Futurist Keynote Speaker Jim Carroll: Disruptive Trend & Innovation Expert

Futurist Keynote Speaker,  Author, Innovation Expert. 

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Archives for January 2022

Daily Inspiration: “Visionaries. They’re the ones that tune out those who complain about everything but actually have solutions for nothing!”

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“Visionaries. They’re the ones that tune out those who complain about everything but actually have solutions for nothing!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Don’t become known as a professional whiner!

Don’t become known as that person who complains about everything and actually has solutions for nothing – you’ll quickly become known as that person who is full of a vacuous, hollow mind. Refuse to be the person who criticizes everything – become the one who gets the reputation as being full of suggestions. Don’t be the person known as someone who never contributes any ideas at your team meeting – become known as the ideas person.  Don’t find fault with things – find opportunities for improvement. Don’t vote against things – vote for the important things.

The key point is to focus on the upside, not the downside; the potential opportunity, not the risk; the positive, not the negative.

Like it or not, your leadership team will quickly notice if you develop an aura of negativity, a cauldron of cynicism, a glow of gloom around you. Organizations and the people within them tend to identify those who are continually negative with the mark of imminent failure – tagging them as the downers, the whiners, the complainers, skeptics, the anti-change deniers. They become known as those who have a future anti-virus engineered into their DNA. They find their invitations to participate in what comes next to be severely limited.

While you are at it, limit your own exposure to them – because if you spend too much time with them, you’ll find your attitude compromised. Get too much of a downer dose, and you run the risk of becoming one of them, similarly marked, because you’ll fall prey to their negativity.

I practice what I preach! This was the first version of today’s quote: “The sad truth: We are surrounded by a remarkable number of people who complain about everything but actually have solutions for nothing!“

For a time, I studied it, rewrote it, kicked it around – until I found it offered up an opportunity for action, rather an observation of frustration!

The Future of Sports – All Interactive All the Time! (“What I Told You in 2010 Is All Around You Right Now!”)

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Each year, the PGA of America – the longest-serving professional sports organization in the world – holds its massive annual PGA Merchandise Show. Canceled last year due to Covid, it went ahead this year. It’s a massive, sprawling trade show that allows all things golf-related to showcase their new products, services, training aids, equipment clothing, and more.

There’s also an educational component – workshops, leadership meetings, and the main stage. I was so blessed to be invited to deliver the opening keynote for the 2016 show and found myself sandwiched on the agenda between Lee Trevino and Bubba Waston. As a passionate golfer, it was nirvana – but it wasn’t my first talk for the PGA – they had me open their annual general meeting in 2010, where I delivered a keynote that would set the pace for the innovation arriving in the game in the next decade.

That’s why it’s such a thrill to see articles from the show floor today because they are all about what I predicted in my 2010 keynote and reinforced in my talk of 2016.

Both of these articles hit upon the trends I identified in my 2010 and 2016 keynotes. For example, here’s a clip from 2016 where I’m talking about the conected golf equipment of the future – exactly the type of thing covered in today’s article above.

Wellness and fitness? Here’s a clip from 2010 that aligns with the article of today. Back in 2010, I suggested that there was a big opportunity to align itself to the fitness and health imperative. Check this clip for some big scary statistics!

Here’s a long version if you want to understand some of the context behind the story.

What’s the point of all this? It’s a good reminder that it’s important to study trends because opportunity comes from aligning to those trends.

And I must say, it’s nice to see my predictions coming true!

Daily Inspiration: “The Social Media Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the maturity to understand the things I should not post….”

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“Grant me the maturity to understand the things I should not post, the insight to share the things I should, and the wisdom to quickly know the difference!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

The long exit from Covid amidst the incredibly poisoned societal atmosphere we now live within is going to be made much worse in the months to come, particularly as emotions run to an all-time high of volatility. Add in a dose of extremism, a sprinkling of madness and delusion, and a mixture of manipulation, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. I don’t have high expectations at times – if it’s bad now we are likely to see a lot worse.

That’s why I try to work hard to keep my opinions to myself. As a futurist, I’m on the side of facts, in a world in which for many people, facts don’t matter – agendas do.

