# Keynote Case Study: ARS: The Future Moved Faster Than Comfort.
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Jim Carroll's keynote challenged ARS's 2018 annual meeting to think beyond short-term assumptions and focus on the larger reality of acceleration: technology changes faster, expectations rise faster, and skills evolve faster. The keynote, "The Future Moved Faster Than Comfort," laid out the challenge and the path forward. The biggest risk in a period of rapid change was assuming the operating model, skills and expectations of today would remain intact. Organizations that planned around stability were planning around a false premise. Six trends are shaping that shift. Accelerating Change. The pace of technology, market and customer change was compounding, not leveling off. Organizational Agility. The ability to move quickly was becoming more valuable than the ability to plan perfectly. Continuous Skill-Building. Static skill sets were losing relevance faster than in any prior era. Rising Expectations. Member and customer expectations were rising in step with what technology made possible elsewhere. Distributed Leadership. Decisions were moving closer to the front line, faster than hierarchies could formally adapt. Future Readiness. The organizations that thrived were the ones that built the muscle of adaptation itself. You cannot slow the future down, Jim told the ARS membership. You can only build the awareness, skills and organizational agility required to move with it. Association audiences often carry decades of institutional memory — a real asset, but also a real risk if it hardens into an assumption that tomorrow will look like yesterday. Jim's challenge to ARS was to treat that memory as a foundation for agility, not a case for standing still. Explore more keynote case studies.

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Source: https://jimcarroll.com/2018/06/keynote-case-study-ars-the-future-moved-faster-than-comfort-2/