and his perspectives are relevant because they connect strategy, innovation, and practical leadership in a concrete and measurable way.

The book Measure What Matters has become one of the most central introductions to the OKR methodology and shows how clear goals combined with measurable results can contribute to stronger focus, better execution ability and faster innovation. Through concrete examples from companies like Google, John Doerr illustrates how clear direction and continuous follow-up can create both growth and organizational learning. In the work with digitalization and service development, the book is particularly relevant because it emphasizes the importance of connecting strategy to actual action and measurable results.

Stephen Ezell

is one of the professionals who in many ways ties together several of the major themes that ran through the seminars in both Oxford and San Francisco. He represented not only technology or innovation in the narrow sense, but a broader perspective on how society, business, research and politics are interconnected when building the competitiveness of the future.

What impressed me about Stephen Ezell was his ability to put technology into a larger context. Many people talk about innovation as if it were only about new products or rapid technological leaps, but Ezell often raised the discussion to a level where innovation was also about culture, education, collaboration, investment, public policy and long-term strategy. This fit very well with many of the reflections we worked on through the BI networks and seminars. Innovation was not presented as something isolated that happens in a single company, but as something that emerges in ecosystems where people, businesses and societies influence each other over time.

Through his work at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, he also helped to highlight how different countries compete for expertise, technology and innovation capacity. Many of the lectures and discussions at the seminars were about precisely this: why some countries and regions succeed better than others, how Silicon Valley was built over several decades, and why long-term thinking is so important if one is to develop strong professional communities and sustainable businesses.

I was also struck by how strongly service innovation was at the center of much of his work. This was not just classic industry or technology thinking. It was about how digital solutions, services and customer experiences gradually became more important driving forces in the economy. Many of us who worked with digitalization in practice – whether in aviation, the public sector, culture or international businesses – recognized much of this. Technology alone does not create value if you do not also understand people, user journeys, organization and service.

There was also something inspiring about the optimism that many of these speakers represented. Not naive optimism, but a belief that innovation can actually help solve problems, develop services and create new opportunities if you manage to combine expertise, collaboration and a willingness to think long-term. This made the seminars in both Oxford and San Francisco far more than just academic lectures. They became meeting places where you gained new perspectives on how technology, society and people develop together.

In retrospect, it is interesting to see how much of what Stephen Ezell and others discussed back then is still very relevant today. Topics such as digital transformation, global technology competition, innovation, artificial intelligence and the need for continuous transformation have only become more important. That is precisely why such professionals remain as important voices in the professional journey that eventually became part of the foundation of Invisible Capital.

Peder Inge Furseth

Peder Inge Furseth has had a very special significance in the professional journey that forms the foundation of The Invisible Capital and Value-Creating People. Some people leave a lasting impression through what they teach. Others through the way they engage with people. Peder Inge Furseth has done both.

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Through the Oxford seminars, the San Francisco seminars, the Innovation Studies at BI and a wide range of professional networking events, he has been a central driving force in building bridges between research, business, technology and people. But perhaps even more importantly, he has built bridges between people. It is a quality that is not always visible in curricula, academic titles or presentations, but one that often matters most over time.

For many, Peder Inge Furseth has been more than a lecturer. He has opened doors to professional communities, international perspectives and new ways of understanding innovation and digitalisation. He has had a rare ability to bring together people from different industries, backgrounds and levels of working life around the same table – and make everyone feel included in the conversation. That is a quality that cannot be learned through theory alone. It is about how we see and value other people.

Through the seminars in Oxford and San Francisco he did not simply create academic programmes He created meeting places. Many of the most important reflections, relationships and ideas emerged precisely because he understood that learning happens through interaction between people – in discussions after lectures, around dinner tables, in hotel lobbies, on bus journeys between company visits and through the small conversations that connect professional knowledge with experience.

It is difficult to overstate the significance these seminars had for many of those who participated. Oxford provided space for reflection, history, academic depth and broader perspectives. San Francisco and Silicon Valley opened windows onto technology, entrepreneurship, innovation and the digital society of the future. Across both environments, Peder Inge Furseth created a common thread in which theory, practice and human experience were woven together in a way that made learning come alive.

For me personally, he has been highly significant as a mentor in the field. Not through grand words or distance, but through inclusion, trust and a genuine interest in the people around him. He has had a unique ability to see people, connect people and make them feel that they belong in professional and academic environments. It is a rare quality – particularly in settings that could easily have been characterised by prestige and distance.

Many people talk about networking as something strategic. With Peder Inge Furseth, networking feels more like community. Over many years, he has built professional environments in which people learn from one another, inspire one another and develop together. It is not simply about technology or innovation in a narrow sense, but about understanding how people, culture, organisations and relationships create the foundations for development and value creation.

