Daily Inspiration: “It’s too late to prepare to be disrupted – you already have been!”

“It’s too late to prepare to be disrupted – you already have been!” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

The photo is from a keynote last fall for the SAP for Utilities conference – in the room were several hundred executives from the energy/utility sector. This was one of *many* talks I’ve recently done in this industry – I just headlined a similar event for Siemens in Houston, as well as a private, invitation only event for energy CEO’s in Vail for a private company, as well as several others.
The energy sector is fascinating right now, with renewables (wind, solar, bio-energy) now starting to come in at a lower cost than traditional energy sources – a trend known as ‘grid parity.’ Its happening a lot faster than people think it would.
But that’s only part of the trend – the real disruption is coming with community and local micro-grids – small energy sharing networks that allow people and companies to share the small scale energy production they have in place.
It’s a pretty significant new reality for a long established industry – that provides both a lot of opportunity and yet a great degree of challenge.
The quote is a reality of the state of change in many other industries as well – retail, for example, has been forever changed by Amazon and e-commerce; transportation has been disrupted by electric vehicles and self-driving autonomous technology trends; agriculture by big data and analytics.  Everywhere we look, disruption is real, it’s significant, and it’s happening faster than people think!