Daily Inspiration: Disruptive Trends – “Are you thinking too slow and small in a great big fast world?”
“Are you thinking too slow and small in a great big fast world?” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Hollywood is the next to be faced with a dramatically challenged future – We are probably only years away, or less before we see an entire feature film created by AI – and it will be pretty darned good. So too are creative industries – advertising, marketing, branding. Content creation is also in the midst of a wild ride.
AI is having its way with many industries, and if you aren’t prepared to accept the speed, complexity, and reality of the change that is underway, you’ll certainly have a rather unpleasant time of it. And it’s not as if jobs are disappearing – it’s the fact that dramatically different jobs are emerging. Of folks who know how to use the machine…..
Did you see the Toys “R” Us video commercial that was entirely created with Sora, the new text-to-video tool from OpenAI? There is a teaser on YouTube here:
You can find the full video over at Toysrus.com/studios At just over a minute long, it’s not much longer than the preview, but is certainly a harbinger of what is yet to come.
People have a hard time accepting that their industry as they know it is disappearing – or disruptively evolving in such a way the way they work now has changed forever. Today’s era is very much like what happened with the arrival of CGI in the industry in the mid-80s. Suddenly, all bets were out the window. If you don’t believe me, watch the documentary about Industrial Light & Magic, and how Hollywood was suddenly forever changed in but an instant. Oh, it’s on Netflix. Remember when we had regular TV?
Acceptance of change? I remember telling music industry executives back in 1995 that their business model of selling CDs, full-length albums, and big fat profit margins was doomed. Somewhere in my video vault, I’ve got a video where I’m on a national TV program and I’m being aggressively condemned by a senior industry executive – who at the same time was telling me that my ideas of a digital music industry were too far-fetched to be reality.
Are you thinking too small in a great big world?
Even text-to-music AI tools are moving at an astonishing speed, offering up AI-generated tunes in a matter of seconds. Today’s quote? I fed it into Suno.AI, a great little tool – with the thought, let’s have an AI write an Irish-punk-style song take today’s quote, and put a little bit of reality on it. Why Irish punk? Why not – I was in Dublin last week! This is what I got.
If you don’t understand how quickly creative industries are changing, you need to tune out today and drop into tomorrow. Last week, for the fun of it, I had another little Irish punk tune written for the kind folks at KPMG who had me in Dublin last week. Great tune!
Get with the program by getting with speed! For my last bit, I went with this, asking Suno to write an inspirational little song.
A 90s trance style tune about why the best way to align yourself to an era of accelerating change is to sign up for Futurist Jim Carroll’s Daily Inspiration post, which features insight on trends
And in an instant, look – there’s a song for that! It’s got great lyrics.
[Verse]
In a world that’s racing faster
Change is spinning like a dancer
Find your peace in daily insight
Jim Carroll’s words light the night[Verse 2]
Trends are moving oh so swiftly
Future’s calling can’t stay still
Subscribe now to find your guide
Inspiration side by side[Chorus]
Align yourself don’t miss a beat
Future trends beneath your feet
Daily dose of insight pure
Jim Carroll’s posts the cure[Verse 3]
Every morning find your path
Guidance through the aftermath
Let’s embrace the change ahead
With his wisdom be well-read[Chorus]
Align yourself don’t miss a beat
Future trends beneath your feet
Daily dose of insight pure
Jim Carroll’s posts the cure[Bridge]
Don’t get lost in all the noise
Tune in to the latest voice
Wake up to the future clear
With ideas that you hold dear
I don’t know if all of this is silly or stupid or annoying or worthless. I do know we live in an era of creative magic. Scary, enlightening, imaginative, challenging, and evocative, all at the same time! And moving fast!
The thing is – this is not art. This is not going to instantly destroy millions of creative jobs.
But I can guarantee you that there are tens of thousands of people with creative jobs who are learning quickly how to use this stuff, and they are going to change everything!
Remember this – courage is the ability to accept that your current reality is being quickly replaced by a different one!
Daily Inspiration: The Innovation Process – “Spend too much time chasing perfection and you’ll never invest enough time to learn from your failures!”
“Spend too much time chasing perfection and you’ll never invest enough time to learn from your failures!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Since it’s summertime, a few golf stories are creeping into my Daily – because many lessons about leadership, innovation, and creativity can come from playing the game.
