“You’ll get to your future faster once you accept the reality of where it is taking you!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
I was invited to keynote a 100th Anniversary Celebration Gala Dinner for Nikon in Tokyo, Japan – and the message was that was running through my mind was that it doesn’t really matter what you’ve done in the last 100 years – it’s what you do in the next 5 that really counts!
That became an undercurrent to my talk – but I also spoke a lot about the necessity of accepting the disruptive rate of change that is swirling all around you. I opened with a story on when NASA invited me in (twice!) for a talk on the disruption of the space industry, transformative leadership, and fast-paced trends – and the need to accept the fact that the space industry of yesterday is forever gone. Today? It’s NASA, SpaceX, BlueOrigin, and a few hundred private space startups!
The talk in Tokyo was certainly a thrill – my audience consisted of people from 37 countries, with simultaneous translation into Japanese and Chinese. It was held at Happo-En – a wonderful Japanese-themed garden facility.
We were there for about 6 hours for stage prep and logistics coordination. I had a team of 6 handlers – and I must admit, for a time, I felt just like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, particularly as they spent 20 minutes quietly discussing whether I should enter stage left or stage right!
The main point in my talk? You don’t get to be a company with a 100-year history without constant, relentless innovation and reinvention, and so it was an honor to be invited to headline this prestigious event. Even so, I hammered home the idea that complacency kills – it’s the root of so much failure!
As in – are you the Pokemon GO in the room? Remember how quickly that reality came and went?
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