Economic keynotes: “7 Things You Need to Do Right Now!”

I was in Louisville, Kentucky yesterday, as the closing speaker for the annual conference of the American Nursery and Landscape Association, This was a repeat booking; they had me in for a management clinic in Vail in 2006. I posted a blog entry, found below, on trends impacting commercial horticulture.

This time, I mostly focused on innovation strategies in a challenged economy. The keynote description pretty well captured the essence of my talk.

They are, in and of themselves, a very fascinating and innovative group. There is a lot of information sharing within the industry on issues of store layout and design; what works in terms of new products and lines; partnership strategies that can help improve yield within the nursery. And they’ve certainly seen a lot of the economic damage that has occurred through the last year. But overall, I found an upbeat, eager-to-keep-focused-on-the-future crowd.

And I was thrilled to have so many nice comments from people on my talk — as we all seemed to end up in the airport departing together!

Here’s the keynote description from the conference brochure:

7 Things You Need to Do Right Now to Focus on the Future!

Innovating at high velocity is vital to turning challenge into opportunity. Jim Carroll believes that organizations that focus on staying ahead of fast paced economic trends can “ride this thing out,” and can position themselves for growth. It’s a fast paced world — and that’s why leading edge organizations are focused on key leadership strategies that provide for a fast paced future.

Innovative organizations succeed by mastering the pace of the new high velocity economy. And in an era of economic challenge, they focus on discovering opportunity!

Customer retention strategies become essential, and operational and service excellence is the way to firm up revenue relationships. Watching for, and adapting to, fast-paced consumer trends is critical in order to discover fast moving retail opportunities. Aligning staff towards a common goal of collaboration and insight becomes a key method of keeping in touch with the pulse of the customer base.

In this closing keynote, noted futurist, trends & innovation expert Jim Carroll will challenge you to focus on the opportunities of today and tomorrow, rather than the challenges of the past. Jim will provide an outline of how the economy will evolve from this point out — and how we should be planning and acting in order to innovate ahead of fast-paced events. He’ll provide us a look at “what comes next, and what we should do about it.”

Jim’s client list includes the BBC, the Walt Disney Corporation, and Readers Digest Food & Entertainment group, the publisher of Everyday with Rachel Ray.

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2006 posting Trends Shaping the Future of Commercial Horticulture

Read 7 Things to Do Right Now as the Upturn Begins