I’ve put together a full size PDF of my “25 Trends for 2025” document – grab it by clicking the image below.
Video: A Rollicking Good Bit of Fun!
For all the baby boomers out there — a bit of rollicking good fun, with a look at what we went through with computers in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Based on my book Surviving the Information Age!
New Keynote Topic: The Internet of Things: Disruption and Opportunity in an Era of Pervasive Connectivity
Every industry is set to be transformed as an era of hyper connectivity becomes the new norm. The result? Massive business model disruption; the rapid emergence of new competitors; industries in which customers empowered with mobile devices control a wide variety of devices that are a part of their daily lives; unique opportunities for deep analytical insight into trends and opportunities emerging in industries; a reinvention of manufacturing, logistics, retail, healthcare and other industries because of consumers that are empowered, connected, and enabled with a new form of lifestyle management that we’ve never witnessed before.
The Internet of Things is happening everywhere.
The CEO of a major US energy company hired Jim Carroll to do a video that put into perspective the impact of the Internet of Things on the global energy. There are some pretty profound changes underway.
The Internet of Things is real, and it is unfolding at a blistering pace. We’re in the era of connected thermostats that link to an intelligent energy grid; autonomous vehicle technology that is self-aware, and networked into sophisticated, intelligent highway flow control systems. A connected trucking fleet that is self-diagnostic, predictive, and built for zero down-time . Intelligent home appliances that link to packaged food products that automatically upload carb, sodium and other dietary information as part of an overall health and wellness program.
Jim Carroll has been talking on stage about the Internet of things since the late 1990’s, when he began using the phrase “hyper connectivity” to describe a world in which “every device that is a part of our daily lives is about to become plugged in.” Since then, he has delivered his insight on the topic to a wide variety of organizations: several global technology leaders with a keynote talk on the future of home automation; several of the world’s largest HVAC companies about what happens when a global, intelligent home and industrial energy infrastructure emerges through widespread connectivity; consumer, food and packaged goods conferences about the impact of intelligent packaging. He has been booked by many leading global health care organizations for keynotes that have focused on what happens when consumers start aligning their wellness strategies through their own personal healthcare infrastructure.
The Internet of Things is a substantive, transformative trend that will provide more change in every industry in the next ten years than they’ve seen in the last thirty.
Jim Carroll already over a dozen years of on-stage experience with the topic, and can help you understand the strategies, risks and opportunities that you need to be aware of you move into a hyperconnected future. Consider one of the world’s most widely recognized futurists, trends and innovation experts for your next association, CEO leadership meeting or other keynote!
Article: Going fast? The Future Will Be Faster
A few weeks ago, I was the closing keynote speaker for Potato Expo 2015 in Orlando, with a talk titled “
It was quite a bit of fun, and drew a SRO audience.
Prior to the event, I was interviewed by Spudman Magazine; they ran an article in the daily show newspaper on day 2. It’s a good summary of my thoughts on the agricultural sector. I did cover a lot in terms of trends for agriculture in the future;
I’m working to get a video of my keynote. But for now, you might enjoy reading the article.
Article: Going fast? The Future Will Be Faster
By Bill Schaefer, SpudMan Magazine
You have to be fast to succeed in today’s business climate, and you’re going to have to be even faster to succeed in the future.
That’s the message Jim Carroll is bringing to his presentation at today’s POTATO EXPO.
“My message for the folks in the room is, ‘look there is still a lot more change yet to come and your success is going to come from your ability to ingest that change,’” Carroll said.
“The key thing is the rate of change is accelerating, it’s getting faster, so you’re going to have to innovate faster. You’re going to have to pursue those new ideas faster. You’re going to have to try things faster. You’re going to have to keep an open mind faster,” he said in a rapid, staccato beat.
Carroll is an author, columnist and consultant, with a focus on linking future trends to innovation and creativity. He is based in Toronto,
He is the author of, “The Future Belongs to Those Who are Fast”, “Ready, Set Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast” and “What I Learned from Frogs in Texas: Saving Your Skin With Forward Thinking Innovation.”
Carroll considers agricultural people to be some of the most innovative, tech savvy, people in the world.
