Emergent: A knowledge discovery tool for understanding emerging industry structure

This paper presents a visual analytics tool to understand the emergence and structure of the nanotechnology industry. According to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the global nanotechnology industry is expected to grow to $1 trillion in 2010 and drive dramatic innovation and wealth creation in industries as diverse as energy, computing and biotechnology. Nanotech entrepreneurs, analysts and investors alike need tools to understand the emerging structure of the industry because firm competitive positions in the industry impact ventures' survival, growth and profitability. Particularly, nanotech ventures compete from different initial “strategic footprints” in the industry which ease or complicate entry into new growth businesses. In fact, the emergence of the nanotechnology industry is the story of interweaving with—and penetration into—different adjoining industries. Exploiting the world's largest database on consumer-focused nanotechnology products, this paper demonstrates a visual analytics tool, Emergent, that can show the emerging structure of the industry and ventures' varying strategic footprints within this forming multi-industry terrain. The tool is interactive, scalable, and adaptable to relational data from other industries. Business applications of Emergent include industry analysis, strategic planning and entrepreneurial opportunity identification.