I was on Bloomberg BNN’s MoneyTalk last night with a two part interview about the economic crisis, the future and how winners will reinvent themselves at the pace demanded for success.
Just like I am!
Part 1
Part 2
“The future won’t wait for those who are stuck in the stages of shock, anger or denial- move to acceptance!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
I was on Bloomberg Money Talk last night with a long interview about how companies can innovate through an era of economic uncertainty – the video is in the next blog post.
It’s kind of fun to get back in front of the media
Back in the 90’s, when I was churning out books about the Internet with my good friend Rick Broadhead, my media life was kind of crazy. The Internet was such a new phenomena, and the news media was so hungry for a story, that I actually had TV crews coming to my house on a regular basis for interviews. My babies – two young sons! – were waking up in the morning, coming out f their rooms, and bumping into a crew of 5 people standing out in the hallway. (A producer, sound guy, and some others – this was back in the day before the crew became one person with a camera.)
At the same time, I was being interviewed at a crazy pace by radio and print – at one point, I counted up over 3,000 print interviews from a box of clippings my wife and I had put together. (My book publicist would send me these on a regular basis.)
I was doing book torus, with up to 14-16 interviews while hitting a city – first the morning shows, then the mid-morning stuff, and finally wrapping up the day with the supper news show. I’d be doing 5 or 7 cities in a row as part of a new book tour launch …. and it was exhausting, because you were just repeating yourself ad naseum.
And then, I just became so tired of it. After the dot.com collapse, I had to work furiously to reinvent myself (just as I am now.) The media stories were becoming more shallow, the demands for sensationalism more prevalent, and the show structure more annoying. I hit my limit when I went on a CNBC show and the producer wanted me to become part of the new style of American news TV by doing a bit of screaming and yelling. No thank you.
And so I became far more selective in what I did and who I was willing to talk to. I also went global – it was more fun to talk to the UK’s Telegraph, Dubai’s Capital Magazine or South Africa’s The Star. It was far more interesting to talk to a broader, international audience of big thinkers than a small audience of narrow minded individuals. The world was becoming my stage as my keynote business was going global, and I was working the media as it happened.
But news was becoming more sensational, I wouldn’t play the game, and so opportunities were not terribly vast.
And now, all of a sudden, it’s fun again!
I’ve had a few interviews like this over the last few weeks, including one early morning news show out of Istanbul on the future of robotics and manufacturing. There’s lots to talk about, with all kinds of new trends and leadership issues evolving at a furious pace. And not only that, my home broadcast studio is primed for opportunity – I can easily swap in backdrops and context clips at the drop of a hat!
And just like I cover in my 7 Stages of Economic Grief, which was covered in this news show, I long ago moved on to the ‘acceptance’ stage!
If you are going to do it, you need someone who will get you there safe and sound. So, watch this!
“The future belongs to those who build an acceleration framework! A checklist, so to speak!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Every good reinvention deserves a checklist!
My wife must be laughing (if she reads this) because she knows that I abhor the idea of personal checklists. But I’m very effective at using them when guiding my clients into the future. NASA built great checklists to get successfully to the moon and back. They’ve had me in twice for talks about leadership, the future of space, and disruptive innovation : and I gave them a checklist within my talk for an appropriate pathway.
So let’s talk about checklists: if you are taking your event virtual, you need a good one, since it’s a new and complex world. With that in mind, I filmed a clip, “Going Live! Guidance on the 15 Steps to Rocking Your Virtual Conference.”
As you go forward into the future, you really need a solid ‘acceleration framework’ – that’s the checklist that will guide you through the process. If anything, understanding the checklist or framework up front will help you to get on the right track in the first place!
And it’s timely insight : one thing that has become evident over the last several months is that people really don’t know how to do ‘great virtual.’ And in fact, lots of event organizers, executives, meeting professionals and average folks are overwhelmed by the concept of taking their events online – because they haven’t had a good checklist of how to construct a great show. The result? Most are pretty convinced it might be awful – all they have really seen so far with other events are awful Zoom calls where a speaker drones on like a robot, reading out each slide in their deck.
It’s death by Powerpoint, but in a virtual space!
But with 750+ hours now invested in this new medium since early March, I now know what works when it comes to great virtual. And word is getting around – I’m seeing inquiries coming in, clients getting ready to book, people realizing that there is a way to do virtual correctly. So give it a watch. Think about your checklist. Know that any path to the future involves a partner who will help to get you there.
After all, NASA didn’t get to the moon by throwing a spaceship in the sky and hoping for the best. They built the most complex, detailed, comprehensive checklists ever known to the human race. There was a checklist for each and every step, checklists within checklist, permutation checklists developed for every possible permutation.
You need to do the same thing with virtual. So with that in mind, come and visit – I’m your checklist guy!
““Some people hope their old world will quickly come back – but the smart ones have been working furiously to build themselves an entirely new one!” – Jim Carroll
Check the picture closely – I’m speaking about a video in which I’m speaking about a keynote that I gave on a huge, glorious stage in Las Vegas. I miss that stage! But I also know I’m not going back for a long, long time – if ever. I’m pretty realistic in my assessment of my reality.
And with that, it sometimes seems evident that I work in a delusional industry – or in which, at least, some are operating at the end of reality. Consider, for example, this headline which just ran on CNBC:
Read the headline and you might be thinking that we will quickly see people rushing back to conference rooms and events, squeezing into big open spaces to browse convention floors, mix and mingle, have some social time, and perhaps listen to a speaker or two.
Not a chance.
Aside from a few brave (or foolhardy) associations, I fully expect there to be close-to-zero in person events through the end of 2020. And I honestly believe there will be few events going into the first half of 2021. The obvious reasons are obvious, but it’s the other things that will hold the momentum back. Many of my talks were for big Fortune 1000 CEO level events held offsite at a nice resort somewhere – and few companies are going to be prepared to take their leadership team to such an offsite location. Insurance will be difficult to come by, and occupational health and safety staff will have a fit at any such initiative. Corporate events are, by and large, dead until such time as we see a vaccine.
The big trade shows? The big revenue pot, vendors and show exhibitors, will be unlikely to commit to spending their money to return until they know that there will be attendees – and many attendees won’t be going until they can get over the psychological hurdle of getting on a plane, going into a hotel, and then squeezing into a convention floor with thousands of other people. Not happening.
I think our reality is this – lots of people are talking about their desire to go back to where we were. Deep inside, most of them know that we aren’t.
I came to accept that reality early on with this ‘thing.’ I knew that, to be blunt, I’m basically out of a job, in a career that I love, with a passion for sharing my insight, that basically won’t happen in the physical world for a long, long time. And so, I’m working at a furious pace to build a new virtual future!
Will there be any demand? Might I enjoy any success? It’s still early in the game, but I do know a few things. First, I’m loving the process of working with my ‘canvas of creativity’ – the green screen wall that is my studio – to explore and build new ‘stage sets,’ such as seen in this particular photo above. A stage with a stage with a stage!
Second, I KNOW I’ve got the content. I’ve spent 25 years helping to shape the future of major organizations – Disney, NASA, the World Bank, Mercedes Benz – organizations are just about ready for some fresh insight about their new future, and I’ve got a track record of giving them that.
Third – I’m having a ball! My new home broadcast studio has become my new ‘happy place’, ignoring the obvious joy that comes from my time with my family and my rounds out on the golf course. I find myself wandering down to the studio, flipping on the lights, finding material to build a show, constructing a new stage set – firing up my innovation engine – and so regardless of how the future turns out, I’m certainly having a blast!
Your future? Watch this clip, filmed in the home studio yesterday!
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