---
title: "Keynote Case Study: BI Forum: Fast Trends Drove Disruptive Change."
canonical: https://jimcarroll.com/2017/06/keynote-case-study-bi-forum-fast-trends-drove-disruptive-change-2/
updated: 2017-06-22T13:00:00+00:00
---

# Keynote Case Study: BI Forum: Fast Trends Drove Disruptive Change.

Jim Carroll’s keynote delivered the business case for speed at the 2017 BI Forum, during a period when disruptive technologies were moving from science fiction to reality and incumbency was weakening across every industry.

The keynote, *“Fast Trends Drove Disruptive Change,”* laid out the challenge and the path forward.

![BI Forum: Fast Trends Drove Disruptive Change.](https://jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/BIForum_case_study_page_1.png)

Leaders could see dozens of disruptive trends arriving at once, but the bigger risk was slow decision-making, complacency and aggressive indecision.

![20 disruptive trends and the business case for speed](https://jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/BIForum_case_study_page_2.png)

Six trends are shaping that shift.

- **Acceleration.** The speed of technology was compressing planning horizons and increasing the cost of waiting for certainty.

- **Artificial Intelligence.** Cognitive technologies were beginning to move from research into practical business capability.

- **3D Printing.** Digital manufacturing was changing prototyping, product design and the economics of making physical things.

- **Battery Science.** Rapid progress in storage was changing the future of transportation, energy and connected devices.

- **Autonomous Systems.** Self-driving technologies signaled a broader shift toward machines that sense, decide and act.

- **Quantum + Exponential Tech.** Multiple emerging technologies were reinforcing one another, making yesterday’s impossible ideas increasingly plausible.

The most dangerous response to a fast future, Jim told the BI Forum audience, is slow thinking, slow decisions and slow action.

Business intelligence audiences tend to be comfortable with data — less comfortable with the idea that the data itself is now arriving too fast for traditional planning cycles. That tension was exactly the point of Jim’s 2017 talk. Explore more [keynote case studies](https://jimcarroll.com/tag/case-studies/).