Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

“Our challenge: involvement! In 1964, Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered in New York City as a crowd of bystanders stood by, watching, unwilling to do anything to save her. What does it say for our world when too many people are too unwilling to get involved….”

So began my speech, in Grade 7 or Grade 8, in the Ontario championships for the Optimist Club of Canada. I was all of 11 or 12 years old. I was bothered, I think, by what I was witnessing in the world at the time, and the story of Kitty Genovese, which I saw in a Readers Digest magazine, captured my attention. It became the basis of my speech, which set me on the path for a big competition!

I didn’t win – I was crushed! I was certain I had nailed it! And I couldn’t believe that the kid who beat me had a squeaky little, high-pitched voice, and didn’t seem to deliver with the passion that I did! How did I not take the big prize!

I was given time off during the school day in my elementary school in London, Ontario, Canada, to practice for my provincial public speaking championship . The teachers were probably relieved — I was a bit of a problem student….

Such are the lessons that teach us things later in life…..

So today I’m down in a place called London, Ontario, Canada, south of my home outside of Toronto. It’s where I grew up as a baby, from 1959, until we moved east in 1972. We’re down in the area briefly, and I had a chance to visit some of my old haunts in a rushed visit prior to going to a wedding 45 minutes from here.

Naturally, the visit brought a flood of memories! Such as: for some reason, my parents saw fit to get me involved in a public speaking group – the Junior Optimists – which was part of of Optimist International. They’re still around as a public service club, with the fascinating purpose of “working each day to make the future brighter.”

Did you ever wonder where I got my optimism today?

And so back in 1971 and 1972, once a week, for weeks on end, I would go to a church basement or to the local school, and work to structure my presentation, learn to articulate , and study how to shape a story. While other kids were playing hockey and things – I guess I was learning how to enunciate! (I also hung out at the library at the age of 9, reading Time Magazine and other things. I think, in retrospect, that I was kind of odd…. and then, of course, there were the stink bombs. I mastered that skill – a pen, a match, and some stuff, and whoo-boy!)

I had little idea at the time what my course in public speaking might lead to!

326 Reynolds Road! It’s still there!

Later on, early in my working career at the age of 20, a mentor of the time suggested that I should get involved with the Dale Carnegie program to do more of the same. Speechifying and such! So I continued….

And now, 30-40 years later? I’m on stage around the world, have spoken to well over 1 million people with audiences of up to 7,000, and have made a wonderful career out of it.

Maybe all because of my early attempt to go big with my speech, “Our Challenge: Involvement.” I still drive my wife and kids crazy today when I easily rattle off the opening above! And so while I didn’t win in the short term, I think it worked out in the long term…..

Looking back, my advice to any parent today? Take some time to give your child the courage to get in front of a group of people and tell a story. It is said that for some people, making a speech in front of a crowd is one of the most terrifying of all experiences.

Don’t let it be. Your challenge? Involvement!

Right after 9/11, everyone predicted that we would see the end of meetings, events and conferences: people would recoil in fear, stop travelling, and cocoon at home.

That was the dumbest thing I ever heard, and I said so in a column I wrote for Successful Meetings, the voice of the global meetings and events industry. Titled “Get Real,” it was bang on with my of my comments and predictions.

Fast forward – technology is changing the hotel, meeting and event industry at a furious pace, and Successful Meetings just ran an article on these trends. It’s a great read. But its kind of fun that they start the article with y comments on the cautious speed fo technology in the sector.

Read the intro below, and read the full article here.

7 Hotel Tech Trends to Watch
Whether it’s chatbot concierges or self-check-in kiosks, hotels are getting smarter
by Ron Donoho | April 02, 2018

Robots. Facial recognition technology. Virtual and augmented reality. There’s a seemingly unending stream of cool tech tools flowing out of research-and-development centers and into all corners of the meeting and hospitality industries. It’s influencing hotel and event check-in processes, adding bells and whistles to guest rooms, and innovating meeting spaces. To borrow from Thomas Dolby, they’re blinding us with science.

Before delving into the latest tech trends, it’s worthwhile to hear the consensus view from meeting planners, hoteliers, and futurists who focus on the hospitality industry: Technology will enhance but never replace the way hotels cater to guests.

Read the original 2002 Successful Meetings article here

As someone who helps people understand and cope with the implications of new technology and ways of working, Jim Carroll often finds himself thinking that many of the predictions made about tech products are way off base.

“I shudder every time I hear one of the ‘experts’ suggest we are about to see a lot less human contact in the way we work, and the way we get together, particularly when it comes to meetings and conferences,” says Carroll, a speaker and author who focuses on global trends and innovations.

Carroll made that very same observation in print way back in February 2002. He wrote an essay that appeared in the pages of Successful Meetings, in the wake of America’s 9/11 tragedy. “What I wrote back then, the same thing is true today,” he says.

