“If you don’t do it today, when are you going to do it?” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Things That Won’t Happen in 2017: And What it Means
Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired, coined a very popular phrase : “The future happens very slowly and then all at once.”
I’ve seen the concept used quite a bit as of late as people come to comprehend that things are changing faster than they thought they would. In my parlance, I’ve been phrasing this idea as such: “the future is happening faster than we think.’
Yet as we head into 2017, I’m seeing the typical breathless end-of-year observations as people pull together their lists of things that will happen soon. One would think that one day in 2017, we are going to suddenly wake up into a world that we will barely recognize. Yes, the future happens slowly, and then all at once, but ‘at once’ usually means a span of time of several years, not a matter of months.
What will happen? One things seems certain!
Many of these predictions are bang-on: but it’s their timing is off!. With that thought in mind, I thought it would be useful to mention some of these trends of things that won’t happen in 2017:
- the streets won’t be flooded with self-driving cars in 2017. We’ll certainly see continued momentum in this space, with Tesla leading the pack and with every car manufacturer ramping up their efforts, R&D and deployment. There is a very real acceleration of the technology and capabilities in this space. Yet I think that it is going to take several years for the technology, business models and infrastructure to reach the tipping point. Missing in a lot of these conversations are the equally important developments and trends occurring with smart highway technology.
- jobs won’t suddenly return to the US in 2017. It’s a nice concept and certainly will be the theme for what I expect to be a destructive political thriller for the year, but bottom line: the jobs aren’t coming back. Manufacturing is all about robotics, productivity gains through technology, new skills and business models, and more. It would be nice for some folks to take time back to the 50’s, but its not going to happen.
- Silicon Valley won’t be suddenly afflicted with empathy in 2017. This is a recent meme that has emerged in the wake of the US election. I doubt it will happen. Silicon Valley has always been about accelerating change, making money, and having lots of fun in doing so. I don’t really see that changing any time soon.
- there won’t be virtual reality everywhere in 2017. 2016 certainly was a year that saw the maturity of the hardware and software around VR, and this will, going forward, be one of the most significant trends to impact industries, companies and skills. Just last night, I was reading a fascinating article about the opportunity to do a virtual flyeover related to the inspection of an electrical transmission system. This is real stuff, and a big opportunity. I do think that 2017 will see the technology become mainstream and recognized for what it is – it will be a year like that in which business and industry discovered the real potential of GPS. After this period of discovery, watch out! We can expect rapid acceleration with this trend.
- AI and robots aren’t going to make a lot of jobs disappear in 2017. People are freaking out about this one everywhere! This idea is perhaps one of the defining trends observations of 2016: that sweeping technological change – parituclarly AI and robotics — is going to render countless jobs, professions and skills obsolete. It’s certainly going to become real, and this is a pretty significant and profound trend. But like these other trends, it isn’t something that is going to happen with split-second instantaneity. Also, missing in this conversation is the reality at the same time that existing jobs and careers disappear, we are seeing the emergence of all kinds of new jobs and careers.
End of year lists are useful, as they help to spur creative thinking in people, and help them to align their actions to obvious future trends. The challenge is that sometimes, exuberance for the trend gets in the way of the practicality of the timing.
Having said that, I expect 2017 to be a banner year in terms of the speed of change of several major trends. I think we will see very fast acceleration with a variety of significant technologies and ideas – in my case, I’m carefully watching the cost collapse with 3D printing, computational analytics, energy sharing and storage, genomic interpretation and data sets, advanced material development, design methodologies and the impact of crowd-thinking, machine learning, the acceleration of science and chemistry, and the rapid emergence of smart highway infrastructure.
What Every Business Needs: A Senior VP of Curiosity!
I’ve always liked the children’s book series which involved Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat. It was fabulous to read to my kids, as it featured this adorable little monkey who was always thinking about things and always ended up getting into trouble as a result. It made me think about the link between curiosity and future trends and innovation.
(I loved book reading time with the kids! There was always such wonderful innovation insight that came from kids’ books! ****)
That’s why I was quite intrigued when I recently came across a study released by Merck — what they called their “First International Curiosity Study” — which featured some not-so-unsurprising results.
