JimCarroll

The future of the legal profession

June 12, 2007 by JimCarroll

Some weeks back, I spent a full day with about 40 senior lawyers with a major government agency, with the main focus both on the rapidity of change of legal skills, as well as rapid change with legal issues.

We took a look at the future of the profession, and had a workshop that examined issues of agility, rapid response and complexity of skills.

I put together a summary, based on a previous post here, that outlines both the challenges and opportunities faced by the profession.

The highlights of the document, available as a PDF, takes a look at such issues as generational warfare, evidentiary challenges, rapid change and specialization, and risk minimization, to name but a few.

Of the latter, I write that “One side impact of generational warfare is that “going underground” will become more acceptable. In the last few years we saw a fascinating battle between music companies and Kazaa, the music sharing organization, which used extra-territorial jurisdictional issues to provide itself some shelter against legal action. That type of activity is going to become the norm, not the exception, in the future. Indeed, going legal-underground is about to go mainstream.”

read 10 Big Trends for the Legal Profession: High-Velocity Change Providing Challenges and Opportunities

Trends and big transformative changes. Example: health care

June 8, 2007 by JimCarroll

The view of the future by most is often short term oriented. What happens when you think about long term transformations?

In my keynotes, I often put into perspective the big, massive, sweeping transformations that can change entire industries over the longer term. That’s one of the best ways to begin a process of thinking of innovation, and in finding creative solutions to challenges as well as opportunities. There’s not enough long term thinking today; there is simply too much short term hype.

In this short video clip, I take a look at the world of health care, and the transformation that is occuring as we move to a world of personalized medicine.

read Future Medicine: Prescriptions for 21st Century Health Care
read “Are you watching the major transformations, or just the piddly stuff?”

Innovation – agility is critical

June 4, 2007 by JimCarroll

I often talk on stage to my clients about the concept of organizational agility: that is, the ability to respond to fast-changing circumstances. In the high velocity economy, everything can move quickly : markets, customer expectations, competitors, products ….

In this video clip, I take a deeper look at the concept of agility, outlining that organizations that master the capability have several key attributes:

they are rapid movers
cost excellence is a major focus
their customers have set high expectations
they establish instant, need driven relationships in order to get things done
they excel at rapid response to new market demands
they focus on fast time to market
they have mastered the ability for quick marshalling of resources
….and they have instant scalability!

“Don’t Mess with my Powder, Dude: Managing People and Projects in The Flat World”

May 25, 2007 by JimCarroll

Tenrox, a company that provides companies an intgelligent infrastructure for rapid workforce management, has invited me to keynote their September 2007 user group conference in Bloomingdale, Illinois.

The title we’ve worked out, based on a story I often tell on stage: “Don’t Mess with My Powder, Dude: Managing People and Projects in the Flat World.” It’s related to the number of talks I’ve been doing within the overall theme of “What’s Happening with Our Workforce.”

read the Tenrox press release
previous blog post, “What’s happening with our workforce?”
Critical Trends: 10 Unique Characteristics of 21st Century Skills here

Organizations are coming to realize that talent management is going to be a critical issue, and I have a wonderful track record in positioning this on stage.

Innovating in the high velocity economy

May 23, 2007 by JimCarroll

What does it mean to function in the high velocity economy?

It’s all about learning to operate at high speed — particularly given the rapid rates at which knowledge obsolescence is occuring, due to the rapid advancement of science.

In this video clip, from a presentation to 2,000 engineering and technical staff in Orlando, Jim puts into perspective what it means to operate at high velocity.

The new mourning …..

May 22, 2007 by JimCarroll

In the last year, I have been the keynote speaker for three different conferences of funeral and crematorium directors.

As with any industry, I’ve focused on the wide variety of trends that will impact them — and yes, I’ve provided them guidance on innovation and creativity. These folks are the “ultimate event planners” — they are called upon to organize extremely complex affairs in a dramatically short time in very difficult circumstances. We could all learn from their resourcefulness.

One of the trends I’ve spoken to them about is what I’d come to call “the new mourning” — that is, how the younger generation I call Gen-Connect has a different relationship with the process of mourning.

We’ve all seen it; 9/11, Virginia Tech and elsewhere — spontaneous, large public gatherings, where people deal with an unforeseen tragedy by coming together. Technology — cell phones, instant messaging, email — results in an often instant and large-scale social means of dealing with tragedy.

It’s one thing to talk about a trend; it’s another thing when you witness it literally in your backyard. Ten days ago, a young rugby player died after an altercation near the end of the game — at the high school that my home office looks onto. My son and I had been at the game just ten minutes prior. When we heard the sirens, we knew that something was not good.

Through the next six days, I came to witness firsthand the ‘new mourning,’ as his teammates, classmates, teachers, friends, neighbors and strangers gathered in various ways, at various times, spontaneously, instantly, silently. My son went to school with his younger brother; we visited the memorial that the kids assembled, several times.

Earlier this week, the kids at the school returned to the field, and played a game. The neighborhood has laughter, cheers, noise and happiness once again, but the neighborhood has also forever changed.

As someone who speaks on trends and the future, I do know this: the new mourning is very, very real, quite substantially different — and is yet another example of how quickly our world around us is changing.

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.