On stage in Las Vegas for a recent conference, Jim is speaking to the real trends that are driving global growth. Watch this in the context of a great observation by Bill Gates: “Most people overestimate the rate of change that will occur on a two year basis, and underestimate the rate of change that will occur on a 10 year basis.” Looking out over 10 years, it is clear that we are in an era that is still witnessing significant global growth!
10 Enemies of Innovation!
I had a conference call with a client yesterday with respect to an upcoming leadership meeting; I’ll be helping the organization think about some of the barriers they have towards innovation, and what they need to do to overcome these challenges.
As we were talking, I scribbled down a short list of some of the issues that I was identifying with them.
- tradition. Some organizations are too caught up with the past, which causes them to lose sight of opportunities for the future.
- culture. Often corporate culture can stifling, if not deadening. Some build up an organizational sclerosis which eventually clogs up their ability to try to do anything new.
- indecision. If an organization can’t make bold moves, it certainly can’t achieve breakthroughs!
- organizational memory. It causes people to focus on the past instead of the future.
- bureaucrats. Their job is simply to shut down ideas, get people to fill out forms, and reduce the everyday work experience to a series of mind-numbing tasks.
- stock markets. They cause too many senior executives to spend their time thinking about short term hits that can keep the stock price up, rather than working on the big bets that can provide for transformative opportunities. No wonder so many organizations are going private!
- job descriptions. They reduce the role of people to a narrowly defined set of activities and small goals. I’ve encountered few organizations where innovation success is actually enshrined into the job description, let alone the HR reward system.
- a failed radar. Too many organizations don’t have an internal future-mechanism that helps them to spot future threats and opportunities.
- arrogance. As in, we know better than anyone else! (I’ve met some CEO’s of some pretty big companies that go in this category!)
- mission statements. They can be a great thing to give everyone an overall sense of purpose. On the other hand, most organizations don’t update and refresh them, which means that in many cases, the mission statement has nothing to do with what the organization actually needs to be doing.
- a culture of inaction. Doing nothing has become the norm!
- strategic planning. Some organizations get so caught up in the process of strategic planning that they never get beyond the planing statge. Where do you think the phrases “analysis paralysis” comes from — organizations who are busy analyzing things as part of their planning process!
- lone wolves. They’re often folks who can lead innovation, since they can have the brilliant ideas that are the spark for greatness. On the other hand, they can become so blinded by their belief that they refuse to accept the ideas and insight of anyone else, forgetting that collaboration is often at the root of all great innovations
- history and legacy. What made you successful in the past won’t work for you in the future.
That’s a short list of some of the enemies of innovation – there are lots more!
Major 10 year trend – The future of EVERY industry to now be controlled by Silicon Valley driven innovation!
At the T. Rowe Price 2011 Investment Symposium in Baltimore on Friday, I listened to the technology panel that preceded my luncheon keynote.
It was a fascinating discussion as a number of their leading analysts spoke of the trends that they saw unfolding with consumer and other digital technology companies, such as Apple, Amazon and Samsung.
But I thought that the crowd was hungering for a bit more — where are the next big trends, and the next big transformation opportunities that are going to unfold which are going to provide for the birth of new industries, fast growing companies, and billion-dollar market opportunities?
And so I outlined that reality: the next big areas of growth will come from the transformative change that occurs as Silicon Valley comes to drive the pace of innovation in almost every other industry. As it does so, it will speed up the rate of innovation.
The impact of this trend is that it will also shift control from any particular industry – insurance, healthcare, banking, auto — to the technology companies. The result will be massive business model disruption as new, faster, more nimble competitors who understand technology based disruption, cast aside their slower, ingrained counterparts.
The future belongs, in other words, to those who are fast. Tech companies and tech based innovators certainly understand this! And the key issue is speed : Apple, for example, could innovate much faster with new credit card financial systems than any bank could. Google and it’s tests of automatic car navigation technology will certainly evolve faster than any auto company in Detroit, Japan or Germany could. Unless leaders in those organizations increasingly learn to focus on speed as a metric, and fast-innovation as a core capability.