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What is also striking is the warmth with which he meets people. He has a calm and inclusive manner that makes people feel welcome, whether they are students, leaders, researchers or practitioners from working life. He does not come across as someone seeking to place himself above others, but as someone who genuinely wants to share knowledge, encourage curiosity and build communities around learning and

In the work on The Invisible Capital, Peder Inge Furseth therefore becomes an important part of the project’s underlying story. Not simply because he organised seminars or taught innovation, but because he represents an approach to professional learning in which people are at the centre. He demonstrates that knowledge is not primarily about titles or theories alone, but about relationships, sharing, trust and the ability to bring other people into the community.

Many of the lasting influences from Oxford, San Francisco, the Innovation Studies and the professional networks continue precisely because they were built in this way. Not as closed elite arenas, but as open learning environments where people could grow, think aloud, ask questions and develop together.

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It is difficult to think about this professional journey without also thinking about Peder Inge Furseth. He has not only shared knowledge about innovation and digitalisation. He has also demonstrated how people can create lasting value through generosity, curiosity, relationships and a genuine interest in others.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates is one of the most important figures in the history of modern technology and a central figure in the development of the digital infrastructure on which much of today’s society is built. For Magne Bjella, Bill Gates represents not only software and technology, but also an understanding of how digital platforms, standardisation and long-term technological development can transform working life, business and the public sector.

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While many associate Steve Jobs with design and products, Bill Gates represents, to a greater extent, the foundations of everyday digital life. Through Microsoft, Gates helped make computers and software accessible to millions of people around the world – at home, in schools, in businesses and across the public sector.

For Magne, this is particularly relevant because much of the digital development he later worked with at SAS, the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, Navico and Bærum Municipality was built on technologies from the Microsoft ecosystem:

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• Windows

• Office

• Outlook

• server platforms

• cloud technology

• collaboration tools

• Azure

• Microsoft-based CMS solutions

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In many ways, Microsoft became the infrastructure of the digital workplace throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

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Bill Gates founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975. Gates understood early on that software would become just as important as hardware. While many companies focused on computers themselves, Gates recognised the potential of operating systems and standardised software platforms that could be used on a very large scale.

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This became clear through the development of:

• MS-DOS

• Windows

• Word

• Excel

• PowerPoint

• the Office suite

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These tools transformed working life globally. Office work, document management, communication and presentations were digitalised on a scale the world had never previously experienced.

For Magne Bjella, this is an important part of the story of digitalisation. Microsoft made technology accessible on a large scale – not only to technology companies, but to ordinary workplaces, organisations and public institutions. This helped lay the foundations for the further development of the internet, digital services and modern ways of working.

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Bill Gates also recognised the importance of scale and platform thinking at an early stage. Microsoft did not simply develop individual products – it built ecosystems in which software, developers, hardware and users could work together. This perspective later became fundamental to cloud technology, digital platforms and modern IT architecture.

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In the work on The Invisible Capital and Value-Creating People, Bill Gates is interesting because he represents how technology can become a tool for productivity, knowledge sharing and societal development on a large scale. He demonstrated how standardised digital tools could give people new opportunities to work, collaborate and communicate across national borders.

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At the same time, Gates later became one of the world’s best-known philanthropists through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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After stepping back from his role at Microsoft, he became deeply involved in areas including:

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• global health

• vaccines

• education

• poverty reduction

• research

• climate

This is also an important part of the story of Bill Gates. He moved from being a technology entrepreneur to devoting a significant part of his wealth and influence to addressing global challenges.

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For Magne Bjella, Bill Gates therefore represents not only technology, but also long-term thinking and a belief in knowledge as a driving force for development. Gates helped build the digital foundations that later supported the growth of the internet, modern websites, digital services and cloud-based solutions.

Perhaps that is precisely why Bill Gates remains so relevant:
Because he understood that technology is not simply about machines and software – but about how people work, learn, collaborate and continue to develop society through knowledge and accessible tools.

James H. Gilmore

James H. Gilmore is an author and strategist specializing in customer experience, experience economy, and business development.

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Together with B. Joseph Pine II, he helped establish The Experience Economy as a central perspective in modern marketing and service innovation.

In his book The Experience Economy, Gilmore describes how people are increasingly seeking meaningful experiences rather than just products and services. The perspective challenged traditional economic thinking and gained great importance in the areas of service, retail, culture, tourism and digital services.

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Gilmore's work is still highly relevant today, particularly in:

• customer experience

• digital services

• service innovation

• relationship building

• personalization

• and developing strong customer and resident experiences.

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His perspectives emphasize how value is created in the encounter between people, services, and experiences — not just through technology alone.