- more than 8 out of 10 people from Germany, the US, and China agreed that “a curious person is more likely to bring an idea to life at work”
- even so, the majority did not describe themselves as innately curious – only 20% did!
- instead, the majority described themselves as ‘organized, collaborative and detail-oriented
- curiosity came in 12th place on a list of attributes! (funny and talkative beat out curiosity, if you can believe it!)
How did the study define curiosity? Inquisitiveness, creativity, openness, and what they called ‘distress tolerance’ — which I would define as the ability to cope and deal with significant change, and turn it into advantage and opportunity through great ideas.
The result of the lack of curiosity is kind of staggering: buried away in the report is all kinds of other insight:
- 73% of those surveyed did not feel comfortable in asking more questions at work
- 50% in Germany indicated that they feel discouraged by their employee from changing the status quo!
- only 9% felt that the organizations they worked for were “extremely encouraging’ of curiosity
- 61% indicated that the organization was not at all encouraging at all, or only somewhat encouraging
Gosh, these results are pretty sad! Pathetic, really!
Here’s what it means: many organizations, in the face of rapid business model, technological, competitive, social, and political change, would prefer that their staff simply remain in a drone-like state, focused on getting things done, rather than figuring out how to do things better!
What should we do with the observations from such a study? Clearly, since we know that curiosity is at the root of much of innovation, the ideas should be obvious for anyone with a curious mind:
- curiosity should be encouraged as part of your corporate or organizational DNA
- people should be provided with some sort of “curiosity time”
- while unfocused curiosity is great, channeling curiosity into activity is even better
- the next step beyond having curiosity involves learning how to ask the right questions
And maybe it needs to be taken a step further: Curiosity should be imbued and baked into the organizational structure, and given a suitable level of importance. Why not have a senior VP of Curiosity?
Don’t give up — over at LinkedIn, a simple search shows a list of people who have Curiosity in their job title. There might be hope yet!
**** Kids books and innovation? One day I wrote a promo brochure for fun about the Leadership Secrets of Bob the Builder!
What’s Hot? What Leaders are Looking for Into 2017
In the next two weeks, I’ll have two unique keynotes to close off the year: a keynote for the United Soybean Board on the future of agriculture in St. Louis, and then an event in New York City for the senior leadership team of one of the world’s largest life insurance companies.
Then, it’s time for a holiday break — I’ll be busy with one son running the backyard snowmaking machine, and I’ll be working with the other to flood the newly constructed ice rink at the chalet.
** Read more about our awesome backyard snowmaking system below!
But after that, the future fires up in fast fashion as January kicks in! Here’s whats’ coming already in the early part of 2017:
- I will speaking to the a leadership meeting for the new organization, Arconic. This is a public spin-off of the global aluminum giant, Alcoa, that will be focused on major opportunities in the transportation, construction and other sectors.
- two days later, I’ll. focus on the future of construction industry for a leadership meeting of the Alberici Group, a major organization in the industrial and commercial construction sector. I’ll take a deep look at future trends and opportunities in the industries that affect them as a means for spotting opportunities for innovation
- two events in New Orleans follow in fast fashion. The first is for the American Financial Services Association — I’ll be taking a good look at the future of the automotive industry. Everything from the reality of self-driving cars, the emergence of smart highway infrastructure, the sharing economy and more, and how this might impact the future of automotive lending
- the second N.O. event is for United Suppliers, an agricultural cooperative, where I’ll take a look at the fast paced trends in this industry
- that’s followed up by an private innovation awards event for a hi-tech company, based around my theme, “What Do World Class Innovators Do that Others Don’t Do?” — and why its important to celebrate innovation success!
- hot on the heels of that event, I’ll keynote a global event for Bayer in San Antonio, spinning back into agriculture world with a real – hey, agriculture is a hot topic!
- then, its off to Palm Springs, where I will host a half day session with a major company in the automative retail/repair space, with the Board of Directors and senior leadership team, again, all around the theme of the future of the automative industry and disruptive innovation
** Backyard snowmaking? Why not! At our chalet, we’ve always had a little ‘luge run’, and one of my sons always wanted to make snow, so he built his own. As I wrote on Facebook: “As temperatures in the north east begin to plummet, it’s time to turn to thoughts of snow. For that, you need to accelerate your innovation with a backyard snowmaking system. Here’s ours. It can pump out a 10×20, 2″ base of snow in 2-4 hours. It utilizes a pressure washer, air compressor, and a very sophisticated system of valves and nozzles to atomize the water to the right consistency. It also requires optimal snowmaking conditions, and so for that, we have a Raspberry Pi with a SenseHat running Linux that monitors dew point, humidity and temperature in real time, so that the proper Wet Bulb temperature snowmaking is calculated and known.”
