Daily Inspiration: “Are you the Pokémon GO in the room?”

“Are you the Pokémon GO in the room?” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

‘’ We all live in Pikachu’s world! So the question becomes, what should we do on a personal level when change comes at us faster, and our world of next month might be totally different from the world that we know today?

That’s the modern day dilemma, both from a personal as well as an industry perspective. When Pokémon GO appeared in 2016, it was a massive hit and global phenomena – 750 million people joined in the craze in the early months. Yet, just as quickly, use of the game went into decline.Pokémon GO lost 79% of its players within a month, through a series of missteps, mistakes, miscues and misadventures – but also do the fickle and faddish nature of today’s consumer. It was the Rubik’s Cube of the virtual reality era! Yesterday, people were walking into traffic because of it – today, it barely registers in the global consciousness.

That could be your business strategy, your products, or your personal plan for growth. The story of how quickly Pokémon GO went from ‘hot’ to ‘not’ is a wonderful metaphor for the speed of change in today’s fast world. Product life-cycles are collapsing, particularly as they become tech-enhanced, losing relevance or functionality faster than ever. Attention spans are shorter, knowledge has a smaller shelf life, fads happen faster in todays’ world of hyper-connectivity, and the news of the moment barely lasts until the next flash hits.

A huge number of my speaking engagements are for global organizations – and specifically, CEO level leadership meetings. They are bringing me in for a talk on the key message that ‘the future belongs to those who are fast.’ They know that the struggle around speed is real, and that in order to survive and thrive, they must learn how to work and act faster. Otherwise, they might see the assumptions by which they operate today go the way of Pokémon GO tomorrow.

This particular photo is from my keynote for Nikon’s 100th anniversary gala dinner celebration in Tokyo, where I outlined strategies for coping in todays’ fast world.’’