Technology Strategy

There is always a debate whether one can predict the future looking at the past or whether the past simply constrains our future thinking. I think both future looking and analyzing the past are useful activities in prediction. Thinking about my career working as an engineer with mobile technology, starting in 1997 with the Motorola M301 A number of key technological elements have improved significantly over the last 15 years: Battery The m301 had a stand-by time of a few hours and talk time of about 20 min, the battery was large and heavy and had memory - charging a not-fully-discharged battery would lead to loss of performance. The official specs quoted the battery as " Included NiCad battery gives 12 hours standby or 70 minutes talktime ".  NiCad batteries soon gave way to NiMh which had twice the capacity of the Nicad. Then came the Lithium-ion which produced the same capacity with about 30% less weight. These technologies all served to increase the battery perf...

A new term that is bouncing around the start-up world, is the term "pivot" which basically means to change direction or concept. Most entrepreneurs will change their initial ideas in some way at some time - this is in general part of the process of realising an opportunity. As one starts in the quest to develop a business, all the answers cannot be known prior to starting, for if they were known it would be easy - like following a recipe. Alas for most of us this is not the case, we have some notion of what things will look like and then embark, perhaps with a degree of ignorance on a journey. Lately, I have had a number of clients or colleagues ring me up and exclaim with great exuberance, " we have pivoted !". I must say that this alarms and surprises me, changing direction should be part of the entrepreneurial process, but not an end in itself. The goal is not to pivot, the goal is to make your business a reality and if you should have t...