Futurist Keynote Speaker Jim Carroll: Disruptive Trend & Innovation Expert

Futurist Keynote Speaker,  Author, Innovation Expert. 

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The Shed Project – How to Move a Shed 20 feet – Intact?

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So let’s really try out the power of social networking, and see if it can apply to practical, everyday problems.

Our backyard shed needs to move about 20 feet, in order to expand the basketball area. Preferably, we’d like to do it intact, rather than disassembling it and rebuilding it.

ShedProject.jpg

One suggestion was to dig under the corners, shore it up, put some rollers underneath, lay down pipes and “roll it across” — just like the Egyptians did. And as seen here.

But maybe there is a better way. If you are a really smart engineer, or have a great idea, or have done this yourself, please follow me on Twitter and tweet me a suggestion. Or send me an e-mail at [email protected]. (My blog isn’t set up yet for comments, but I’ll post the solutions offered here later…)

(Suggestions to just buy a new shed are welcome, but not terribly innovative.)

Must get back to work now.

Update: We managed to get the shed moved. We essentially jacked it up, put some heavy pipe under it, and rolled it to the new location. The actual heavy-lifting work was coordinated by a friend of mine, who brought in some really big burly guys to do the deed. It worked like a charm!

Good jobs in Bad Times – I’m interviewed on PBS on future career trends

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GoodJobsBadTimes.pngWKSU, the PBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, has been running a series this week titled “Good Jobs in Bad Times.” It’s a serious look at current and future job and career trends. Topics include “high-paying tech jobs, careers that don’t need a four-year degree, the re-growth of agriculture as industry, working part-time full-time, career makeovers, the truth about healthcare, bridge jobs after graduation and the future of the NE Ohio employment outlook.”

I’m interviewed in the final segment, “What’s next:Jobs of the future will likely refine the jobs of today.”

Here’s an extract: you can visit the site and listen to the series at the links below. I’m on at 2:58 on the timeline.

Jim Carroll of Toronto is a futurist who studies trends and tries to predict what lies ahead. He believes the growing interest in alternative energy and “green” products will generate new jobs in coming years, but not just in obvious ways such as building wind turbines and solar panels.

For example, “there’s a lot of very unique research and development occurring out there having to do with packaging,” Carroll said. “And what that leads to is new products coming to market. It involves new companies, it involves new growth industries. …So, what you’re going to have is the emergence of new companies with a new mind set developing these new products to meet new societal demands. And when you look at that, that’s where some of the job growth is going to occur.”

Carroll said companies must closely watch for trends that can be turned into new jobs. But, not everyone has the resources of a big company to find and capitalize on the next big thing. For individuals planning to train for new careers, Carroll advises they pursue jobs that are evolving in areas like health care. “Patient navigators,” for example, are increasing in demand.

“It’s a doctor or a nurse or a medical professional or someone with specific training who simply steers the patient through the complexity of the increasingly complex health care system,” Carroll said. “It’s estimated there’s about 18,000 of these people in the US health care system today. It’s estimated that number will grow to about 180,000 by the year 2015. That’s the emergence of a new career.

“And if you’re thinking, ‘Where are the jobs going to be in the future?’ It’s in things like that.”

It’s a timely series and interview, because on Monday I do a keynote for a group of HR professionals, community leaders, social innovators, career development and employment preparation practitioners, labour market experts and employers, on the theme of “Careers 2015.” It will be a real, practical look at what we can expect in terms of career transitions, new careers and job opportunities a half decade out.

Think growth!

  • Go to the Good Jobs in Bad Times site
  • Go to the What’s next:Jobs of the future will likely refine the jobs of today section

You need to have a relentless focus on growth — RELENTLESS!

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2009LeadershipGrowth.jpgI was interviewed sometime last month by FoodProcessing.com – this was related to their discovery of the keynote I did for the Readers Digest / EveryDay with Rachel Ray team food industry summit in New York last fall.

They ran a short article, “March of the New Machines: The Future of Food Processing” — and ran my comment on what I’ve seen in terms of CEOs who have a relentless focus on growth. Many of my recent keynotes — several in Las Vegas, Austin, Miami, and New York — have been focused on how to maintain growth strategies during an economic contraction.

Here’s an extract from the interview. Some good food for thought on the need to be RELENTLESS on the future and opportunities.

In a tough economy like this, it’s time to hold the line on spending and to be especially cautious of leading-edge technology. Right?

History’s full of companies that leapt ahead of competitors by increasing spending, especially on innovation, during down times. Jim Carroll, author and innovation consultant, recalled a speaking engagement in which he followed the CEO of a global restaurant chain, who spoke for a brief but powerful 20 minutes.

“For the first minute, he spoke about the global economy and the meltdown. He then spent the next 19 minutes identifying eight growth opportunities and how this organization could do great things if they relentlessly obsessed over them.

“How cool is that?” asks Carroll. “All these other companies are retrenching, pulling back, and here’s a guy who’s saying to his team, ‘Let’s focus on growth.’ “

He says growth plans and strategic if judicious spending is mandatory for managing during a downturn. Companies that aren’t paralyzed by total spending freezes can get the jump on those competitors who are. And when the economy is back on track a year or whatever from now, Carroll says only then will we be able to point to companies and say which ones lagged and failed and which ones “took risks and did great things.“

The article at FoodProcessing.com itself takes a look at the technologies, production platforms, processes, ideas and methodologies which can provide for innovation in terms of market growth, product development, cost management and other areas. There’s no shortage of opportunity for innovation in the food and consumer product sector – or any other industry.

What is missing right now for many organizations is the COURAGE TO TAKE RISKS and INVEST!

Innovators focus on the future, they focus on growth, and they focus their team on opportunity. That’s a key message, and you’d do well to obsess over it.

