When you are one of the world’s leading agriculture fertilizer companies and need good insight for an offsite leadership meeting on what comes next, where do you turn? Me! They brought me into a group of about 200 of their top executives, and I took them on a tour of next generation farming trends: robotics, 24 hour farming, micro-water, drone seeding and more!
Archives for March 2018
The Story Behind the Picture: “You won’t get BMW i8 quality insight on a Ford Focus budget!”
The life of a speaker is always kind of interesting, because you get approached by all kinds of people who try to convince you to fly to the other side of the world and share your insight – barely for the price of a cup of coffee!
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but over 25 years on the stage I’ve seen it all. The most common approach is when you get a client who tries you to convince you that the mere opportunity of allowing you to speak to *them* will be great for your “exposure.” Um, exposure? Excuse me, have you seen my global client list? I don’t need exposure.
It does happen all the time though. Yesterday a global luxury brand approached me ; they were having a critical leadership meeting, and wanted my insight into fast moving trends in their industry. But they couldn’t meet my fee requirements; as in many cases, I was out of fee range.
And of course, I said no. At this point in my career,I seem to be turning away 5 to 10 keynote requests *per week*. If you are a luxury brand, you stick with your value proposition!
Is this a gripe? Not at all – the situation often seems kind fo funny to me. Here you have a brand whose entire value proposition is based on the quality of the brand image, and the value of the product they deliver. High-end stuff.
So it is too with some of the leading futurists in the world. We know what’s coming next, and we can share our insight with you, but it will take an investment! (-;
Video: The Future of Retail? It’s Fast!
Do you want to book the same old boring speaker who will show up and deliver a canned message – or do you want to book someone who truly cares, and goes the extra mile? If you are like most people, you’ll do what you’ve alway done, and will end up with the same old boring, predictable, uninspiring leadership event. That’s sad.
The Admiral Beverage Group in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has booked me to come in for an upcoming leadership meeting that will focus on the future of retail, consumer behaviour and more. They join good company – organizations like Disney, The GAP and Godiva Chocolates have had me in for similar events.
To get the leadership team thinking in advance about the event, I went and filmed this little video clip about the event, trends and more. Give it a watch!
Then ask yourself – are you going to go out and book the same old boring speakers like you always do – or do you want to kick up your event a notch?
Daily Inspiration: “The best way to achieve success in the future is to actually make the effort to go there!”
“The best way to achieve success in the future is to actually make the effort to go there!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
‘’ It was pretty ironic to be doing a talk yesterday on the future of manufacturing – at the Trump Doral Resort in Miami nonetheless – at the same time that trade barriers were being put in place to try to take an industry back to where it was in the 1950’s.
What I’ve learned from 25 years on the stage is that some people will blame everyone else but themselves for their lack of success. And when failure comes, it is the fault of everyone else! The quote captures the essence of their mindset.
We live in interesting times, where some believe that with a wave of a magic wand, an entire industry can be transformed overnight and returned to its former glory.
It won’t happen like that, folks.
It will happen through constant innovation, big bold moves, skill set reinvention and challenging thinking that will – and already is — providing for significant transformation. The future of manufacturing is all about adapting to collapsing product lifecycle and reinventing products faster The connectivity and intelligence that comes to products through the Internet of things (IoT) connectivity Mass customization. Digitization, robotics and the cloud. Design based on crowd thinking. Rapid prototyping and deployment. Faster time to market. 3D printing or additive manufacturing.
My talk yesterday might have worked for some folks, and if I saved them from their thinking, I will have succeeded. But I know that there were likely others in the room who would not have liked my message – they are on the train of thought that by trying to stop the future, you can return to the past’’
Keynote: Association of Manufacturing Technology annual conference, Miami, Florida – Machining and Manufacturing in the Era of Disruption
Can you say ‘irony?’ That’s the case when I did a talk on the future of manufacturing, at the Trump Doral resort, shortly after global trade barriers were announced.
The future of manufacturing is bound up in relentlessly fast trends – 3D printing, the digitization of the factory, changes in product development, mass customization and so much more – and that’s what I covered in my talk.
I also got a little bit aggressive with the message that one can’t hope to wave a magic wand and bring the industry back to 1970, and magically return a bunch of jobs. Did the message resonate? One followup email said so: “Jim, thanks for your reality check on the future of our sector. It’s all about innovation, new ideas, new methodologies, and having the courage to align to the future rather than wishing for the past. It was SPOT ON! NEEDED!”
Daily Inspiration: “If you have an idea and I have an idea, we have two ideas. If we share those ideas, we have a movement!”
“If you have an idea and I have an idea, we have two ideas. If we share those ideas, we have a movement!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
‘’ There’s a lot going on in this picture – my opening quote that the future belongs to the fast, the client conference theme “Together we lead,” and my daily quote of the day.
They all link together. We live in a time in which new trends, issues, challenges and opportunities can come to the forefront faster than ever before. Organizations regularly book me for a keynote that puts into perspective the power of collaboration in the era of accelerating trends. And the online world gives regular individuals the power to come together to reshape the world – in ever more powerful ways.
And there is something powerful and profound going on at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
A generation that has never known a world that is not connected; that understands the importance of nuance in the era or short attention spans; and that understands the power of connected collaboration, seems to be doing something that we haven’t seen since the anti-war protests of the 1960’s.
Maybe the next generation can fix the world. Gosh knows the previous generation has certainly made a mess of things!’’
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