Disrupt before you are disrupted! The future requires transformation, not just innovation! The CEO of this massive global infrastructure company thought that Jim Carroll would be the perfect expert to highlight the journey the organization must make to align to a new and different future. Operating in the global infrastructure industry with a focus on energy, water, telecom, roads and bridges, and more, the CEO knows that the future of infrastructure is smart, connected, aware, intelligent, and will be built using new methodologies, advanced materials, and with increasing innovation. He engaged Jim to help deliver his message at a meeting of his global team of 300 senior executives in Kansas City, the first in-person get-together post-Covid.
Archives for October 2022
Daily Inspiration: “It’s better to be grateful for your opportunities than to be angry about your circumstances!”
“It’s better to be grateful for your opportunities than to be angry about your circumstances!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
It’s Thanksgiving Day in Canada today!
We have it a month early since we have so much more gratitude in our hearts LOL.
But seriously, it’s a nice day to pause and reflect.
And so here is what I am grateful for.
I’m grateful that I’m one of those who can define themselves by a positive attitude focused, when I can, on trying to lift up others around me, and not one who has let their anger instead lead them to a dark place in which they work to tear down and hurt those who are less fortunate than they are.
I’m grateful that I am surrounded by family who loves me, and that I’ve managed to live a life that is deserving of that love. I’m grateful that the new home that my wife and I moved to after 30 years in our first home is found in a delightful neighborhood with down-to-earth, wonderful neighbors. I’m grateful that my sons have found wonderful women with whom they will be able to share their lives. I’m grateful that my golf handicap went below 15.0 this year and has magically stayed there. I’m grateful that I still have the opportunity to share my insight with people worldwide through the magic that is a stage. I am so grateful for my good health and that I can work to reinforce it every day.
I am so grateful for each and every moment I have to enjoy the beauty of the world around me, such as this particular spot which is a part of my regular 7km walk early each and every morning. I am grateful that I can choose to chase the sun as it rises in splendor, and that I can start my day with the joy of another day of opportunity in my life, rather than regret what might have happened the day before. I am super grateful that I have now lived a life of stunning clarity of mind for over 6 years that lets me enjoy that walk, and that I can continue to do so.
I am grateful.
Happy Thanksgiving Canada!
Daily Inspiration: “You won’t activate tomorrow’s opportunities based on yesterday’s structure”
“You won’t activate tomorrow’s opportunities based on yesterday’s structure” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Yesterday’s ideas, strategies, methods, and structure won’t provide you with a path for tomorrow’s success! Product lifecycles as a concept are dead. Old skllls don’t solve new chalelnges. Nothing lasts forever. What you sell today will be obsolete tomorrow, if it isn’t already from the olden days today.
That was a part of my message last week in Kansas City, with the undercurrent being that you’d better disrupt yourself before you are disrupted. The talk took a look at the future of infrastructure – energy, telecom, highways, roads, buildings, water, sewer – and the fact that ‘it’s not your grandfather’s infrastructure anymore.’ It’s becoming smart, and connected, and involves new materials, different skills, and bigger concepts.
One of the biggest issues is. that the structure you have in place – the skills you have in place, the method by which you collaborate, the manner in which you are organized, how you scale up your teams to tackle projects, the speed with which you pull your team together – all that needs to change. Your structure from yesterday won’t work tomorrow.
Here’s a clip where I’m telling that story.
In that context, you need to change everyone thing you do organizations need to reinvent their product line on a continuous basis because the future will change:
- the products you develop
- the services you deliver
- the methodologies you use
- the materials at the heart of it
- the skills that are required
- the speed with which you operate
- the speed at which you are impacted
- the competitors that you face
- the revenue that you generate
- the age group of those you were up against
- the collaboration you require
Everything you do is changing. If you don’t, well, it won’t go so well!
Daily Inspiration: “When everyone else is doing something, do a different thing!”
“When everyone else is doing something, do a different thing!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
It started out like this, but then it went differently as I worked things through….
Here’s the thing – Oblio never had a point.
Huh” What?
Years ago when I abandoned the traditional publishing world and went the self-publishing path, I needed a name for my imprint – and hence was born Oblio Press. It’s a little publishing company that never really had a point, other than being a vehicle for bringing my new books – and later, those for two close friends – to print. This means getting them listed on Amazon, which is pretty much the only point in the publishing world today!