10 Things That are True About the Future
In my keynotes, I often talk about how the rate of change — whether with business models, product life cycles, the rapid emergence of new competitors, business model disruption, skills and knowledge and more! — is speeding up. With such change, there’s a lot of uncertainty within many industries as to what to do next: a senior executive of one client commented to me from his perspective, “….entities are engaged in survival tactics because they don’t know what to do next ….”
Here’s a simple reality: Innovation is all about adapting to the future — and if the future is coming at you faster, then you need to innovate faster.
Given that, innovation shouldn’t be about trying to survive the future — it should be about thriving.
At a recent keynote to senior executives, I outlined some truths as to the future:
- It’s incredibly fast: Product life cycles are collapsing. It’s said that half of what students learn in their freshman year about science and technology is obsolete or revised by their senior year. There are furious rates of new scientific discovery. Time is being compressed.
- It involves a huge adaptability gap: Earlier generations — boomers — have had participated in countless “change management workshops,” reflecting the reality that many of them have long struggled with change. Gen-Connect — today’s 35 and under — will never think of change management issue. They just change.
- It has a huge instantaneity: The average consumer scans 12 feet of shelf space per second. Most news becomes old hat within 36 hours of emerging. Rapid prototyping, 3D printing and the maker community mean that a product can go from conception to reality in a matter of weeks – if not days. We live in the era of the rapid idea-cycle.
- It hits you most when you don’t expect it: Every organization must deal with two realities: the rapid emergence of new technologies, and the sudden adoption of old-hat ideas. If you want to understand what comes next, study Gartner’s concept of “hype-cycles”
- It’s being defined by renegades and rebels: Increasingly, the future of many an industry is being defined by industry expatriates. When a real innovator can’t innovate within a company, they step outside, form a startup, and spark massive industry change on their own. Before you know, they’ve reinvented you, whether you like it or not
- It involves partnership: Old business models involved asking, “what can we do to run our business better?” The new business model is this: “What can we do to run our customers, suppliers and partners business better?“
- It involves intensity: 80% of the revenue from the typical video game is earned within 4 to 5 days of release. That’s becoming the norm in many industries — although not in days, but perhaps months. Companies are discovering their new reality involves short, sharp shocks of revenue, followed by a need to constantly re-asses and reinvent. We must learn to run our business at video-game intensity: in fast paced markets, we need fast paced business capabilities!
- It’s bigger than you think: I used to joke, back in 2003, about a futuristic GoogleCar, and an era in which Silicon Valley would become the new centre of the automotive universe. With self-driving cars and other efforts, its not a joke anymore. Every industry is witnessing similar levels of disruption and acceleration. Complacency is a dangerous thing, particular when every organization is faced with constant, relentless external innovation from unexpected competitors.
- It involves innovation intensity: With rapid change, everyone in an organization must innovate. Some years ago, I appeared on a the CNBC Business of Innovation show. It featured a lot of “innovation elitists” who seemed to indicate that only special people can “do” innovation. Wrong : thriving in the future has a leadership that involves everyone in innovation. No idea is too dumb, no opportunity is too small. In an era of fast change, organizations must be relentlessly innovative, and that requires drawing on the skills and creativity of everyone
- It comes from experiential capital: With a fast future, you must learn and relearn. Corporate equity isn’t just money: it’s the cumulative experience and knowledge of the team. Yeas ago, Verizon took a lot of abuse from analysts for its’ big fiber optic bet, yet here’s what I see: the CEO stating that the cost of installing fiber dropped 30% in 2005, and that there was a further reduction of 15-20% by 2006. By the end of end of 2006, they expected it to cost 1/2 that of 2005. The more they do, the better they get. That’s experiential capital, and that’s an invaluable asset.
