Industry Keynotes with Futurist Jim Carroll
Customized Future Trends and Innovation Keynotes
With the World's Leading Futurist
CLIENTS
These are a few of the organizations that have booked Jim Carroll in the past. He has spoken for senior leadership meetings for many of the world’s largest companies.
DAILY INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE
Text
AGRICULTURE
Many organizations have failure embedded into
their DNA.
They build up a culture of aggressive indecision,
which guarantees a slow culture that provides
them a boat-anchor in the era of acceleration.
Jim Carroll identifies, on stage, both the cultural
killers and the practical strategies that must be
pursued to break through!
POSTS ABOUT THE INNOVATION KILLERS
Decoding Tomorrow: Your Daily Future Inspiration – The Future of Work: “When your canaries flee, it’s a sign your innovation oxygen is dying.”
"When your canaries flee, it's a sign your innovation oxygen is dying." - Futurist Jim Carroll As CEOs rush to
Daily Inspiration: Creativity- “Innovation thrives in the building of sandcastles!”
"Innovation thrives in the building of sandcastles!" - Futurist Jim Carroll That's me in the photo above, taken
Daily Inspiration: Trend spotting – “Opportunities only exist if you can see them!”
"Opportunities only exist if you can see them!" - Futurist Jim Carroll In 1998, a few years before Steve Jobs
Innovation and Creativity: Why It Thrives in the Building of Sandcastles
Way back in 2006, inspired by the arrival of summer, I wrote about how innovation thrives in the building of
Video: Achieving Optimism – Learning from the Two Different Types of Farmers!
One of my favorite bits of insight I like to share from the stage concerns the story of the 'two types of
Innovation and Creativity? The Inspiration is In Your Ketchup Bottle (From the Vaults!)
In 2003, SAP had me in for a keynote on innovation; I was transitioning from being a technology-oriented speaker to my
Video: Achieving Optimism – Learning from the Two Different Types of Farmers!
One of my favorite bits of insight I like to share from the stage concerns the story of the 'two types of
Innovation Isn’t What You Think It Is – Here’s What You Need to Know!
The following article was published in AkzoNoble's "A" Magazine, featuring some of my thoughts on innovation in
Video: “Be Like Fiji! What We Can Learn About Potatoes, Stickmen and Reinvention!”
So, I filmed a thing yesterday. It's all about optimism and reinvention. Be like Fiji - capturing me on stage in
National TV Interview : Reinvent. Relentlessly. Repeat. Regularly!
Well, that was a fair bit of fun and made for a delightful weekend! Last Thursday, I was busy in the home office,
Want to Get Ahead in a Big Disruptive World? Be Like Fiji!
Here's a fun clip from my recent talk for a global event the International Finance Corporation / World Bank in
Video: “What’s Your Tin Can?” – Are You Stuck in an Innovation Rut?
On stage in London, England. Are you stuck in a 110 year old
Video: Why Autonomous Vehicle Technology is a Lot Like Teenage Sex!
(Yes, it's safe for work!") From a recent keynote for Volvo / Mack Trucks North America leadership meeting. A
Video – Rethinking Innovation!
A clip from my keynote for the PGA, challenging the audience to think about innovation in a different way. Innovation
Innovation? Think like a farmer!
Welcome to the folks from FarmSecure - Great to see you here! Over the last fifteen years as a futurist and
Video: The collapse (and end?) of product life-cycles
At the recent Consumer Electronics Association CEO summit in Ojai, CA, I focused on how social networks are coming to
Kids today: 53 hours each week in front of a screen!
Kids today spend some 7.5 hours a day engaged with some type of media; with with multitasking, that's 11 hours of
THE LIST OF INNOVATION KILLERS
Find out! Print the list below, and take it into your next meeting. Score one point each time a phrase is used, plus bonus
points as indicated. Score more than 5, and you’ve got an organization that is innovation-adverse. Score 10 or more, and
you are innovation dead. 15 or more, and you might as well close up shop – or immediately book Jim for guidance!
- “We’ve always done it this way” (3 bonus points)
- “It won’t work”
- “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard”
- “That’s not my problem”
- “You can’t do that”
- “I don’t know how”
- “I don’t think I can”
- I didn’t know that”
- “The boss won’t go for it” (5 bonus points)
- “Why should I care?”
10 SIGNS YOU’VE GOT AN INNOVATION DYSFUNCTION
Read this list. Is this your organization?
- People laugh at new ideas
- Someone who identifies a problem is shunned
- Innovation is the privileged practice of a special group
- The phrase, “you can’t do that because we’ve always done
it this way” is used for every new idea - No one can remember the last time anyone did anything
really cool - People think innovation is about R&D
- People have convinced themselves that competing on
price is normal - The organization is focused more on process than success
- There are lots of baby boomers about, and few people
younger than 25 - After any type of surprise — product, market, industry or
organizational change — everyone sits back and asks,
“wow, where did that come from?”
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Ideas flow freely throughout the organization subversion is a virtue
success and failure are championed there are many, many leaders who encourage innovative thinking, rather than managers who run a bureacracy there are creative champions throughout the organization — people who thrive on thinking about how to do things differently ideas get approval and endorsement
Rather than stating “it can’t be done,” people ask, “how could we do this?” people know that in addition to R&D, innovation is also about ideas about to “run the business better, grow the business and transform the business” the word “innovation” is found in most job descriptions as a primary area of responsibility, and a percentage
of annual renumeration is based upon achievement
of explicitly defined innovation goals
ORGANIZATIONS TURN TO Jim Carroll FOR THE INSPIRATION
TO GET OUT OF THEIR INNOVATION RUT. SHOULDN’T YOU?
First published on jimcarroll.com in 2023. This page keeps the original words, images, links and videos, recovered from the WordPress page on November 8, 2026.