One of the problems of being asked for advice is that the recipients don’t always like what they are told. This was memorably illustrated by one of the first ever reality TV shows, Troubleshooter, featuring former ICI chairman Sir John Harvey Jones. Never afraid to give blunt advice, Harvey-Jones’ solutions to struggling businesses ranged from developing turn around plans to …
What Use Is Nanotechnology?
Technology Review, besides being a great magazine edited by Jason Pontin, who I have known since the heyday of Red Herring, also puts on some great conferences. So I was excited and honoured to be invited to EmTech Spain, a two day conference in Malaga focussing on emerging technologies. Along with my World Economic Forum colleague Javier García Martínez of …
Innovation Starvation or Risk Avoidance?
While working on our report on Using Emerging Technologies to Address Global Risks, one of my favourite SciFi authors, Neal Stephenson, popped up with an essay on Innovation Starvation. It echoes Tyler Cowen‘s arguments that all the easy big stuff has been done, and that all we have left to look forward to are incremental improvements rather than world changing …
What Happens If Your Commercial Partner Fails to Commercialise Your Technology?
Here’s a question that worries every technology transfer department and any innovative company that partners with a large multinational company – what if they mess it up or even try to kill it? The Wall Street Journal reports on a High Court action tomorrow where Ploughshare Innovations, who licence the intellectual property for the Ministry of Defence’s Porton Down Laboratory, and …
Nanotech Investing: You Can Lead A Horse to Water, But You Can’t Make It Drink
The “Ten Years of Nanotechnologies” report with the best the worst and the funniest bits of the last decade is progressing, throwing up a number of gems as we trawl the archives. Here’s what we said in January 2001: We’re going to make just one prediction, which is that the use of the word nanotechnology will see explosive growth in …
Beware The Counterfeit Investors
After a few years of being on the ‘funder’ side of the desk, I’ve vaulted across to start a new technology venture, and to begin the least pleasant part of entrepreneurship – fund raising! (Feel free to contact me once you have read what follows). There are plenty of people out there who will tell you how to make the …
RIP Charlie Harris – One Of The Good Guys of Nanotech
The world of nanotechnology is a little poorer today with the passing of Charlie Harris, founder and chairman of the publicly traded VC fund, Harris & Harris. Out of all the people buzzing around in the early days of nanotech, Charlie was one of the few people who got it, who understood that technology takes time to mature and that …
Nailing The Innovation Myths
Good to see a new report from the Judge Business School in Cambridge highlighting some of the myths about how high tech firms are created. Much of Europe tends to focus on large multi partner research schemes such as Framework 7 whereas much of business wold prefer something like the SBIR and DARPA contracts common in the US. The report …
UK Government Announces £1Billion Innovation Fund (for the fourth time)
The UK Government’s £1Bn Innovation Fund was announced for the fourth time this week (although I’m still waiting for the promised explanation from Lord Drayson). I wasn’t too impressed last time it was announced, or this time, and Mark Littlewood at Business Leaders Network is also sceptical It may well be that the money will be raised and will be …
Toto, This isn’t 1997 any more!
The Wall Street Journal points to further evidence of the collapse of Venture Capital. Typical of the doom laden quotes is this: “Dallas is an entrepreneurial city, but it won’t be driven by venture capital going forward,” said Daniel T. Owen, a venture capitalist at the 16th-floor firm H02 Partners, which plans to wind down its venture business over the next few …