JimCarroll

100 Days of Innovation – Get Out in Front

October 8, 2008 by JimCarroll

The last few weeks have seen a variety of keynotes for leadership meetings — for a telecom company, food services organization, commercial real estate & property management firm, among others. These have involved audiences from 250+ to 800+ executives.

Obviously, the economy weighs heavily into my observations on stage, and in the questions in the Q&A.

The keynotes have been built around my theme of 7 Things You Need to Do Right Now: Aligning The Fast Future to Your Current Strategy.

One of the 7 Things that has stood out – in common with all these organizations — focuses on the reality that with an economic correction underway, it is critical to keep existing customer/client relationships intact. Indeed, the CEO at the event yesterday noted that “customer retention” was one of the top 6 priorities for 2009.

What’s the innovation issue here? There is a big opportunity in solidifying existing relationships by solving customer/client problems before they know they have them. This is BIG.

Think about these issues, and innovate from them in terms of what you do with your customers / clients:

when times get tough, quality, service and relationships rule: operational excellence is more important than ever.
focus on a new partnership with the customer, for example: “we’ve got the latest strategies to help achieve cost savings”
stay ahead of fast paced change that you can utilize for the customer — with the attitude being, “we’re on top of fast paced developments that impact you, so you don’t need to be!”
make sure your customer understands that you are ahead of the pack in solving their problems.

Staying in front of the trends, and solving your customers problems faster, will be a key method of providing for retention, which is going to prove to be critical during the correction. It’s a critical innovation strategy right now!

Thinking innovation: The Challenge for Education in the High Velocity World

October 6, 2008 by JimCarroll

I’m thrilled to learn that I’ve been selected as the opening day speaker for the College Board — and specifically, a chance to speak with some of the leading minds in the university and college scene in the US on the issue of the future of education.

The audience for this invitation only event, to be held in January 2009, includes the Chancellors, Presidents, and senior admission officers for the largest colleges and universities in the US, including Duke, Cambridge, Harvard, Vanderbilt and the University of Texas, among others.

The group gets together annually to examine the challenges and opportunities facing higher education. This year, they determined that it was a good time to take a good, hard look at the education trends that will impact them in the future.

That’s where I come in. My session description, recently written, addresses these issues:

The “velocity” of knowledge is leading us to a world of “just-in-time knowledge”; the result being the reality that the relationship between educational institutions and students is set to change; primarily, from a period of short term, concentrated knowledge delivery, to one more related to the lifelong, ongoing replenishment and rejuvenation of knowledge.

The challenge for institutions of higher learning is how to change their ingrained thinking, behavior, structure –and outcomes — to adapt to this reality.

What’s driving the future of education? At a fundamental level, ever more rapid scientific discovery; knowledge fragmentation due to rapid knowledge growth; massive skills specialization and ever more narrow career niches. Knowledge and careers are also being impacted by rapidly changing business models; increased volatility in industry; shortened careers (imagine 18-month micro careers); rapid emergence of new industries; more rapid knowledge obsolescence; and the rapid emergence of new careers.

In the last fifteen years, I’ve spoken to numerous groups on global education trends. Given that what we do in this area makes or breaks the future success of a nation, it’s a critically important issue — and I am honored that I will be able to share my thoughts with such a senior group of leaders.

Freeze, innovate or panic? Innovation strategies for RIGHT NOW

October 1, 2008 by JimCarroll

Given the rapid pace of global economic developments, organizations are faced with a pretty stark choice.

The CEO of a company that is having me speak to an upcoming leadership meeting stated it this way: their choice going forward is to :

Freeze: do nothing
Innovate: respond to rapid market change through innovation, particularly with respect to strategies, struture, capabilities, markets, products, activities
Panic: make rash decisions on structure, markets, investments.

The last choice might seem to be the only response given the velocity of events as they occur, and it will be an unfortunate reality for some as the credit crunch hits.

But for others, panic will truly get you nowhere. And inaction – option 1 — is not a good choice, because markets, customers behavior, cost inputs and just about everything else will change even faster now, and so you need to change faster.

Option 2 — continuous innovation — remains the only thing to focus on. Maybe that’s why my phone has been quite busy in the last two weeks. There have already been several confirmed new events in October and November, where I will be coming into a corporate leadership meeting as part of an overall objective of keeping a company ahead in the game.