Carroll said that the general public remains uninformed about current agricultural practices. He said that many people continue to view farming from the sepia-toned photos of the 1940s and 1950s.
“They don’t realize how many technological and scientific advances have occurred,” Carroll said. With world population currently estimated at 7.3 billion and projected to be 9.6 billion in 2050 and the increasing demand for better diets in China and India, there’s huge opportunities for those willing to pursue them, Carroll said.
“Global food production has to double to keep up with population, that’s a given. There’s little new arable land,” he said.
He emphasized that while the farming community has readily incorporated advances such as GPS steering and mobile apps to control irrigation pivots and storage sheds, the changes are coming at an ever faster pace and farmers are going to have to keep up.
“I know I’m talking to a very sophisticated, very innovative audience,” Carroll said in anticipation of his appearance at the POTATO EXPO. “But the key message is ‘look, you think you’ve dealt with change so far? Wait until you see what’s coming.’”
Carroll maintains that part of the formula for success is to maintain a degree of agility when it comes to making decisions at a time of transition in consumer demand.
“New consumer food trends now emerge faster than ever before,” he said. “If you’re anywhere in the food market, you’ve got to be able to respond very quickly.”
The days of having two or three years to roll out a new product can be found in the pay-phone booth in front of the video rental store.
“You have to have a team that is nimble and can react fast and understand and predict those trends as they’re unfolding,” Carroll said.
Carroll said that there’s a quote he often uses at conferences to distill his message . “Some people see a trend and see a threat. Innovators see the same trend and see an opportunity and that’s where you’ve got to be as a producer,” he said.
Trend: Mobile is Eating Retail
I had the delight of leading a small, intimate talk to a group of leading retailers in New York City earlier this week, at an event sponsored by agile software development firm Thoughtworks.
The focus of my talk was to put into perspective the reality of the high-velocity trends that are impacting every single aspect of the world of retail. 
If you are a CEO of any type of retailer, and do not understand the scope of these trends, you need to get onboard — fast.
1. Mobile is eating retail The future of retail is all about mobile and if any CEO doesn’t understand that, they should be out of a job. Already by 2013, statistics show that sales through mobile and tablet devices were up 138% in 2013 from the year before. That takes us to the point where sales through some type of mobile device is estimated to be at least at 30% of *all* retail sales.
If that doesn’t get your attention then consider that another group suggests that by the end of 2015, every single retail transaction in the US will have some type of mobile element. It doesn’t matter what type of element — it could involve the actual purchase transaction, or logistics tracking, or a payment process, or some type of loyalty transaction.
Think about that. Every single retail transaction will somehow involve a mobile device somewhere along the way. That’s significant, because it provides big opportunity for business transformation — but it also provides for the potential for massive business model disruption, new competition, loss of market control and dozens of other challenges. It gets even bigger over time. In the UK, leading retailer John Lewis suggests that every category will migrate to online shopping in a big way — with their estimate that by 2023, 27% of all fashion sales will be through a mobile device.
2. Control of the speed of innovation has shifted to Silicon Valley The retail industry, like every other industry, is caught in a trend that control of the speed of innovation moving to the pace set by Silicon Valley speed? For a long time, the pace of innovation in retail has been relatively slow and deliberate; aside from some cool new cardboard layouts for end-cap displays, and sprucing up a store layout, there wasn’t a lot of need to do anything really fast.
Whoops! Now when you enter a store, you’ll use your iPhone to confirm the transaction, and you’ll get an instant receipt. Loyalty transactions will occur through mobile.
Consumers will be influenced by something on their mobile (see below) ….. All of which means — new business models, disruptive competition, a shift in control, customer churn — everything is up for grabs once Silicon Valley seizes control and defines your future!
3. Mobile “influence” is going to completely redefine in-store interaction We’re in the era of what is known as “shopper marketing,” a method of promotion involving mobile devices. Booz & Company research suggests that shopper marketing is already at $50 billion in the US.
What is it? I’ll walk into a store, and behind the scenes, the store will recognize me through an interaction with my mobile device, either because of an App that I have with the retailer; a permissive social relationship; or maybe a loyalty relationship. The result is that I’ll either get a message on my phone with an e-coupon. Or perhaps an LCD TV in the store will put up a welcome message for me, with audio, and suggest I walk over to aisle 7 for a customized special offer just for me!
