“Do you we truly appreciate just how quickly things are going to evolve?”
What should brand leaders be thinking about in terms of the velocity of change with customers and branding.
This clip takes a look at the trends impacting brands….
by JimCarroll
by JimCarroll
Innovative organizations focus upon the concept of agility: they can manage fast change, new risk, business market turmoil, staffing challenges, and market commoditization. They can do this because they are relentlessly focused on the future and the trends that will impact them.
They ensure that they innovate and adapt based on rapidly changing circumstances, on a continuous basis. Innovation isn’t just about a new product; it’s an inclusive mindset, in which everyone knows that they must stay relentlessly focused on the religion of innovation: how do we do things differently to run the business better, grow the business, and transform the business.
How do they do this? By adopting several key guiding principles that form the basis for all corporate strategy and activities going forward:
by JimCarroll
Is it time for an innovation audit within your organization? Maybe so!
After all, with rapid business model change, competitive disruption, fast paced technological developments, rapid and new branding challenges, customer churn, social networks and all kinds of other challenges! Right now, you need to make sure that you have an organization that is open to new ideas, and is thinking about innovative ways of turning challenge into opportunity.
Where do you start? Take the time to do this simple to test to determine if your organization is in the right frame of mind for remarkably new and innovative things, or whether you are stuck in a rut, unable to respond and deal with the change that is swirling around you.
Here are the signs I would watch for. If you are guilty of more than a couple of these indicators, then you’ve got an organization that has a significant change anti-virus in place:
Innovative companies act differently. In these organizations:
Every organization should work to develop innovation as a core virtue — if they don’t, they certainly won’t survive the rapid rate of change that envelops us today.
How can you do this? With some 80 keynotes under my belt through the last year, many of which have focused on instilling an innovative culture, I’ve seen some of the best and worst approaches to innovation and creativity. Analyzing what I’ve seen, I’ve come up with a quick list of 10 more things that smart, innovative organizations do to create an overall sense of innovation-purpose.
You need to do this soon. Sit back and think about how different the world is going to be five years from now — in a world of hyper-change, it will be very, very different.
Is your organization in the right frame of mind to do what needs to be done to get there?
by JimCarroll
My January / February CA Magazine article is out; entitled “Stranger than Science Fiction,” it examines a major theme that has been part of many of my keynotes throughout 2009: what happens to your industry when the pace of innovation is no longer set within the industry itself, but rather, is set by the blistering rate of change as set by Silicon Valley?
Stranger than Science Fiction
by Jim Carroll, CAMagazine
Is your industry in the midst of a transition at Silicon Valley speed? If it isn’t, it could be very soon, because I’m seeing it happen wherever I go. Take the global credit card industry. For a long time, the pace of innovation has been relatively slow and deliberate; aside from the chip found in your new credit card, it’s still been about the same old piece of plastic.
All that is about to change, because as I observed at a recent global financial conference, it is quite likely that our cellphones, BlackBerrys and iPhones will become the credit card of the not-too distant future. When you enter a store, you’ll punch a code into your iPhone to confirm the transaction, and you’ll get an instant receipt. As this transition occurs, the financial payment industry will find it has suddenly lost control of its innovation agenda. Rather than having the future figured out in boardrooms of bank towers, control will have been wrested away by someone in Silicon Valley who innovates at hyper-speed.
The trend is happening everywhere I look, even in the world of sports. I spoke to 4,000 professionals at the National Recreation and Parks Association’s annual conference in Salt Lake City. I challenged the audience – most of them responsible for civic or state recreational activities and park infrastructure – to think about the baseball bat of 2015 or 2020. From my vantage point, it’s going to look the same, but it’s likely to have a variety of sensors built into it that will provide players with instant feedback regarding the strength and accuracy of their swing; the same sensors will trigger their nearby cellphone to automatically capture a video of their time at the plate.
Retail will change at the same fast and furious pace. I’ll walk into a store, and behind the scenes, the store will recognize me through an interaction with my mobile device. That will cause a plasma TV in the corner to start displaying a customized advertisement for me based on prior shopping history, at the same time I’m zapped a coupon for a 20% discount for a few items over on aisle 12.
Farfetched? I don’t think so. Creepy? To us maybe, but perhaps not to the next generation. When we think of the strangeness of the future and our likely negative reaction to some of what might come next, we have to remember this: it’s not bad, it’s just different.