CEO’s and executive staff are working hard to align their current strategies with fast paced economic events. I’m providing grist for the grill, with specific insight on how they might innovate within their particularly industry.

It’s interesting that a lot of senior executives are all of a sudden looking for someone to bring their team this type of unique motivational innovation message. Two weeks ago, I helped to clarify for a commercial real estate / building management company leadership group where they could continue to find market opportunity right now, and how they needed to ensure they focus on enhancing existing customer/client relationships as a key strategy for going forward. We defined some strategies that they had not thought of; their team was inspired on focusing on opportunity rather than market upheaval, by thinking differently about what they do.

So what should you be doing from an innovation perspective?

I’ll starting putting up quite a few new blog posts starting next week, summarizing the many methods to innovate, particularly through any economic correction or downturn. I’m going to call the series “100 Days of Innovation,” and while I won’t post each and every day, I do aim to have one hundred concise, succinct posts full of unique innovation insight.

In the meantime, if you need a high level, energetic message to get your leadership in the right frame of mind to deal with high-velocity economic change, call me. The details are on my contact page.

Being an optimist: a keynote on economic development

September 29, 2008 by JimCarroll

So I’m in an airport, on my way to keynote a conference on economic development.

And of course, I saw the latest news on the ‘bailout’, and the plunge in the Dow.

And so I went to look up the definition of being an optimist, to reassure myself:

Optimist: 1. One who usually expects a favorable outcome.

That’s me! And my keynote is being adjusted on the fly before I get on stage tomorrow.

Here’s the fascinating thing that is going on: I’m getting far more calls, and a lot of new business, from CEO’s and senior executives who have determined that one of the ways to stay in front of this mess is to keep innovating. In other words, innovation — adjusting business plans, tackling new markets, focusing on opportunity, seeking what to do next — is now more important than ever before.

That’s probably good news for the many folks who read this blog. There continues to be unparalleled opportunities out there. The short term might be rocky, but the longer term is very, very real.

Keynote: RDA Food & Entertaining ‘Setting the Table’ Consumer Food Symposium – New York City

September 24, 2008 by JimCarroll

Jim Carroll delivered a keynote at RDA Food & Entertaining’s ‘Setting the Table’ Consumer Food Symposium on September 24, 2008, in New York City. The event brought together leaders from major consumer packaged goods and food-related companies — along with their agency partners — to engage in a forward-looking discussion on consumer trends in food and entertaining. Jim offered a fresh perspective on innovation in the food sector, challenging attendees to rethink how consumer expectations, technology, and cultural shifts were converging to reshape the industry. The day-long symposium was designed to spark dialogue across the CPG, food, and agency communities at a pivotal moment for the sector.

High velocity change in the food/consumer products sector

September 23, 2008 by JimCarroll

I’m in Manhattan tomorrow, speaking at an event for food, advertising and packaging companies on behalf of Readers Digest Food & Entertaining Division.

I’ll be offering a late morning wrap up of observations about the high-velocity change that continues to envelop the sector, particularly the following trends. Dig through the blog — particularly, the retail or consumer product categories — and you’ll find a little bit more insight about each of them.

the new consumer is faster — and innovation isn’t just about new product design — it’s about reaching and interacting with the consumer in new and different ways
the new consumer is connected — and interactivity is the new brand foundation
the new consumer is no longer nuclear — and hyper-nicheing is the new brand reality
the new consumer is influenced differently — and social-networks are the new brand influencers
the new consumer is shifting their focus faster — and faster paced preference change is the new reality
the new product is rapidly re-defined — and time to market and corporate agility are the new corporate capabilities
the new product is up-side down as innovation changes — and partnership is the key method to speed things up

Here’s one of the statistics in my deck — 71% of consumers are choosing to prepare meals at home rather than eating out; restaurant trips have declined from 1.5 times a week in 2006 to 1.2 times today.

These statistics, from the Food Marketing 2008 US Grocery Shopper Trends report, came out before the economic challenges of mid-September and the problems on Wall Street.

One of my key messages is that we live in a time when “volatility is the new normal” — a mantra I’ve been using for years — and food companies must learn to innovate faster to capitalize on such fast moving trends.

We’ll probably see this particular trend pick up steam — and there’s opportunity for new advertising messages, branding campaigns, not to mention new product offerings!

Faster is the new fast!

JimCarroll

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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.

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.