Consider just a few of the trends:
- Banks and credit companies risk losing control of their future as our mobile devices, cell phones and iPhones become credit cards
- the energy industry and home construction is impacted as a new personal energy infrastructure management, in the form of such devices as the NEST Thermostat, provide for a significant change in the way people use energy
- health care will be transformed by medical device connectivity and bioconnetivity — allowing hospitals and nursing homes to extend the reach of their medical professionals to an increasing number of remote locations
- the auto industry will face trendmeondous change as an intelligent highway infrastructure emerges as the same time as intelligent, self-guiding cars and trucks become a regular part of our daily world
- the world of insurance is upended as we head to a world of predictive insurance modelling through the use of sophisticated technologies such as on-board GPS devices which monitor driver behaviour
These are but just a few examples. I can go into any industry today and point out how Silicon Valley and technology is going to cause significant change and upheaval within the industry. I can spot the smart executives who understand the message and realize that right now is the time for aggressive innovation and big thinking.
And then in other clients, I can see this observation pass right over the heads of some of those in the audience, and realize we’ve got folks who are like deer in the headlights — the trends are blinding in their reality, but they are frozen by their inability to do anything.
I spoke about this trend in a recent keynote.
There are a whole series of related posts in which I’ve commented on the significance of this trend and the speed with which it is occurring. These are just a few.
- Silicon Valley innovation velocity set to dominate every industry
- When Silicon Valley Takes Over Health Care Innovation
- This ghost town in New Mexico could turn into one of the most important innovation engines
- Reinventing the future with transformative technology
- Silicon Valley: Is Innovation Dead?
Upside down health care – it’s January 1, 2020!
I’m on stage in New Orleans – it’s 730am, and 4,500 people have showed up for my keynote on Healthcare 2020:
The session description used for the keynote:
Today’s Trends – Tomorrow’s Opportunities
Futurist Jim Carroll will give us a brief overview of the innovations affecting business and what they will mean to our economy and that of the world. His unique views… will provide a smorgasbord of what businesses will succeed in the coming decades and the types of skills workers will need in the future….no matter what the business. There is no doubt that the delivery of health care is influenced by the state of our economy . As Jim takes us on a voyage of what health care will look like in 2020, he won’t even mention the phrase ‘health care reform’. He’ll address what key innovations will affect health care and health care delivery, as well as how we are going to pay for it. In doing so, he will challenge the usual assumptions we make as trustees with respect to the future. There is no doubt that we are transitioning from a system which “fixes people after they’re sick” to one of that is focused on preventative, diagnostic and genomic-based medicine. Join us for this thought provoking and mind expanding presentation.
I’m getting a tremendous number of bookings and inquiries from groups throughout the healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical and other sectors for a keynote that looks at the concept of Healthcare 2020: which takes a look at the real scientific, demographic, social, technological and other trends that are providing for real health care transformation.
People are sick to talking about and listening to others talk about Washington-centric health care reform, and want to know what’s really going to happen. That’s why I come in.
Contact me today — or followup through the speakers bureau that sent you to my Web site — to learn how I can help you with your own transformative thinking. And in addition, check out the Healthcare Trends section of my blog for some fascinating posts regarding what I’ve been doing in this sector.
“The future is all about refrigerators…”
Earlier this month, I was down in Amarillo, Texas, where I was the opening keynote speaker for Day 2 of the annual conference of the Texas Cattlefeeders Association.
The event was lined up as the result of another keynote I did in Sonoma County, California last April, where I spoke to a gathering that included “what were probably the top 100 cattle, stockyard and feedlot operators in the US.” I reported on that event in a post, “Agriculture 2020: Innovation, growth & opportunity.”
The common theme to both of these keynotes? There is massive, significant opportunity for global growth in the agricultural sector. While there might be a lot of short term volatility due to the daily twists and turns with the global economy, one undeniable fact remains: global food production has to double over the next several decades to keep up with population growth and increasing food intake, particularly within emerging economies. I’ve found with both of these audiences that there is a relentless sense of optimism, and certainly a pretty significant openness to new ideas and opportunities for innovation. Read the post about “agriculture 2020” and you’ll get a sense of the reasons for their optimism.
That’s why I was fascinated to come across an article (“Future of ag is all about refrigerators“) that appeared in the Farm & Dairy Blog back in October (it’s the official blog for the well known Farm & Dairy Newspaper) that covered my thinking and message in a nutshell:
“We still face a global food market — a world population that stands at 6.9 billion and could reach 7 billion by the end of October.
If those numbers make your head spin and you really feel disconnected from that reality, think about refrigerators instead.
Carroll reminds us, as other have, that the growing population also has a growing segment with greater income, and they will eat more meat. He cites figures that estimate per capita meat consumption growth from 2000 to 2030 of 49 percent in China, 79 percent in India, and 22 percent in Brazil, for example.
And in India, the number one consumer product on an individual’s wish list is a television.
Number two? A refrigerator.
