JIM’S INSIGHTS

Futurist Jim Carroll has quickly become recognized as your ‘go-to source’ for effective insight on what comes next, the strategies that you consider, and the leadership path you need to follow.

TRENDS INSIGHTS

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You!

BBC Interviews me on #IoT : “The Brain Inside Our Homes” : It’s Early Days Yet in This Most Complex of Machines!

The BBC gave me a call to chat about what is really going on with the Internet of Things (populalrly known as IoT) … and ended up running a great summary of our conversation. The article captures the essence of my thinking that it is very early days yet with IoT. We’re at the starting […]

What Nevada Learned from The Jetsons and the Flintstones: The Future of Economic Development

On stage, I have a little bit of fun pointing out that the cartoon below seems to summarize the state of the political situation in the US today. I used it a few weeks ago when I keynoted the Nevada Economic Development Conference, with a talk that look a look at the opportunities for growth […]

Article: The Future of Manufacturing is in Acceleration!

Companies that don’t yet exist, will build products that are not yet conceived, based on ideas not yet invented, with manufacturing methodologies that have not yet been conceived. Are you ready for the new world of disruption? That’s the reality of manufacturing today, and that will be the focus on my keynote next week when […]

Keynote: “Aligning to Velocity: Key Trends and Strategies for the Era of Acceleration”

This October, I’ll keynote the MacKay CEO Forum 2017 Edge Summit in Vancouver, with about 500 CEO’s in the room. I’ll take a look at what happens when accelerating technology trends result in every company become a technology company. I just wrote up a new keynote topic description, modified from a few of my other topic […]

Article: “In the New World of 21st Century Manufacturing: Are You George Jetson or Fred Flintstone?”

The folks at the Precision Metalforming Association were putting together their 75th anniversary issue of Metalforming magazine, and wanted to share with their readers that it’s better to align yourself to the trends of the future rather than the opportunities of the past. And they found me! We had a long interview, which appeared in […]

Utilities, Disruption and ‘Connected Energy’: My Upcoming Keynote for SAP

We’re in the era of ‘connected energy,’ and everything is set to change in pretty dramatic fashion. That will be the essence of my message when I speak to several hundred energy and water utility executives when I keynote the annual SAP Utilities conference in Huntington Beach, California. It’s great to spend some time with SAP […]

Trends: The Future of Just About Everything is All About Batteries!

Want to understand the future? It’s all about the batteries! My attention was reminded of this fact last week with an article that appeared on Bloomberg, “Tech Guru Bill Joy Unveils a Battery to Rival Lithium-Ion,” which brought me back to a series of Twitter posts I did a few months back about trends involving […]

Golfing, 3D Printing, and the Future of Manufacturing: A Story of a Fellow Printing His Own Golf Wedges

Over the years, I’ve done many talks within the manufacturing industry, putting into perspective the real trends and opportunities for innovation that will allow for the reinvention of this sector. Lots of CEOs are bringing me in for a leadership meeting, knowing that their future will come from aligning to fast-paced trends (as opposed to […]

“54 Things You Haven’t Thought About with Electric, Self-Driving Cars”

Your car is about to become your concierge. A personal robot. And so much more. You probably don’t have a lot of time to think about all the things that are going on with the rush to self-driving cars and electric vehicles. I do – that’s my job as a futurist. The things is, you […]

Trend: Where will the Future Really Happen? 2 Upcoming Keynotes on The Real Future, Not the Fake Future

We seem to live in two parallel worlds at this moment: the fanciful, political, “let’s make a wish” or “yell and scream” political world, and the real world. I don’t know about you, but I’m with the real world, and it’s obvious that others are too. To that end, I’m doing an increasing number of economic […]

Upcoming Keynote: Future of Retail (in the era of Amazonian Disruption!)

This fall, I’m headling a major retail event in Las Vegas – Xcelerate 2017! Details are here. There’s a lot of change underway – and certainly, the Amazon/Whole Foods situation is a wake up call for everyone. I’ve been speaking about the decline and transformation of traditional retail for over 20 years. In the […]

Video On Disruption: 20 Reasons Why It’s Bigger Than You Think!