Oblio? As noted by Wikipedia:
The Point! is a fable that tells the story of a boy named Oblio, the only round-headed person in the Pointed Village, where by law everyone and everything must have a point.
This wonderful little story, told in the form of an animated movie, was conceived by the singer Harry Nilsson (we’re talking the 70s for the youngsters). Narrated by Ringo Starr, the movie always emphasized to me the importance of being uniquely different and sometimes pointless. I always liked to believe that the fable came to Nilsson’s mind as some sort of complex story of mental gymnastics about the fact that when everyone else has a point you can choose to be different, but it’s somewhat beyond that. Notes the author:
“I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, ‘Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn’t, then there’s no point to it.'”
Oh. The point is, though, that sometimes to succeed you need to be different from everyone else.
(You can find snippets of the movie on Youtube, including the entire video. It’s actually a wonderful kids’ show! Here’s the moment when Oblio meets the Pointed Man in the Pointless forest.)
I digress.
So what’s the point of this? Maybe you are different from everyone else – thrive on that reality! Use that to your advantage, a springboard to opportunity, a match for your firestick of imagination. That’s because you need to use your uniqueness to align yourself for a truly different future. If you think your world, industry, company, business model, platform, technology, or anything else will look the same a year from now — you’re dead wrong. Your company, industry, and career will probably be dead too.
So you need to do things very differently. Be a round-headed person in a land where everyone has a point. Because you need to make a different point!
What are you going to do about it? Change things. Change things big. Don’t think small – be daring. Start with these ideas – they might be too radical, but maybe they are what is needed.
Don’t be like everyone else. Be your own self.
Hire people who are very different from you. Otherwise, you have a team that is all the same. You end up with sameness, oneness, and a monoculture of thinking that will kill any creativity you might have left.
Stop searching for common ground. Too many people try to accommodate every viewpoint. It’s often a waste of time since your efforts will lead to a mishmash of a complicated, ugly, unconnected idea. That will fail, in spectacular fashion.
Seek the consensus – do the opposite. In fact, to avoid groupthink, see what the group is thinking, and do the opposite thing!
Kill the committee. They kill ideas. They stifle creativity. They smother opportunity. They are a blight on the concept of creativity. Be a lone wolf.
Find the danger zone – pursue it. You are probably complacent, and so is your team. Avoid that by finding the riskiest path – and do it. Now.
Look outside. The answer to your dilemma probably isn’t where you think it is. You won’t find it with the ‘usual suspects.’ It’s hidden, mysterious, out on the edges. Get out of your comfort zone and go find it.
Get over yourself. You might not be that bright. No one is. Listen to other people — particularly those who don’t think as you do.
Banish excuses. Don’t accept the reasons everyone else has for standing still. The world is fast. Get over it. You need to do it, not find reasons not to do it.
Ride the friction. Don’t seek the calm that everyone else thrives on – find the storm! Teams that are in alignment work ok. Angry teams make better teams.
Get momentum. When everyone else is slow, go fast. Pick up the speed. Kill the calendar. Set bold goals. Get it done yesterday.
Stop motivating – start leading. Make the decisions that others are not able to!
Go with your gut. Over-analysis will inhibit your ability to do what you know is the right thing.
Don’t commit. Maybe you’ll get it wrong the first time around. Try it again. Pivot and re-pivot.
Challenge people. They are all unsure about what to do, but want to try, and might have their own unique ideas. Let them try.
Don’t fear the results. Learn from them.
What do you think?
Do I have a point?
Daily Inspiration: “Confidence: It’s that thing that never allows your fear of the future to diminish your hope!”
“Confidence: It’s that thing that never allows your fear of the future to diminish your hope!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Here’s an alternative version, with the sun rising in splendour, for a bunch of my friends with an alternate quote: “Don’t let yesterday’s challenges define the steps you can take tomorrow!”
The fun thing here is that both photos were taken during my early morning walks through the forest out back – moving to a new home a year ago in a different city to be closer to my sons has proven to be a wonderful elixir of joy! When I’m not travelling or golfing, I start my day by chasing the sunrise!
Back to my story: way back in 1995, I published a book called “Surviving the Information Age.” [ link ] The book was a voyage through the early years of technological disruption took a look at why so many people were struggling with the future, and how our world might evolve. Though somewhat out of date, I’m still tremendously proud of this work!
