Get inspired with this assortment of clips from keynotes on the stage…
Archives for October 2019
Daily Inspiration: “Your moment of opportunity might be happening right now. Will your pursue it?”
“Your moment of opportunity might be happening right now. Will you pursue it?” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Timing matters – if you are in the right place at the right time, opportunity might fall into your lap.
But it will slide off and hit the floor if you aren’t prepared to catch it!
You’ve always got to be in a mindset that you’re ready to pursue any opportunity that unfolds in front of you – even when you are thinking that opportunity might never come your way.
That’s because one certainty about the future and opportunity is this – it’s when you think that you have nothing, that you have everything!
Video: The Future of Manufacturing – Do You Have a Sense of Urgency?
The future of manufacturing is happening all around us right now.
Do you have a sense of urgency? Additive manufacturing, Factory 4.0, the Industrial Internet of Things, collapsing product lifecycles, the rapid emergence of new methodologies. It’s all out there!
What are you doing to align yourself to what comes next?
Daily Inspiration: “Imaginate more! Sweat the ‘big stuff’ – don’t get distracted by the details!”
“Imaginate more! Sweat the ‘big stuff’ – don’t get distracted by the details!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Of course, it’s not a word, but it should be!
And the Urban Dictionary actually defines ‘imaginate’ this way:
“To be in the process of imagining, to form a mental picture of, to think, or believe.
i.e. sometimes when in class Jesse imaginates and doesn’t finish his work”
That would be me! I think I finally found the word that defines me.
My family would probably agree.
“Sometimes when dad is around the house he’s busy imaginating and doesn’t help with cleaning up.”
Yup.
A busy mind is not something you want to waste – try and find a balance between participating in the world around you while you are busy thinking about the next one!
And maybe, that’s you! Do you imaginate enough? If not, why not?
To imagine our future and be relentlessly innovative, you need to take your mind into a different creative space. Don’t be distracted by those around you who will say ‘it can’t be done,’ ‘how will you make it work’, or ‘there are too many potential problems with your idea.’ Those are the details that will immediately shut down your imaginating machine.
The fact is, there are people around you with who will try to put up barriers, lay down guardrails, and implement cages for your mind. Break free! Escape the shackles of their limitations and imaginate what might come next!
And make sure to make some time to imaginate, because you can’t always unplug. Carve out some free time or ‘play time’ to explore the world around you.
Behind the scenes,I’m a hard core computer geek, and have been since 1982. I’m always playing with new technology – Raspberry Pi’s, Linux systems, #IoT devices, networking stuff and tech toys. It helps me to understand what it is people are really talking about when they are inventing the future all around me.
Sweat the big stuff, not the small things!
Dream big, think big, imaginate your world in a big way.
It’s one of the best ways to understand what comes next
Video: What Do Innovative Organizations Do? This, but Not That!
Daily Inspiration: “Maybe you can get to the future faster – if you accelerate your imagination and turn your mind into an engine of ingenuity!”
“Maybe you can get to the future faster – if you accelerate your imagination and turn your mind into an engine of ingenuity!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Here’s an interesting reality – innovators and disruptors arrive at the future faster.
They invent the things that the rest of us will use tomorrow. They pursue ideas that aren’t yet mainstream. They have visions for today that will only become real tomorrow.
If you think about it, they time shift.!Their mind resides in a time zone that is different from those around them – because it is several years ahead.
As a futurist, that’s what I work to do on stage. Whether I’ve got an audience of 10 people in an executive leadership meeting or 5,000 people in a Las Vegas conference centre, I’m busy taking my audience into a world of ‘what will be’ rather than an overview of ‘what is.’ There might be opportunities for you to use the idea of mind-time-shifting to accelerate your own opportunities. Don’t look at the world around you as it exists right now – ask yourself what it might look like tomorrow!
Years ago, I would force myself to look at the world in a different way. I detailed that one day in a blog post in 2011:
Understanding the velocity of innovation – take the “10 Things Test!”
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“One of the best ways to get a sense of the this velocity is by taking a look at the world around you, and thinking about how it might change. I call it the “10 Things Test.”
Essentially, sit in a room, whether at work, home, in a factory, retail store or wherever you might be, and take a look around. Compile a list of ten items that you see, and then sit back and ask yourself, “How might these things change in the next decade?”
If you really took the time to think about the items you examine, you might be very surprised by the depth of the change that is coming.
What did I write about? How things around me would change – paint, eyedrops, window shades, the view outside…
It makes for an interesting read years later. I wasn’t right on a lot of my predictions, but the future is on my side!
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