May 18, 2020
The full blog post is available here.
You can reach me via twitter @mcwoods or via LinkedIn
So far, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve introduced the research roadmap process and described the first phase in detail, working out how to create a vision of the future and how global trends can affect and help predict that. In the second phase we showed how these visions of the future can be translated into open questions. We even saw how these open questions resolve themselves into three basic types of problems:
- Problems that are already solved
- Where there are one or more solutions possible
- Where there is no solution at all
In this episode we are going to cover how we structure our empirical research, our experiment designs, to address those cases where there are multiple solutions or the rare instances when there are no solutions at all. Then we are going to show how this all feeds into the research roadmap process.
April 3, 2020
In the last episode I covered how future prediction, is, to a degree, possible but I didn’t get the chance to explain how. There is, in fact, a whole industry dedicated to predicting the future. They call themselves “Futurists” or “Futurologists”. In this episode we delve into the Futurology Industry and extract the "Golden Nuggets of Awesomeness" we need. We use these to help us understand trend prediction.
Read all about the episode on the Industrial Research Blog. Including links to the H.G Wells predictions, more background on the Futurologist and links to Rohit's book "Non-Obvious Mega Trends".
March 19, 2020
Link to Additional Notes

Structuring your research is hard, working out what you should research, why and how is tough. In this episode I explore research methods, and show how you can structure your research to answer these questions. So, when boss asks “Why have you spent my money on this experiment?” you can answer with confidence.
Along the way we see how Edison structured his research, and how he addressed issues his competitor in England, Swan was suffering with.
To support this episode is long read blog post on my website, complete with a diagram explaining the research roadmap process. Please check this out. The diagram will help.
What methods and processes do you use to structure your research? – Let me know on Twitter @mcwoods.
PS: If you can hear the train the background drop me a line on Twitter @mcwoods and let me know!
March 13, 2020
There is a difference between academic and industrial research. It is not the quality of the research, good research shines wherever it is conducted, but it is the research purpose that changes. The change in purpose shapes how companies conduct research and why we in industrial research often focus on different aspects than our academic colleagues. This episode explores that change and shows how it shapes the research conducted in industry and how those research teams are structured.
There are additional details, including important diagrams and further information on this episode's Industrial Research Podcast's blog site. Please check this out for additional information.
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March 11, 2020
The Industrial Research podcast explores the tips, tricks and techniques used by software industry researchers to attempt to predict future trends, develop new ideas or concepts and validate them.
This podcast and blog series is aimed at fellow Industrial Researchers, anyone involved in corporate strategy or entrepreneurs who want to explore how technical and competitive landscapes can be understood.
This mini-series will cover the basics of Industrial Research and how it differs from academic research, right through to some core techniques which you can take away and apply to a range of research problems.
You can find more content about this episode on the Industrial Research Mini-Series Website.
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