“Right now, refrigerators have only a 13 percent market penetration,” Carroll wrote in a blog post earlier this year.
“Talk about opportunities for growth.”
Sometimes the easiest way to think about future trends is to forget all the fancy analysis, detailed summaries, and simply concentrate on one simple statistic and trend. Most people in the world don’t have a refrigerator. Many want to have one. That fact alone is going to drive agriculture forward at a furious pace.
Farm & Dairy wasn’t the only one to pick up on this theme: over at The Social Silo (“Agriculture gets wired”), an article appeared, “Five Farm Things to Chew On This Week“, which offered up some “food for thought” for those in the agriculture sector.
Their last point? Refrigerators!
We’ve heard so much about world population growth and “who will feed the world,” that we’ve actually become a little distanced from that conversation. But the reality is this: As more people worldwide increase their income and class standing, they will eat more meat. In India, the number one item on wish lists is a television. The second wish? No, not a car, but a refrigerator, says futurist Jim Carroll. “Right now, refrigerators have only a 13 percent market penetration. Talk about opportunities for growth,” Carroll wrote in his blog last spring.
Carroll predicts per capita meat consumption growth from 2000 to 2030 will be 49 percent in China, 79 percent in India, and 22 percent in Brazil.
That alone should give you something to chew on.
Of course, agricultural producers have to balance the reality of growth with innovation in methods involving production, due to growing concerns about sustainability, safety and quality. The Farm & Dairy article went on to observe this issue around innovation.
We’re going to need more food, but we’re going to have to produce it more sustainably. That will take innovation, new ways of thinking, and new ways of farming.
Carroll predicts we’ll see more change on the farm in the next 10 years than we’ve seen in the last 50, and he might be right. Today’s farmer has reinvented himself at least once in his lifetime, and will have to be ready to reinvent his farm again.
Ag entrepreneurs will flourish. The opportunity is there for the future of agriculture. Just open the refrigerator.
I must admit, it certainly is a thrill to work with folks throughout the agriculture sector — I do find this to be one of the most innovative sectors of the population. That might come as a surprise to many people, who often view farmers and ranchers as folks who are stuck in tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth — the sector has come to accept innovation as a core virtue for years.
Indeed, I wrote about this way back in 2005, when I was out there talking to the theme, “I Found the Future in Manure: How to Capitalize on the Rapid Evolution of Science”. Those series of keynotes were based on the very theme of innovation that I was discovering throughout the agriculture sector in the early part of 2000-2001. I even ended up writing an article that made it into my Ready, Set, Done book, called “I found the future in manure!”
One thing I’ve come to appreciate is that farmers and ranchers and those who support them can be some of the most innovative people on the planet. Here’s a video clip from a keynote to a US Military conference in Dallas — yes, the military — and I’m describing to them the unique innovation insight that can be learned from farmers.
If you want to master innovation — then think about refrigerators, and think like a farmer!
- Farm & Dairy: The future of ag is in refrigerators
- Agriculture 2020: Innovation, opportunity and growth
- Farm Progress Magazine: Texas Cattlefeeders will Beef Up in Amarillo
- Food industry trends 2011: Report from a keynote
- Blog post: I found the future in manure
- 2004 article: “I found the future in manure!”
2011 T. Rowe Price Investment Symposium Keynote
I’m honored to be invited to be the closing keynote speaker for this event which starts tomorrow; I speak at the closing lunch on Friday, on the theme, “When Do We Get to Normal? Why Thinking BIG Will Help You Seize The Opportunities of the 21st Century.” I’m sharing headlining duties with two other fascinating speakers.
Im my talk, I will be examining three key issues :
- next generation investor trends. This is somewhat like the talk I did for the National Australian Bank just two years ago – how is the next generation of hyper connected, socially networked investor going to change in terms of wealth management, investment decisions and other activities. There’s a good blog post referenced below, “14 Key Innovation Strategies for Financial Advisors, and Financial Organizations” that you’ll find here.
- the future and optimism: where are we going to witness the next billion and trillion dollar industries? What’s happening with science, connectivity, manufacturing, skills and innovation that will drive global economies forward?
- “Designed in Emerging Markets!” – what’s next, and in particular, what’s happening with innovation worldwide — and what does that mean for the global economy.
So much of the global investment community is overdosing on pessimism – I’m not with what I see happening within my global client basis.
As I often observe when I walk out on stage — “I’m a futurist. I can’t walk out there and tell you that your future sucks — because it doesn’t. The world I see is full of innovation, creativity, the reinvention of existing business and the birth of new ones.”
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