Given what I do, I obviously have a social media presence – I’m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram. (My sons and their fiances don’t think I should go near TiktTok, and I faced a similar edict with Snapchat.) I share insight on trends, innovation, creativity, things that capture my mind.

But at each and every moment that I consume media, I often find myself bubbling with rage, consumed with my incredulity, struggling with my disbelief with what I see. I want to lash out, respond, and try to set things straight.

And often, to my credit, I don’t. Antixaxxer and vaccines? For a long time, I’ve wanted to post this picture to express my opinion: but I continually try to hold myself back from doing so. So I’ll just post it here and leave it at that.

I sometimes find it necessary to put some people on notice as to where I stand – and so for a long time, I’ve had this graph pinned to the top of my Twitter profile.

I’ve come to the point that I have no desire to engage, debate, negotiate or tolerate many of the views which now permeate our world. There is no upside. And I will admit I haven’t done a great job at managing my online presence over the years.

But given how volatile the Covid exit is likely to be, I’ve been doubling down on my effort to avoid posting, desperately trying to remind myself there is no upside than a momentary moment of relief. And so, I’ve come to think about the elements of action behind what I call my Social Media Serenity Prayer action plan:

  • Could the post do me damage?
  • Should I find some other way to deal with my frustration?
  • Is this something I would actually say in a room full of people I don’t know?
  • What is the likelihood that what I post might come back to haunt me?
  • What is the actual purpose other than letting me manage my emotions?
  • What might what I post today look like five years from now?
  • Have I really thought about how I should pause and think before I post something?
  • Will others actually learn anything from what I post?
  • Does anyone actually care?
  • Might it be more harm than good?
  • What good will it actually do me?
  • What harm might it do?
  • How does this actually affect my personal brand?
  • What purpose would it serve other than letting me let off some steam?
  • Does it make me look like a flaming idiot?
  • What impact will the post have on the work I do as a futurist?

And so as I think these things, I actually manage to avoid posting a lot of my reactive instinct.

It’s a challenging world. Sometimes, it’s best that we keep our opinions to ourselves.

Over and out.

Some responses go to > /dev/null.

Accelerating the Acceleration Gap: The Ultimate Impact of Our Post-Pandemic World

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I hesitate to use the phrase ‘post-pandemic’ because we really don’t know when that actual trend might unfold … but with that in mind, how has the business world changed as a result of the last 2 years? What can we expect on ‘the other side?’

In a recent in-person keynote for the Packaging Machinery Manufacturing Institute – the 2nd time they’ve brought me in – I took on these issues. It’s in this short clip.

Timing is Everything: Jim Carroll’s 5 Rules on Aligning to the Future!

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Here’s a big issue to wrap your head around – increasingly, your opportunity for future success will come from your ability to get the timing right!

That issue has been the focus of an increasing number of my keynotes as of late:

  • a recent one in the construction sector a company that manages large scale construction industry and infrastructure financial deals took a look at the question from the perspective of the arrival of new construction methodologies based on artificial intelligence and robotics
  • another one examined the role of blockchain technologies as the foundation for transitions in the supply chain industry
  • a leadership keynote for the utility technology company Itron, which took a look at the timing for mass adoption of EV’s, home renewable micro-grids and other ideas within the energy sector
  • the arrival of advanced biomaterials – lab-grown human body parts! – and concepts in the field of orthopedic surgery, in a healthcare keynote

Those are just a few examples – the issue of timing has been a core focus of many of my keynotes over the last 2 years, and so I will be rolling it out as a separate topic.

Much of it is based on the Gartner Hypecycle, which has, for a long time, offered an invaluable path for the arrival of any new technology and concept.

With that in mind, here are my basic “5 Rules to Determine the Arrival of the Future”

1. The future happens, but eventually

Follow the Hypecycle. It’s here, but not mature, until the Slope of Enlightenment and the Plateau of Productivity.

2. The future is usually slow, and then, instant

Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired Magazine, came up with this one.  As I explain on stage, any particular trend can bubble along in the experimental and discovery phase for a time – and then, suddenly, unexpectedly and rapidly, mature and suddenly become very, very real. You need to be ready when this happens!

