Keynote: ERA Connect 2013, Austin – The Future of the Automobile and Real Estate

Jim Carroll delivered the opening keynote address at ERA Connect 2013 — the annual conference of ERA Franchise Systems — in Austin, Texas in early 2013, speaking to approximately 1,000 real estate brokers, agents, and franchise leaders. Using the rapid evolution of the automobile as a lens for understanding accelerating change across all industries, Carroll’s keynote explored how technologies that seem futuristic quickly become mundane — and then disappear entirely — in a world where the pace of innovation is relentlessly accelerating. The talk challenged ERA affiliates to recognize that the real estate transaction of 2020 would look fundamentally different from today’s — and that agents who embraced that change early would thrive while those who resisted it would find themselves left behind by a new generation of buyers, sellers, and competitors who had never known a world without instant digital information. The year-end review named ERA Connect among the standout keynote engagements of 2013.