The book also told the story, through a variety of chapters, of my own struggles with the future. I was just thumbing through it for some odd reason, and re-read the last chapter. Given the fact that so many people today are struggling with the issues of quiet-quitting and The Great Resignation, I thought it was on point — since it outlined my own dramatic career transition through 1989, and the loss of confidence and courage I faced in leaping into a new future.
In that final chapter, I wrote this sentence, which is now quite fascinating for me to see
“…I was terrified of the future. And when you don’t know what the future will bring you, you lose hope.”
Learn why – maybe you’ll find your own inspiration and confidence!
“Achieving Hope”, from Chapter 25 – Surviving the Information Age, 1995
Everyone hits a low point at which they lose hope for the future. I remember when it hit me — dramatically and with full force, shortly after the company merger in 1989 which had such a dramatic impact on my career. This event, at the time, seemed to effectively destroy everything that I had been working on for some five years.
Life was certain — I knew exactly what was coming, and where I was going. Until, of course, events beyond my control ripped those plans away from me. Suddenly, the future that I thought I had all mapped out — didn’t exist anymore. I didn’t know what was coming and didn’t know what I would do.
As the negative impact of the change in my job took hold, a sense of gloom descended upon me. I knew I no longer wanted to stay with the firm for which I worked — but I didn’t have a clue what I would do next! Within weeks, I had decided to quit — but couldn’t bring myself to do it. And through the next nine months, I actually decided two or three times to quit, and then always backed off at the last minute — because I was terrified of the future.
When you don’t know what the future will bring you, you lose hope. That’s what happened to me. I lost my confidence — the worst possible thing that could happen at the time. I lost sight of my abilities. I no longer had a good idea of what I could do. I was unsure of my skills and didn’t know what type of company might be interested in hiring me.
Uncertainty is built upon uncertainty. Many painful days and sleepless nights were spent trying to figure out what I should do with my career. Should I quit? Should I look for another job? Should I try to start my own consulting business? What should I do?
Losing confidence in yourself — because you’ve lost hope — is a terrible thing! Particularly when you are trying to carve out a new career — when you are trying to be a survivor. “I don’t know what my skills are,” I would cry out to my wife in moments of frustration. “I don’t know what it is I can do! Who would want to hire me?” I pleaded. And in anger and frustration, I damned the forces that caused such an upheaval in my career.
My loss of hope was such that over time, I convinced myself that I had little to offer the corporate world — and that I was staring at a dead-end future.
What a miserable state of mind to be in!
I remember one day in which the enormity of what I had accomplished hit home. It was about a year after I had quit. It was 6:45 AM in the morning on a spring day — the sun was coming up, the birds were singing, a warm breeze was blowing in the window, and a steaming cup was on the desk. I had just gone through my voicemail and had heard very positive news from three potential clients. Although my business was still very new and the risk was high — the signs were that I would succeed.
* * *
All of us have been in situations in which events in our lives and our careers have overtaken us to a point that we lose that most important of all human characteristics — hope.
To survive in the information age, you must have hope — it’s the most basic of human necessities. Give yourself hope, and you can have everything — confidence, ability, skill, enthusiasm, and determination.
Hope is the fuel that drives us to the future. But hope is a funny thing — you often have to work hard to find it.
* * * *
The future isn’t bleak — in fact, it is truly wonderful, but only if you decide to make it so.
The thing that you need to be a survivor in the information age, beyond everything else — your attitude, skills, and capabilities — is to give yourself some hope.
By doing what is necessary to survive in the information age, you can prosper from the riches that it offers. The information age is out there, all around you, encompassing everything you do. The true secret is that it is up to you to go and find it
How can I close this book and offer you the hope that you need to find your own success and survival in the information age?
By offering one simple comment of encouragement — you can do it! You can master the technology, and develop the skills necessary to survive this new era.
May some hope be with you.
Daily Inspiration: “You’re never too old to learn new stuff!”
“You’re never too old to learn new stuff!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
So I’m on TikTok now.
I posted a short Tiktok moments ago, that I quickly filmed yesterday in anticipation of this post. How’s that for time travel?
@futuristjimcarroll Futurist Jim Carroll Daily Inspiration: “You’re never too old to learn new stuff!”
I don’t know what I am doing yet, but I’m willing to learn.
Here’s what I know.
First, it’s mostly the younger generation on TikTok – I’m 63 and don’t fit the demographic. But something is going on, and I need to understand it. So I’m there – you can’t understand the future if you aren’t part of the future.