The future is going to hit you whether you like it or not; it’s your approach to it, and how you innovate with it, that defines your future success.
Failing at the Future: Groupthink, Strategy and A Consensus to Do Nothing….
It’s a funny job, being a futurist.
Essentially, your job is to take people out of their comfort zone, by removing them from today, and taking them into tomorrow.
Tomorrow, of course, involves challenge and change; opportunity and threat; hope and fear. Some people are ready for it; many others are not.
With 25 years and more of helping people comprehend change and what comes next, I’ve come to learn a few things, best captured by an observation I often make on stage: “some people see a trend and see a threat. Innovators see the same trend, and see an opportunity!”
Think about that phrase, and then think about three situations that just unfolded in the last several days:
- a large global financial services organization had been looking at me to come in and focus on what they needed to do to align themselves to faster consumer, technology, business model and other disruptive change — all the things I do. I had great interactions with one of the organizers who wanted to bring me in. What happened? The decision for a keynote went to a committee, who decided to do what they’ve always done: they chose an industry expert! As my contact admitted to me, “we should look outside the box and opt for something new, novel, insightful, controversial, not by default vote for the known names, where we will hear the stuff we already know, wrapped in different package.“. But they went with what was comfortable. After the decision, he noted that “it just shows how transformation consultants are not insightful in how to continuously improve and transform themselves, once they get into the comfort zone…”
- an association that will be heavily impacted by the emergence of smart highways, autonomous, self-driving cars, and the acceleration of the automotive industry, had been looking at me for a keynote on what they needed to do to align to this rate of change. What did they decide? They booked a motivational speaker to come in and ‘energize their group!’ (their words). Can an industry simply motivate themselves out of disruptive change? Probably not…..
- and in the most fascinating situation, a major agricultural organization that runs a series of events for farmers shortlisted me (for the 10th year in a row). And for the 10th year, I’ve learned, they’ve gone out and selected the same national news anchor they’ve selected for the last 10 years! Who I suppose will deliver the same message, interpreting current events, and basically repeating to them what he says on the national news each and every night. Simple fact? Agriculture in 10 years will look nothing like it does today: and so how can re-interpreting current affairs help them to deal with this fact?
It’s kind of funny, if you think about it.
But it’s also a pretty poor reflection on the ability of people to confront and deal with change.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not terribly bothered by this, other than by writing this post. The fact of the matter is that nature of my business is that I do some 50 keynotes or leadership meetings each year. The number really doesn’t vary; I’ve got a limited number of dates that I make myself available for, and a limited set of time to do the intense industry research for each talk that I am known for. I’ve encountered many situations like this over the past, and regardless of what these folks are doing, I’ll end up being booked by someone else for the dates that were on the table.
I just find it remarkable that so many people live in fear of the future, and yet really aren’t prepared to do anything about it.
My job IS to make people feel uncomfortable with the future, warts and all – and yet also inspire and challenge them to discover the opportunity that comes from the reality of change. This was perhaps best captured in the brochure copy when I did a keynote for 500 mayors and civic officials in Salt Lake City for the Utah League of Cities and Towns a few years ago:
What a great description!
“Jim Carroll’s job is to make people feel uncomfortable …. maybe even a bit confused. Just when you think you’ve got things figured out, Jim probably sees it differently. He has a knack for predicting trends and change, and helping business and government leaders see where things are going, and how they can not only adapt to change, but lead it.”
When I first saw the description in the brochure, it took me by surprise. In most cases, the client runs brochure copy past me before it goes to print, but in this case, for various logistics reasons, I didn’t see it in advance. Yet when I first read it, I thought to myself, “hmmm, does that sound right?” I thought perhaps it might put a bit of a negative spin on what I do.
Yet the more I thought about it, I realized it was a great outline of what I do!
That’s because when it comes to the future, far too many people can be complacent about the trends that are going to impact them, and avoid the type of creative ideas that they need to pursue in order to keep up with the pace of change.
If you are too comfortable right now with the future, then you probably aren’t thinking hard enough about the trends that are going to impact you. You need to be scared; nervous; prepared to accept that things are going to change, and ready for action. That’s why you should always remember the comments of Andy Grove of Intel: “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”
So maybe being a little uncomfortable, dazed and confused is a good state of mind to be in!
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