The key point is that entire industries will be swept along at a raging rate of innovation. All of a sudden, those people who have managed in-store design, layout and promotions will find their old skills don’t transfer as easily to this strange new world as the digital denizens reshape the customer experience.
Even the slow, staid senior citizen housing industry is being impacted. Five to 10 years out, we’ll have a lot of baby boomers living out their golden years in regular homes as opposed to retirement homes (simply because society won’t be able to afford it). Medical professionals will manage their care from afar using a vast array of bio-0connectivity medical devices; sensors embedded throughout the home will detect if their behaviour patterns are out of the norm and will trigger an alert. Science fiction? Research into this type of sensor-application is well underway at the University of Missouri.
Here’s a good way to think about innovating at Silicon Valley speed: in my home office, I have an MP3 player from somewhere around 1999. It can hold about three or four songs. It seemed cool at the time. Today, it’s positively a joke compared with the modern iPhone.
Could the fundamentals of your industry as quickly become something like a joke?
———
Think about this article, and then ask yourself:
Think of many more questions like that, and you’ve found countless opportunities for innovation:
by JimCarroll
I’m a big believer that many of the big transformations that will occur in the future — and which will drive new billion dollar industries — will come from innovations around solving the “big problems” that society faces.
Here’s a video clip from a recent keynote, in which I talk about what will happen in the long term care industry, as we transition to a world of home based, community oriented senior citizen care
A lot of people have convinced themselves that there aren’t a lot of growth markets out there. They don’t see what I see. Think “BIG challenges = BIG transformations = BIG opportunities!”
by JimCarroll
Early in December, I was contacted by an AP reporter who was doing a story on the key trends that would impact the economy into the future.
A brief part of my comments appeared in an article, “Crystal ball for 2010 sees changes in work, home“, that appears to have run in several hundred newspapers and Web sites over the last few weeks.
The key trend they used in this article was this:
Further adding to a nomadic work force: Many companies will look to hire employees on a contract basis, avoiding the risks and costs of full-time staff, said Jim Carroll, futurist, trends and innovations expert and author of “Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast “.
I’m a big believer that one of the key trends going forward is that we are entering the era of the permamently contracted employee. Let’s expand on that thinking a bit: here’s what the AP was originally going to run:
THE TREND: A nomadic workforce. Many people will discover that the “new economy” is going to require them to think differently about their careers, said Carroll, who predicts that people will have four or five different careers throughout their lifetime.
A lot of companies won’t be willing to hire new full-time staff, given that the cost of future severance packages and benefits can be high. But they will hire someone on a contract basis.
“So the secret to success for many people in the year to come will be shifting their mindset from ‘how do I find a job’ to ‘how do I remake myself so I can find a few good contracts,'” he said.
THE IMPACT: More people will position themselves as consultants, he said. They will abandon dead careers and pursue new ones, heading to community colleges for fast hits of knowledge, skills and career training.
This is a trend that I’ve been speaking about over the last fifteen years. This particular recession has caused it to pick up more steam than ever before — even though the recession of 2001-2002 gave it some pretty good momentum.
As more people establish careers based on a constant stream of new contracts, they’ll realize that they’ve become a personal brand. And as they get into the contract game, they’ll learn that they don’t need a resume; they need a Web site that positions their personal brand.
But wait! Personal Brand Web sites are already passe; with the explosion in mobile usage, more and more of the fast-paced organizations that are looking to hire short, sharp shocks of creative staff are likely to be searching for them on their mobile device.
How do you get a leg up in this game?
You develop an App. If you think about it, an App is a simple recognition of the fact that the iPhone Safari browser simply doesn’t work well. Make it easy for the client to find you, and you’re ahead of the game.
That’s what I’ve done with the new Jim Carroll App. I’ve been a nomadic worker for almost twenty years. I like to joke that I work really hard to not have to go and get a job. I seem to have some unique insight, and the ability to deliver that insight in a compelling fashion, such that world class organizations like the Washington Speakers Bureau and Harry Walker Agency introduce me to their clients. I’m a unique brand, and I’m continually working to evolve my brand so that it keeps up with the fast paced future. That includes making my insight and knowledge — the essence of my personal brand — easily accessible to potential clients.
The big question for you as you find yourself living an increasingly nomadic career existence is this: how do you keep your personal brand up to date, relevant, and accessible to your audience?
Welcome to the era that involves the End of the Resume, and the Rise of the Personal Brand App!
For those who have asked, my App was designed by the fine folks at iEveryWare.com. They’ve got an interesting product. Check it out!
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