3. Technology puts great uncertainty on the accuracy of rules 1 and 2

If you have those two rules down, get ready for this one. In essence, every industry is coming to change at the speed of ‘Silicon Valley’ because they are becoming tech companies. This throws every assumption about the pace of change in the industry out the window, because, well, technology.

4. Accelerating science can suddenly make your previous future estimate terribly inaccurate

And it’s not just fast tech that changes every industry – it’s faster science. By way of example, right now I’m watching a trend involving ‘real-time customizable food programming’ – basically, the marriage of genomics, food, health and wellness, medical devices, and mobile technology into one big super-trend. One of the driers of this trend is the acceleration of DNA sequencing or genomic science – which is making the potential for this trend faster still!

5. Just when you think you’ve got the future all figured out, kids come along

And last but not least, many industries are ruled and overseen by slow, ponderous, tech adverse baby boomers – folks who grew up with COBOL and punch cards. They’re starting their retirement wave, and as the next generation takes over, watch out! They hold no inhibitions when it comes to fast, new, disruptive ideas!

There you have it! These issues have been featured in a few of my daily inspirational quotes over time.

I wrote about this trend in my 19 Trends for 2019: specifically, trend #12, the issue of timing.

“As they say, timing is everything, particularly when it comes to the issue of getting involved in any particular trend. In the era of acceleration, it becomes even more critical. You’d better make sure you are ready with any trend of importance and relevance because the future might happen before you know it.”

I spend a lot of time on stage talking about the issue of timing on stage, particularly in the context of the “Gartner Hypecycle.” It’s been a key go-to on my client innovation guidance for well over 15 years. The interesting thing is that it’s really risen to the forefront in the last year, particularly as technology journalists have trie to explain the rise and fall of the BitCoin bubble.

The other thing about timing? The future is staggered and uneven – it doesn’t happen everywhere all at once. It’s phased by location, sector, and other discrete perspectives. Think about self-driving vehicles – we’ll see them happen in some ways faster, and in other ways, slower. I was in New Orleans, saw some crowded streets, and it was the perfect opportunity to talk about the issue of timing.

That’s why my mantra to “think big, start small, scale fast” gives a key shoutout to timing. “Start small” implies that you should be on board with any particular trend, despite the potential immaturity it might have, because you want to make sure that you understand it, have experience with it, know how to work with it – and are ready to go when it “goes supernova!”

Daily Inspiration: “Success is built upon a foundation of the ongoing disappointments you’ve faced from your non-stop efforts to try to do the things that are tough to do!”

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“Never give up – because you know your success is built upon a foundation of the ongoing disappointments you’ve faced from your non-stop efforts to try to do the things that are tough to do!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Sometimes, mistakes are fantastic and errors are a bonus! You know that already, because you’ve come to learn that success is an elusive goal – it’s only come to you after a regular series of steps, repeated regularly, sometimes with unexpected results along the way.

The most important thing that you need to keep reminding yourself of is to keep reminding yourself of this fact – because otherwise, you might let a setback set you back!

You’ve got to develop an attitude that you’ll make mistakes along the way, and rather than being something that should discourage you, they should become fuel for your future efforts. By refocussing on what you can learn from what you did wrong – rather than obsessing over why it happened – you can turn it into a powerful learning experience. And by learning from it, continuously, you can eventually turn that disappointment into the sweet feeling of success.

You might not always get it right the first time. In fact, it might take you many times before you figure out to do it right. As in – ‘it’s learning by doing!’ You should develop a mindset that it’s perfectly acceptable – and even desirable – to try to do those new things and make mistakes along the way. That’s because every mistake that you make will be a learning experience that you can use for insight on your next attempt.

That’s where my concept of ‘experiential capital’ comes in, something I’ve been talking about on stage since 2003. The idea is that in this high-velocity economy of relentless change, a regular series of cumulative experiences – your ‘experience capital’ might become as equally important as the financial capital that you have in helping you to adapt. With that in mind, the more capital you have, the better positioned you are for the future!

And so, as the saying goes: “fail early, fail often, fail fast.”

Because sometimes, the more you fail, the better positioned you are to figure out what to do next!

 

 

 

 

 

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THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO ARE FAST features the best of the insight from Jim Carroll’s blog, in which he
covers issues related to creativity, innovation and future trends.

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