“The future has already been invented. You just need to know where to look!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Archives for December 2017
Daily Inspiration: “Embrace the fact that you are not like other people. Don’t conform – deviate!”
“Embrace the fact that you are not like other people. Don’t conform – deviate!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
‘’ I don’t know at what point I realized that I lived in a different time zone than most people – some years ahead of others — it was probably 1982 when I sat down at a TRS-80 Model 3 computer, dialled up the modem, and connected to another world.
At that moment, everything changed.’’
Trend: Understanding, Managing and Minimizing Accelerated Risk
Being on stage in front of some of some of the world’s leading organizations and senior executives, you get the opportunity to address a lot of unique topics.
And with 25 years of doing this, I believe that I’ve highlighted trends from just about every perspective possible! Including, for example, issues involving understanding, managing and minimizing a world of accelerated risk.
So it was that I found myself on stage in front of senior corporate legal counsel for a good portion of the global Fortune 500 at two events in Chicago and Dallas last month, as the opening keynote speaker for the annual Baker McKenzie client conference.
Baker McKenzie is big – it is one of the top global legal firms, with 13,000 employees, of who 4,700 are lawyers, in 77 offices across 47 countries. The client list is simply unparalleled: I had folks from AT&T, Intel, 7-11, Citi, Bell Helicopter, BP, Ericsson, JCPenney, Allstate, JPMorgan Chase, McDonalds, GM, Hyatt, Oracle, Pizza Hut, Southwest Airlines and a few hundred more others in the rooms. (Fun fact: many of the companies at the events are included in my own client base.)
If you are going to speak to a few hundred corporate legal counsel, you’ve got to bring your “A-game.'” With that, my talk focused on 2 key issues: what comes next, and what risks come with that?
To start out, my keynote took a look at ‘25 disruptive trends,’ (a topic which has quickly became one of my most in demand speaking topics through the last year.) I took a look at the core issues leading to a faster world and massive business model disruption and change – everything from the acceleration of science, to what happens when every company becomes a software company; the impact of an increase in the number of business partnerships due to skills fragmentation, and the issues that come from the acceleration of knowledge; not to forget the hyper-connectivity that comes from the Internet of Things and the new business models that emerges a result.
Want some of this insight? Read this post on disruption – it started out as a list of ’10 Drivers of Disruption’ but has grown from there. Or book me and bring me into your organization!
I then spun these trends into the question of : what new risk is emerging in this fast paced world? The thing is, as all this change comes about, we are in an era in which organizations are faced with new risk, unforeseen risk, faster risk, more complex risk, extended risk, and the acceleration of risk!
With that, my keynote on disruption spun into these future issues of risk, such as:
- accelerated risk: simply put, as everything speeds up, risk happens faster, which leads to:
- the rapid emergence of new risk: we are in an era in which organizations are now subjected to the sudden arrival of new forms of risk which did not exist before. How do you develop a legal culture to cope with that?
- hyper-connectivity risk: the connectivity of the Internet of Things (IOT) leads to new forms of shared and hyperconnected risk.
- partnership risk: organizations are struggling with skills issues, and need to partner faster. This leads to more complex – and faster – partnerships, which leads to new forms of partnership risk
- IP risk everywhere: because everyone is becoming a software company, intellectual property (IP) issues go through the roof!
- speed risk: organizations are focused on speed – agile is the new leadership focus. But moving faster requires that they take on more risk that must be managed in new and different ways.
- role risk: the issue of speed and agility is quite contrary to the risk minimization role that most corporate counsel must manage, so there is a significant change in their role.
- regulatory risk: and then there is a regulatory mismatch – organizations are innovating in such a way that is becoming more difficult for regulatory organizations (such as the FDA and others) to understand, manage, or provide a structure for that future risk.
There was much more than I spun into the talk, but it leads to one simple conclusion – we are headed for a world of what I could call “fast legal!” Simply put, both legal firms and corporate legal counsel need to work harder to get faster. (Are they good at this? Not often. Small example: I’m frequently booked by many of the Fortune 500 companies that were in the room. Fun fact – many of them have turned my simple little 3 page speaking contract into epic legal documents that are, I suppose, legal works of art. The record is 42 pages! I refuse to sign such contracts, and they eventually come around and sign mine. Also, most can’t cut a check quick enough for my contract terms, and end up paying me by credit card!)
It was a wonderful event, and met with a great response – there was a lot of this:
But here’s a key point: this is but one example of where I’ve looked at the future of risk.
Over the years, I’ve done numerous talks that have examined the concept of the “future of risk from a variety of different perspectives:
- I led a session for a major global construction/infrastructure company that took a look at new risk issues with such things as smart highways, self-driving cars and other issue, and the risks that unfold in this new era
- I did a talk for Towers Perrin way on accelerating insurance risk, and a similar talk for the Property and Casualty Insurers Association of America
- I took a look at emerging healthcare risks as the headliner for the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management
- I was the opening keynote for a customer event for FMGlobal, a leading underwriter of insurance risk in the commercial real estate space. My talk took a look at a broad range of trends that will impact the future structure of buildings, architecture, manufacturing facilities and more – and of course, the new risk unfolding!