Think growth!

  • Read March of the New Machines: The Future of Food Processing
  • Read the RDA Food & Entertainings Consumer Food Symposium summary (PDF)

HVAC 2.0 – Thoughts on my Las Vegas keynote

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2009HVAC.jpgI just came off stage in Las Vegas from an opening keynote for a group of about 500 representatives for Trane / Ingersoll Rand, and their key contractor partners. My keynote was to focus on “7 Things They Should Do Right Now to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast.”

Certainly it can be tough in the construction industry right now, and particularly so for contractors. They’re witnessing a laundry list of challenges, including:

  • Project deferment, postponement and cancellation
  • Prevalence of below-cost bidding
  • Financing is vanishing
  • New demands for cost-cutting and project management
  • A capital spending freeze at many organizations
  • A looming funding crisis (e.g. university endowment collapse means less college and university construction in the future)

Of course, that’s what most people might see if they look at the sector. I look further than the 3 minutes, 3 months or 3 years — that’s what a futurist does. And I see a TREMENDOUS amount of momentum.

First off, there’s a lot of fiscal momentum, with the stimulus spending including some:

  • $6.4 billion for water projects
  • $50 billion for energy programs (efficiency & renewable energy)
  • $11 billion on a “smart electrical grid”
  • $4.5 billion on federal building energy efficiency
  • $47 billion in state fiscal relief, with permission to use funds for school modernization/repair

All of this will have a direct impact on growth in the industry.

Beyond that though, the future looks tremedously bright for the HVAC industry because of what we might call HVAC 2.0. In a nutshell, the industry is going to play a huge role as we work to fix the big societal problems of energy and the environment.

And that is going to happen with the rapid emergence of highly intelligent building infrastructure; ten years out, most buildings will be smart buildings; the Internet and IP will be the backbone to a system that provides for intelligent energy management, monitoring and usage. Silicon Valley and HVAC are getting married, and the result is going to be remarkable.

The National Institute of Building Sciences comments on the impact of this trend, noting that “…an economic expansion based on emerging green markets would create an estimated 3 million jobs … and help establish communities with high-performance buildings that are both economically advantageous and environmentally conscious.”

The trend is driven by two things that have undeniable monentum: the need for energy savings, and the green building movement. Consider the health care sector. Green specs in health care / hospital building projects has gone from 13.3 percent in 2006, to 37.6 percent in 2007, to an even higher percentage in 2008. There’s a bit of pullback in 2009 as projects are deferred, but the increase will continue to come at us with a vengeance.

So as a contractor, how do you innovate? By keeping on top of fast pace trends in your industry in terms of methodology, ideas, technology, new design thinking — high velocity change!!!!

So what I suggested to them was that, for example, they could get out in front of tenant / building manager needs, with this line of thinking:

  • when times get tough, quality, service and relationships rule
  • success is found not by competing on price, but through partnership: ie. ‘we’ve got the latest strategies to help achieve cost savings’ (i.e. remote energy management)
  • key attitude? “we’re on top of fast paced developments with building management, so you don’t need to!”

I do a tremendous amount of research when I go in to keynote a group. That’s why I’ve got such a solid, blue chip, global client list. Real innovation takes real thinking, with an alignment of existing and forthcoming trends to innovation opportunities.

The explosion of mobile banking! My upcoming Texas keynote ….

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2009Wizzit.jpgI’m off to Austin, Texas today, where I’ll be the closing keynote speaker tomorrow for the annual meeting of the Texas Credit Union League.

My role is to motivate and challenge the audience to continue to focus on applying innovative and creative ideas to their businesses, given that there is constant change within the financial sector. Not just due to the financial crisis, but also due to rapidly shifting consumer behavior, the rapid emergence of new technologies, and the extremely fast development of new business models.

Particularly with the idea of mobile banking!

Take the story of Wizzit (which boasts the slogan, “With Wizzit, you have your bank in your pocket“), based in South Africa. 200,000 South African’s have signed up for the service, in which they pay bills, store cash like a debit card, transfer funds, and send remittances. Wizzit is completely text messaging based.
Accounts can be opened in 30 seconds via a call center, and are sold via Wizzkids (It’s based upon the JetBlue model – with these representatives working at home). Plans are to expand the business model into Eastern Europe, according to Bank Technology News.

Then there is the story of Guaranty Bank in Turkey, which boasts $61 billion in assets. They set up a mobile banking portal — and in the first two months, saw 1 million page views, 50,000 customers, 30,000 transactions and $24 million in transaction volume.

Today, they’ve got 1.3 million mobile banking customers, and believe that the service is accessible on 5,100 cellphone models.

Quite clearly, mobile is going to play a huge role in financial services, and it’s happening NOW!

On stage, I’ll be challenging this group to realize that their future success will come from their ability to respond to rapidly changing products, markets, business models, rapid economic trends, and competitive. In that way, innovation isn’t just about new products — it’s about responding to the reality that in every industry, faster is the new fast.

  • Wizzit Web site
  • Innovation in the financial sector – related post

When do you innovate?

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The New Yorker has a great article out, “Hanging tough,” about how some companies choose to ensure that they stay innovative in recessionary times.

That’s the theme I’ve been focused on for the last 8 months on stage. Here’s a clip from a recent Las Vegas event for a global organization, addressing the theme, “Innovators get out in front of the recession”

People seem to be catching on to the idea that now is not the time to hunker down, but to push forward, innovate, change and adapt.

  • New Yorker article, “Hanging tough”

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THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO ARE FAST features the best of the insight from Jim Carroll’s blog, in which he
covers issues related to creativity, innovation and future trends.

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Series: 2026 • Megatrends • Forward • Tomorrow