Yesterday, while out for a round early in the morning, I received a message from my good friend Anders Hult over in Stockholm concerning my post about procrastination:
“Sometimes people procrastinate because they are perfectionists, and are afraid of failing…”
That’s a very good point, but since I read the message right after a marginal tee shot on the second hole, it got me thinking about the whole issue of perfection and success and failure and risk – in the context of golf and innovation!
We all know that success is most often the result of many cumulative failures. It’s by taking risks, trying new ideas, chasing new concepts, and failing while doing so that one often can find the elusive and mysterious path to success. But what happens if we spend too much time trying to chase perfection? In the context of golf, that can come from spending too much time thinking about the great shots – and trying to achieve more and more of those – without spending time thinking about our bad shots, what we did wrong, and what we could improve.
We do better if we learn from our mistakes instead of trying to repeat our successes – never forget that!
Another great point is that creativity is the root of success! Examine any great golfer and you’ll quickly learn that their ability to get out of trouble defines their game They’ve got a grab bag full of shot improvisation, spur-of-the-moment clutch saves, and massively creative recovery shots that will often spell the difference between a so-so round a great round. I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet that they spend a little bit more time thinking about the shots that have gone wrong, rather than focusing on those epic shots where everything went right.
Food for thought!
By the way, today’s image was generated by an AI. For the fun of it, I’ve been feeding early versions of my Daily Inspiration quote to MidJourney just to see what it might come up with. I fed it an early version of today’s quote, and it came up with the image I used in today’s post.
The day before, I gave it the quote I used yesterday, “Your biggest mistake is believing that you don’t need to do it right now.” The result is wonderfully weird.
And a few weeks ago, I fed it the quote “Hesitation is the currency of cowards.”
The result is kind of compelling!
Daily Inspiration: Leadership – “Your biggest mistake is believing that you don’t need to do it right now”
“Your biggest mistake is believing that you don’t need to do it right now” – Futurist Jim Carroll
What does it mean if you have a great idea, and your superior blows it off by saying “we don’t need to do that right now.”
It means you are in pretty big trouble.
Why does this happen? Straight to the point – it’s because of these failures in leadership:
- they don’t know what’s next
- they don’t want to know what’s next
- they refuse to accept what’s next
- they don’t believe the imminence of what’s next
- they don’t think there is any hurry to deal with what’s next
- their arrogance blinds them as to what’s next
- they are in a state of denial as to the scope of what’s next
- they are wrong about the speed of disruptive change with what’s next
- their age gives them a poor filter to understand what’s next.
- they underestimate the impact of emerging technologies with what comes next
- they fail to invest in innovation and research and never get ready for what’s next
- they rely too heavily on outdated business models, not accepting that entirely new ones come next
- they don’t engage in strategic foresight or scenario planning and never understand what comes next
All of this means that they – and you – fail.
Tell me if you disagree.
You can’t!
With this type of mindset, many organizations have failure ingrained at the top!
Keynote: AI Megatrends – Opportunity & Disruption – KPMG Ireland, Dublin
KPMG is investing $200 million to create an AI hub in their Dublin office. The organization engaged Jim Carroll for its 2024 leadership meeting, seeking his insight on the longer-term, disruptive opportunities unfolding with this fast-moving technology. He spoke to over 1,100 professional staff on the impact of the AI Megatrends, and our accelerating future.
Daily Inspiration: Forward Oriented Thinking – “Get to your future faster!”
“Get to your future faster!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
If you are going to spend most of your future tomorrow, wouldn’t it make sense to understand what it will look like when you get there? And wouldn’t it make sense to take a few steps right now to make sure you are ready for it, given how quickly it is coming at you? Shouldn’t you try to get to your future, faster?
With that being the case, here are my steps to align yourself with tomorrow, today:
- Accept that the future will be different from today
- With that, embrace it
- Don’t fight it – train for it
- Work harder to understand it
- Figure out what you need to do better in it
- Listen to the right people to understand what it will look like when you get there
- In that context, take the time to think about what you need to do to get ready for it
- Understand the new skills you will need once you arrive
- Start learning those new skills right now to make sure you are ready
- Have faith in your ability to succeed once you are there
- Know that the future is a voyage, not a destination.
- Accept personal responsibility for this voyage
- Be prepared for twists and turns that are a part of the voyage
- Battle the volatility that you might encounter along the way
- Practice the art of positivity to make sure your mindset is aligned with the opportunity it presents
- Enjoy the present while doing these things as you get ready for what comes next!
Tomorrow will be here sooner than you think.
Why not start getting ready now?
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