- I even opened the National Firefighter Apparatus Manufacturing Association annual event, which took a look at the rapid emergence of new fire risk, and how we need to plan for that in the design process of future firetrucks. Read more here!
There have been a lot more, too numerous to mention. Gosh, I even wrote an article in 2004 entitled “The Future of Risk”!
One more thing: I love Baker McKenzie, because they are an organization that walks the talk.
As a legal firm, their entire essence and core of being is to a degree, around the issue of risk. How to manage it, guard against it, follow up on it, mitigate it, and litigate it when it goes wrong. With that, what a pleasant surprise to discover that they had a fairly significant social media team — at both events. They blog, tweet, and share insight about the firm, what it is doing and what it is seeing. They obviously have to this very carefully in the context of managing the risk of the message — you live in a unique world in a professional services firm.
The fact that Baker McKenzie does this in such a substantial way blows me away. I’ve never met a professional services firm – and I’ve been booked by virtually all fo the major global ones over the last 25 years — that has such an open mindset to aligning to this fast new world.
Bottom line! Think now about the context of risk — in a world in which the future belongs to those who are fast!
Daily Inspiration: “Accelerate your creativity by focusing on successful failure!”
“Accelerate your creativity by focusing on successful failure!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
One of my favourite phrases is this: “fail fast, fail often.” It’s a great concept – let’s put it into context. This particular picture is from my opening keynote for the National Automatic Merchandising Association Coffee Tea and Water Show. The screen behind me has the results of a text message poll I just did of the audience as to what holds people back from innovation – and most have answered that it’s too risky to try new ideas.
Yet failure is an option! One of the best ways we learn is from failure. If we follow that line of thinking, the more we fail, the more we learn! So rather than viewing failure in a negative light, we should view it as one of the most positive things we can do!
Keynote Topic: “Disrupting Amazon : Accelerating Strategies for Success in the Era of Industry Transformation”
I just wrote this one up for the brochure copy for an upcoming 2018 event.
The issue of Amazon isn’t just about retail — it is about any industry with a middleman. Insurance, wealth management, finance, medical or dental care, home services and renovations. You name it. And the big question is – what are you going to do about it?
Disrupting Amazon : Accelerating Strategies for Success in the Era of Industry Transformation
Amazon is the elephant in every industry room. They will challenge and disrupt your business model, and shake your belief in the future to the core.
Why not change that before it changes you? Don’t wait for Amazon to disrupt you – disrupt yourself and disrupt Amazon first! As we witness the Amazonification of industries, deep insight into this massive-but-cheetah-like-elephant is critical, a fast strategy is required.
Futurist Jim Carroll has a key message: Don’t compete — transform! When Amazonian scale disruption occurs, you can’t hope to complete on price, the sophistication of the online interaction, or the other areas in which Amazon (and similar disruptors) clearly excel. You need a different proposition, different ideas and a different strategy. In many cases, this will come about through an implicit decision to compete based on the unique value you can bring to the relationship – service, support, personal interaction and other factors. In doing so, you specifically choose to not compete based on a race to the bottom and price.
Futurist Jim Carroll has headlined ‘Amazonificaiton strategies’ at a wide variety of corporate leadership meetings and association events in the medical, dental and veterinary industries; in the global optometric industry; in the agricultural dealer market, in the home renovation sector, and many more. He has provided deep insight on the transformative strategies and mindset that needs to be pursued.
The acceleration of disintermediation via Amazon is a cruel reality of our modern day world. Think about the business model of a a group of agricultural dealers who sell products to farmers. The simplistic view is that they buy products from the manufacturer, and then sell them to the farmer, with an obvious markup in price. Amazon could do this (and will) with a more sophisticated online system, and avoid the cost of the markup, thereby offering a lower cost alternative. How to compete? Become an invaluable partner to the farmer in terms of advice, expertise and personal support for new initiatives, products and ideas.
In the era of Amazon, you can’t hope to compete on price — because you will watch your business disappear! Futurist and innovation expert Jim Carroll outlines the key trends, strategies and opportunities to be pursued in the ear of Amazonian acceleration!
Daily Inspiration: “Face down your biggest challenges! Don’t try and avoid the things that are difficult – your focus should be to make the hard things easy!”
“Face down your biggest challenges! Don’t try and avoid the things that are difficult – your focus should be to make the hard things easy!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Sometimes you get a phrase and begin working it to turn it into something. A shoutout to my personal trainer @connie.dandy – this comment was made during a workout yesterday. I immediately grabbed my phone and typed in ‘hard is easy.’ I then began working the phrase through my mind through the day in the context of #innovation and facing the future.
There are many people who are faced with tremendous challenges, but mindset can make a difference – I’m a big believer that our attitude defines what we can accomplish. As for the routine I was supposed to be doing in the gym at that moment in time, I think Connie knows that I was pretty awesome!
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