Here’s the thing. Disruption isn’t just Uber and AirBnB and others. It’s more. It’s fast science, robotics, 3d printing, exponential technology, new materials, big dreamers, the rise of the small and so much more! Watch this video NOW. Disruption is real, it’s happening now, is is much bigger than you think!

The Story Behind the Picture: Is Your Brand from The Olden Days?

“A brand today can go from hero to zero in a matter of months….” In that context, you’d better get ahead of the fast future, before it gets ahead of you! Consider Sony. Once they were a really cool company with the coolest technology on the planet — the Walkman. Then they weren’t, because they didn’t […]

Keynote @Nasscom2017: Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast: Innovating in the Era of Disruption

I’m off to New York, where tomorrow I will be the closing speaker at Nasscom’s inaugaural C-summit The National Association of Software and Services Companies is a trade association representing the major players in the Indian IT and business process outsourcing industry. The event is taking a look at future trends and opportunities for innovation, […]

Daily Inspiration: “Expect velocity. Plan for acceleration. Structure for intensity. Execute relentlessly.”

“Expect velocity. Plan for acceleration. Structure for intensity. Execute relentlessly.” Back in 2006, I keynoted the Society of Cable Telecom Engineers at their annual conference in Tampa. At the time, YouTube was only just beginning to have an impact, and social networking was still in a nascent stage. It was January — Twitter wasn’t even […]

Trends: What Comes Next with the Decline of an Empire?

It’s about time someone starts to talk about the future implications of the new world history that we are now watching unfold. I decided to write this post after reading of Angela’s Merkel recent comments on the fact that Europe needs to go it alone. Quite clearly, she is voicing what many other political, business, […]

Article: Innovate now—the future is coming quickly : Five strategies for successful innovation.

Credit Union Magazine just ran a great article on my keynote yesterday in Las Vegas for Drive 17, the annual conference from CU Direct on trends in the automotive lending space for credit unions. Self-driving cars, drone technology, Apple Watch, and even FaceTime. It’s technology we see depicted in “The Jetsons,” a cartoon from 1962 […]

A Keynote on Credit Unions and the Future of Automotive Lending

Tomorrow morning, I’ll keynote Drive 17 — it’s a conference for credit union executives around the topic of the future of lending. Particularly, automative lending. This is similar to a keynote I did in January of this year for the American Financial Services Association — same topic and issues, except for banking executives. It’s a […]

Innovation: The 8 Best Things Happening in “Growing” Golf Right Now!

I’ll admit, I’ve become a relentless golf nut, and I’ve even got a fairly decent handicap, often breaking 90 (which is less than what 1% of golfers can do.) I’ve got a son with a 1 handicap, which makes for rather interesting rounds! One of biggest career thrills as a futurist who focuses on the […]

Video: The Acceleration of Trends in Automotive and Trucking

Here’s a video clip in which I’m speaking on stage at a trucking conference in Phoenix about just how quickly things are happening in the world of intelligent, self-driving vehicles. Including why penguins are so important!

Innovation: Why Every Company Needs What I Call an XBOX/Playstation Room!

Half of the events I do as a futurist and innovation expert are spent at corporate leadership events. I’m frequently engaged by a CEO or other senior executive for a global Fortune 1000 company to come in and challenge their team as to how to align to a fast paced, disruptive future. After all, the reality […]

How a Futurist Thinks: What Should We Do About Zombie Cars in the Era of Self-Driving Cars?

I just had a short talk in an airport with an urban planner; the inevitable question came about as to where I was going, and then, what I do. (In today’s case, I’m going to speak to 250 cattle ranchers about their future….) So I explained the idea of a futurist, and in order to […]

Video: The Acceleration of Self-Driving Car & Truck Technology

I’ve been doing quite a few keynotes in the automotive and trucking sector around the fast pace of developments and technology with self-driving vehicle technology. Here’s a clip from a recent keynote in Phoenix on how quickly things are coming together in the trucking sector. To learn more about the keynotes I do on this […]

There is No Internet of Things -> There are Many Internet of Things: And a New Taxonomy is Required

As I’ve said before, we are still in the starting gate comes to the Internet of Things. Like the early days of the Internet, the idea has been formulated, ideas are bubbling, and imaginations are being unleashed. Right now, a global creativity engine is emerging in which millions of people are imagining and rethinking the future in […]