Daily Inspiration: “Your legacy will quickly become your obituary if you don’t adapt!”

“Your legacy will quickly become your obituary if you don’t adapt!” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

“You can’t pretend you are in 1950 anymore. That decade is long gone. It’s the 21st century, and you are here in it, so you might as well join it!” That would be a good paraphrase for one story line I emphasized in my keynote in Chicago yesterday for another manufacturing oriented event.

It’s a bit of a funny industry right now. Some folks believe that if they simply assert some sort of mystic national power, time will stop, be reversed, and the industry will be returned to the ‘glory days’ as found in the years of Ozzie and Harriett. (Young folks – you’ll have to Google that LOL!) More astute, intelligent folks understand that manufacturing is quickly aligning to the massive transformation that comes from accelerated trends. The digital factory with #IoT, additive manufacturing or 3d printing, agility and flexibility, robotics and cobotics, virtual factory assembly, and so much more. Those who align to, adapt, and ingest the trends of the 21st century are those who will win.

Winning is about adapting, not w whining. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of the latter happening right now, and its sad to see folks falling for it.

As a futurist, I’m telling my audiences today exactly how it is going to turn out. I can guarantee you that 25% of the audience won’t like that part of the message. I can also guarantee you that those very same people will find their business model disrupted, their livelihood gone, and their skills and capabilities irrelevant, if they aren’t already.’’