Farfetched? I don’t think so. Creepy? To us maybe, but perhaps not to the next generation. When we think of the strangeness of the future and our likely negative reaction to some of what might come next, we have to remember this: it’s not bad, it’s just different. How fast is shopper marketing moving forward?
Research suggests that 56% of food wholesalers, 61.1% of manufacturers and 38.3% of sales agencies will likewise invest more in shopper marketing in the coming year. What’s popular? Mobile coupons (51%), personalized mobile offers (44.8%), store-specific mobile apps (40.6%), text messages (36.5%) and location-based services such as Foursquare and Facebook Places (35.4%).
And we’re only in the early stages. If you want to understand the future, grab the Apple Store app, and allow it to check your location. Then go visit your local Apple store, and watch what happens.
4. The change to the mobile wallet provides more potential for massive disruption Two things are happening: if you think about it, Apple has eliminated the concept of the cash register in stores. And more importantly, they’ve rendered the plastic credit card obsolete with Apple Pay.
And the fascinating thing is that most of the retail and banking world was seemingly caught unawares, which is staggering since everyone knew this was coming for at least the last 20 years! The result is that organizations like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover now find themselves in a heated competition with Apple, Google, PayPal and other high-velocity, innovative tech companies.
Who would you put your money on? It’s not just that; the battle of the small vs. incumbents (Square vs Visa/MasterCard/Discovery/Amex) continues. It is still terrifically difficult for any small retailer to get a ‘merchant’ accountant from any of the dinosaurian incumbents.
That’s why you see so many new business organizations using devices like Square and other industry disruptors. 
There’s another aspect too! The move to the mobile wallet involves a need for a rapid and massive infrastructure change. Most retailers can’t move that fast; they are still working to solve the big ERP problems they inherited in 2010!
So while they are trying to fix the past, the future is unfolding in front of them way too fast.
4. Same day shipping everywhere destroys markets
Can you say “Amazon-Prime?” I am speaking to countless industries that are suddenly waking up to a world in which Amazon might suddenly be able to dominate their retail business model. Flooring products. Thermostats. You name it.
Anne Zybowski, an analyst at Kantar Retail said it best a few years ago: “A few years ago retailers spent a ton of time trying to make their online stores look and act like their physical stores. Now they’ve sort of reversed course, and the challenge is how to take that online shopping experience that’s so personalized, socially connected and heavily layered with data, and essentially bring it into a physical environment.”
The model in which stores carry a lot of inventory is disappearing — the future is all about fulfilment. We live in the era of “omni-channel retail,” and nothing will ever be the same.
The future of retail is all about Google vs. Amazon vs. Wal-Mart, all of whom have promised to build an infrastructure that will support same day delivery to 50% of the US population within a few short years. With that, we are witnessing the rapid emergence of instant delivery startups. Amazon is hiring bicycle couriers to put in place a business model that will offer up one-hour delivery in New York and San Francisco.
But wait! There’s more!
‘Click-and-collect’ infrastructure in major urban centres is happening at a furious pace; sit at your desk, order your groceries, and pick up your order in just one hour from your local grocery store. Caught flat-footed are a whole bunch of retailers who find that they can’t compete on price, don’t have comparable infrastructure, and frankly, don’t know what to do other than recoil in fear!
5. The “Internet of things” also involves intelligent packaging, which changes everything.
The hype out of CES last week was fascinating. The Internet of things is real — I’ve been talking about it for 15 years. But what isn’t being talked about in many circles is the impact of intelligent packaging — which completely defines the retail process, not to mention the product. Intelligent packaging has huge implications. We are talking about packaging that talks to you — maybe we will see Apple’s SIRI embedded in the package.
We’ve already got pharmaceutical packaging that does “electronic event monitoring” for patient adherence. We’re going to see food packaging that automatically uploads calorie, carb, sodium and other data to a customer’s smartphone. We’ve already got packaging that comes with a unique code — and will automatically send a text through your mobile to verify that the product is not counterfeit. We’ll have packaging that lights up when you pick it up with a small LCD screen, and runs a customized video, just for you, because it links to the app on your phone.