Second, my kids will probably be horrified at this news. They told me years ago that I was not allowed to go on Snapchat, another social media network that exploded in popularity many years ago, also aimed at the younger demographic. Perhaps they might have been worried that I would use the Snapchat filter technology to post something like this, a rather unbecoming image of me retouched by magical technology.
Or that maybe I would take a photo of myself and turn it into something like this.
That wouldn’t do. It would concern them and cause them stress. So I won’t tell them about my Snapchat account.
Third, I do read enough to be aware that there is a massive shift underway in information discovery that is happening on TikTok. Someone posted the other day that this next generation now uses the search function in Tiktok much like older generations use Google or Bing. That seems to be an important trend, and I follow trends, so it’s better to understand it by being part of it rather than watching from afar.
Fourth, there is a massive shift underway in how social networks are used. Facebook has, by and large, become a place for old people – people like me. It’s mostly been abandoned for regular use by anyone under the age of 40. Twitter has become a place that you go if you want news, or want to raise your blood pressure through the instant anger it will generate within you at the sorry state of our world. Instagram remains popular but is somewhat in turmoil as it shifts its algorithm to video in response to the rise of TikTok. LinkedIn is popular but blessedly, remains a business/professional-focused network. Tiktok? It’s taking over the world – anything happening with social media these days is on its platform. I need to know what is going on.
Fifth, Google is sufficiently worried about TikTok that they just announced a major revenue sharing agreement for creators on their Google Short platform, which is their tool to try to dislodge TikTok. Will it happen? Who knows – but I’ve started posting Google Shorts starting yesterday as well.
Sixth, Tiktok is about content. I have content – lots of it! I’ve been writing my Daily Inspiration for 6 years now, not missing a workday. it’s become my passion – it’s my thing. People like the inspiration, the stories, and the trends behind the posts, and I’m eager to share them with a wider audience. So starting yesterday, I’ll record a short little segment each day with that content about my Daily Inspiration. I’ve also got tons of videos that I can repurpose and re-edit – stories about trends, the future, innovation, and more. My limited tests so far tell me that I can reach an audience – people are watching them.
Seventh, the audience that books me today for corporate leadership keynotes is definitely not on TikTok – most of my events are with senior executives of global Fortune 1000 companies – but some might be! Things change, audiences grow, industries evolve and the world gets disrupted. Something is underway and I want to figure it out. Who knows – maybe someday someone will see my posts and realize I’m the right futurist to come in and talk to them about what comes next.
Eighth, adding TikTok to my list expands the reach of my Daily Inspiration, which is quite important to me. So far, each morning, I publish my morning thoughts on LinkedIn (as a post), LinkedIn (as a newsletter), Instagram, my personal Facebook page, my corporate Facebook page, Twitter, Flickr, my blog, and out to a mailing list. That makes 9 locations, and TikTok let’s make it to 10. YouTube Shorts lets me do a Spinal Tap thing, going to 11. Nigel would like it.
Ninth, attention spans are collapsing, and TikTok is very much a part of that trend. Anything being done on the platform is 60 seconds or less – stories are conveyed, points are made, and issues are raised, all in 60 seconds or less. If brevity is the name of the game, I need to shorten my story. Heck, that was issue #10 on my 19 Trends for 2019 – “Shorten your Story” – so I need to be concise:
Tenth, there is an explosion of creativity on TikTok – it’s a new form of expression. I don’t understand it yet, and for me, a hole in my knowledge is a hole in my reality. I’m always trying to chase my creativity down new avenues, and this lets me explore a new world.
Eleven? Spinal Tap? My list needs to go 11! TikTok is causing massive controversy with the issues surrounding it involving privacy, foreign governments, and more. What better way to understand it than to be actually a part of the hive!
So, I’m on TikTok now.
So what are the results so far? It’s mildly astonishing – I’m actually getting LOTS of views (for me, at least). And I even have a follower! One! Sign up – give me two! Maybe I’ll make it to 11 by the end of the day!
That said, I don’t have high expectations of where this will take me. i am rather uncool on a massive creatively cool platform. But you are never too old to challenge your potential cool factor.
So here’s an old guy, now hanging out on Tiktok. Follow me!
Trust me, I need followers!
You’ll find me at: https://www.tiktok.com/@futuristjimcarroll
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