What Next?

What will be interesting to sort out over the next several quarters will be where companies and investors are going to place their bets. What markets to enter or remain or exit; technologies to promote or hold onto or destroy; apps to develop or support or shun; people to follow, hire or fire, ideas to embrace or run away from?

Lots of decisions to be made with no real clear answers right now. One thing to be sure of is that the assumptions have all changed and many a smart thinker finds his or herself up against the biggest set of decisions they will likely make in recent and likely future times.

Our (not so) esteemed political figures, policy people and other "impartial participants" in the US seem hell bent on papering over inefficiency by promising help for bad decisions, poor assessments of risk/return, and unrealistic growth projections to go along with the inevitable success and failure that commerce creates. These actions deny all of us the means to do our jobs be that in analytical, strategic, financial or marketing functions. Businesses exist to create returns for their shareholders and investors through providing products and services that customers find useful in some capacity. Some of us agree with that thought. Others believe that businesses and industries can and should operate to provide employment, benefits, tax revenue and political support in the form of donations and votes.

As we look ahead to the coming months we can expect to see an increasing debate on who deserves subsidy, a hand out or a hand up. Clearly our thinking here is that a free market will solve its own problems and allow the best and brightest (or perhaps the boldest) to succeed or fail on their own merits. That philosophy does not appear to extend to various government and policy people who think centralized planning and government leadership is the way forward as is redistribution of wealth while enforcing selective risk arbitrage.

For anyone involved with emerging technology be that solar, consumer electronics, conductive inks, or OLED lighting your life is now far more complicated due not only to financial risk but also the almost certain negative impact of interference in the market. Some firms are favored simply due to politics while others are forced to endure having the markets you were supposed to one day dominate either delayed or even destroyed due to interference. Some firms who rode cheap and easy credit spending to the front of the line are going to find far less demand for their product than they expected. Others are going to discover that the risk factors for their business make them unattractive for investors through no fault of their own.

What matters now is what companies decide to do next. Clearly the monetary and fiscal policies of the past several years (and likely going forward) mean that commerce, innovation, risk and demand are going to be seriously out of whack. That's not to say that businesses cannot grow in recessionary times or at least position themselves for when times improve because they can. In addition to acquisition opportunities there are markets worth playing for.

From our side NanoMarkets will be directing some of its attention from research and analysis of longer term trends and opportunities to more near term issues facing the markets we cover. We will be introducing new service offerings that offer quarterly market updates as well as providing revised versions of our reports as needed. The focus of our research will move to encompass more business, economic and financial issues to go along with our technology and market analysis. Expect to see more scenario planning in our reports as well since uncertain times make for less certain outcomes.

I still consider this an exciting time even if important elements of the stories have now changed. Whatever consensus existed even six months ago is gone replaced by a lot of uncertainty, fear, gloom and to some extent, outrage.

Anyone working in emerging tech now has to arrive at new assumptions and strategies to move forward. Rather obvious on the face of it but what the answers are remain to be seen.