In another post, I put up the graphic above as an approach to assessing different projects within a porfolio and understanding the overall ‘balance’.  The projects here represent a company that is sticking pretty close to home in terms of what it does but is expending significant money in trying to develop technology led approaches to their market (the diameter of the circle represents the money committed to the project).

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People often forget that the reason you try to understand what you are currently doing in R&D is so you can make better decisions in future. Representing projects graphically allows you to understand the portfolio at a higher level and is ideal for the senior management team when they are contemplating where they are compared to where they are trying to get to. There are a couple of other blogs about this but I was too tired to put in these final diagrams. Again, there’s no right or wrong – just different ways of viewing what you have. I think they’re pretty self-explanatory. I’d write more but there’s a guy playing his i-Pod so loud I could sing along and I’m just off to garrott him with his own headphone cable. If there are no more posts – please come visit me in prison.    more »

Something is a specialist skill that only a few people can do and gradually it becomes more widely available, cheaper and easier to use (no punchcards in computers now - only blue screens of death and sanctimonious Mac users to deal with). This article talks about the inexorable march of technologies and produsts from high cost, scarcities to being cheap and on your desktop etc.
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Here are the signs of how to spot if you are talking to a startup company that is doomed. Might be a bit harsh and an exageration but I bet I'm right almost all the time on this. Here is the first thing they say that should make you run out of the door screaming.   more »