Academic start-up: Multicriteria Mapping. I'm in Poulsbo, a Norwegian settlement just across Puget Sound from Seattle, WA, USA, working (remotely) with Andy St

Academic start-up: Multicriteria Mapping. I'm in Poulsbo, a Norwegian settlement just across Puget Sound from Seattle, WA, USA, working (remotely) with Andy Stirling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Stirling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Stirling) at SPRU, University of Sussex, Brighton, England, on his Multicriteria Mapping (http://www.multicriteria-mapping.org/ http://www.multicriteria-mapping.org/) methodology and related analysis software. MCM is a hybrid qualitative/quantitative multicriteria analysis technique, (over to our colleague Molly Morgan) "which through its novel approach to discussing different options in contested areas of technology policy might be up to the task of opening up decision making and engagement methods" (from Molly's article on the Science Progress site: http://ow.ly/h6hY http://ow.ly/h6hY). Researchers use a small Java application (MC-Mapper, by another developer) to run two-hour long structured interviews with participants, and a larger Java/Python/Hibernate/MS Access/MS Excel mashup (more mish-mash, really), MCM-Analyst (by me) to prepare text reports and charts from results aggregated across the participants. As I write I'm preparing a draft Marketing Plan as part of our bid for some funding for marketing and product development: we're a startup, someday hoping to spin off into a non-profit trust to oversee the development and application of the methodology and provide tools, support and consultancy services to support its use. I'm finding David H. Bangs, Jr.'s "The Market Planning Guide" (http://ow.ly/h6hK http://ow.ly/h6hK) hugely useful: basically I'm working through it, piling it all into a ridiculously long Word document, with the next step being copying and pasting the necessary bits into what will become the Marketing Plan. This is my first time working on a proper marketing plan, having b*gger all experience in marketing beyond word-of-mouth, and this is all a... big emotional effort... I've been helped on that front by reading HN regularly. The Jython/MS Office mish-mash has got to go: we're envisaging us gradually migrating to Eclipse/RCP/Jython. Hoping (with funding) to developing a web-based service to complement the existing not-yet-Internet-enabled desktop applications. We're envisaging doing that in Django: choosing that over eg RoR because of our investment in Python. Oh, and some work here and in the UK doing web development in SilverStripe for small businesses. I find many posts on HN a fantastic source of inspiration, energy, resources, and ideas. Just great. If I'm bored, this is where I go.