We’re talking about …..interactive packaging, intelligent and active packaging, multi-sensory packaging, edible packaging … packaging as mini-billboards…!
6. All this is happening in the context of collapsing product life-cycles We are in the era of era of instant obsolescence and disappearing lifespans. Think about this: 60% of Apple’s revenue came from products that didn’t exist three years prior to the earnings release, according to an analysis of Apple’s revenue by mobile app developer Asymco. 
Think about that in the context of your operations.
What if you had to replenish your product or service line every two or three years?
It could become the new normal in many industries.
The impact on retailers is staggering.
Think about the graph in your marketing textbook from years or decades ago when you first learned about the concept of product life cycles. Remember how it showed a product coming to market: sales increase, reach market maturity and eventually begin to drop off. That’s been the model of product life cycles as taught in business schools for the past 100 years or so.The rule of thumb was that companies would innovate and introduce a new product. If it succeeded, the company would experience growth. At some point, sales would peak. The product would then become obsolete or overtaken by competitors and sales would decline.
That might involve a time period of 10, 15 or even 25 years. What a quaint model. Too bad it bears no resemblance to today’s reality. The product life-cycle model today is being turned on its ear by instant obsolescence. In some industries, that product obsolescence now occurs during the growth stage; in the high-tech industry, the decline phase caused by instant obsolescence can occur during the introduction of a product or even before a product makes it to the marketplace.
And so in the context of all the change noted above, retailers have to support faster logistics, marketing, branding, sales training, promotions……. It’s a lot of change. That’s why innovation in the high velocity economy is all about:
- an accelerated innovation cycle
- rapid ingestion of new technologies / methodologies
- faster time to market
- rapid re-focusing of resources for opportunity or threat
- rabid focus on operational excellence
- rapid response to volatility
- re-orientation to fast paced consumer and brand perception
Are retailers ready? I did two quick text message polls of my audience in New York City, and here’s what I got! First, they don’t think their ready! 
And second, they think they have a lot of mismatches that they need to fill; 
Retail? The future belongs to those who are fast — particularly as mobile eats retails! ]]>
University Business Mag quotes me in 2015 Education Forecast
Higher ed thought leaders forecast 2015 trends: Presidents and other thought leaders look ahead on cost, technology and learning.”
They called me for my thoughts which I offered up in a concise way:
Trend: When it comes to the future of education, it’s all about “just-in-time knowledge.” Increasingly specialized careers and skills, and accelerating technological change, mean more organizations will need people who can deliver the right skills, at the right time, for the right purpose. Knowledge development and deployment will accelerate to keep up with trend.
The article offers up a good variety of opinions on the future of education; it’s an industry that is ripe for and in the middle of some pretty significant disruption. I’ve done a lot of keynotes in this space, as seen on my Education Trends page.
As I noted in one of the posts there, “In essence, we’re living in a period of time that is witnessing these trends unfold at blinding speed, all related to the evolution of knowledge.
- Rapid knowledge obsolescence
- Rapid knowledge emergence
- Disappearance of existing careers due to 1)
- Rapid emergence of new careers due to 2)
- An ongoing need for continuous knowledge replenishment because of 1-4
- The migration of knowledge generation further away from academia (i.e. community colleges, high end manufacturing skills) because of the need for faster new knowledge deployment
- A massively increased challenge from overseas knowledge generation
- The fast emergence of new micro-careers because of specialized knowledge
- An economy that succeeds through knowledge deployment
- A fundamental transformation in knowledge delivery
I’m thrilled to announce that my efforts to help people understand the massive transformation that is occurring in what is known as “education” continues; I’ve been confirmed as the opening keynote speaker for the 2015 Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities annual conference in Denver in June.
There are more thoughts that can be found in my PDF, “21st Century Skills“, below. Read it here or by clicking on the image.
“Skills are Experiential. Skills are Generational. One of the most important assets that a company can invest in is “experiential capital”—that is, the cumulative knowledge the company has generated through innovation, risk, failure and success. Boost that skills capability and you’ve done something that flows onto the bottom line.”
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