It bears repeating: Technology will enhance, not replace.

While acknowledging that the rate of new technology is speeding up, Carroll points to a telling correlation on how the public views change. “People tend to overestimate how much change will occur over the next two years, and underestimate change that will actually occur over 10 years,” he says.

Carroll points to the Gartner Hype Cycle, a theory that attempts to differentiate a technology’s bold promises from its commercial viability. That cycle typically includes: an innovation trigger, a peak of inflated expectations, and a trough of disillusionment. That’s sometimes followed by a slope of enlightenment involving the product and, hopefully, a plateau of productivity.

Take, for example, something as basic as Wi-Fi in hotels. Remember when it was a novelty?

I’m very sad to learn that Canadian PGA Professional, Jerry Anderson, who was a fixture around my home club of Credit Valley in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, passed away at the age of 62.

A slide from my 2016 keynote for the PGA of America – in which I paid tribute to the impact Jerry had on my game. See my video clip below.

As reported in the news, Jerry was “the first Canadian to win on the European Tour when he shot a 27-under par at the Ebel European Masters – Swiss Open in 1984. That 72-hole score was a record on the European Tour until Ernie Els shot a 29 under par score at the 2003 Johnnie Walker Classic.”

I spoke about Jerry Anderson in my opening keynote at the 2016 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando; the theme that year was that we should recognize and give thanks to the PGA Professionals who had an impact on my our golfing life. Jerry certainly had an impact on mine; he had the remarkable patience to try to teach me over 3 seasons.

Jerry was a fixture around our club in so many remarkable ways. He was a PGA teaching professional; a regular participant in Mens Day, where he would go and shoot the lights out with an incredible short game; and in the latter years, a regular fixture on the lawn cutting equipment, constantly watching me duff my shots into the river!

And when you would pull up to the bag drop, there he was, as started, getting your bags and schlepping them to the start. I always felt bad to have a guy who was a European tour pro take my bags like that, but he would insist.

A remarkable man, and the golfing world will miss him.

The life of a speaker is always kind of interesting, because you get approached by all kinds of people who try to convince you to fly to the other side of the world and share your insight – barely for the price of a cup of coffee!

“Inaction in the face of opportunity is but an excuse!” – #Futurist Jim Carroll

Part of the role of a futurist is to provide people insight into the trends that will be a part of their future, but also to put into perspective the opportunities these trends present. A lot of people get excited when they see what I can offer in that regard.

But people are funny – and here’s a good story you can think about to see if you are suffering from a culture of inaction.

I recently had a call from a senior VP of a major company in the retail industry. She thought that it would be extremely helpful to bring me in to their upcoming corporate leadership meeting – with so much change in retail they need to be challenged in their thinking. With clients like Disney, The GAP, Pepsi, Godiva, and more, I certainly have a track record for doing just that – I spend a lot of time speaking to the massive and fast trends sweeping the world of retail. I even have separate keynote topics on retail and the Amazon effect.

Fast forward. She wrote back last week, indicating that their CEO didn’t think it was a good time to be doing this. As in, stay the course. Stick with the status quo. They didn’t need to be challenged right now ; they had a strategy and needed to see it through. They might think about doing a deep-dive future session next year. Something like that.

What’s that phrase people use? I was gobsmacked, particularly after she had outlined in a conference call all the issues that they needed to be thinking about!

Here’s the thing – I get a lot of situations like this! Where someone on a corporate team knows that the organization needs to be challenged out of their complacency — but then it goes up the ladder, where senior management puts a stop to the idea. I’m never sure why, but I know what the result will be.

This particular organization will now go on my fail-radar. I’ll watch them over the next decade, along with dozens of others, and will see the stumbles and failures and missteps they will make as they fail to align to obvious future trends. Not because they didn’t bring me in — but because they clearly are driven by a culture of indecision!

Remember this likely reality – 50% of the companies that you see around you today likely won’t be around you in but 10 short years. Particularly in retail!

Inaction is in the soul of many organizations. This might be you!

Why does this occur? With 25 years of effort in advising on organizations on trends and the future, I’ve become quite adept at spotting the culture of slow that kills initiative:

• actions are based on lifelong lessons that no longer apply
• variation in routine is abhorred
• the strategies they have in place are often outdated by faster trends
• they are structured by command and control structures that don’t allow for agility
• outdated HR practices reward mediocrity
• individualism is punished
• risk is something to be feared, not embraced
• collaboration is absent
• corporate culture breeds change-resistance anti-bodies
• they discount the big thinkers who are changing their industry – they think they know better!
• they have allowed a leadership style of deferring decisions to overtake all activities
• a belief that their company and product are invincible, and that their continued success is inevitable
• It’s an interesting time to be in business. Disruption, fast paced business model change, technology! It’s all real folks – you can’t avoid it.

The future belongs to those who are fast, and yet many are structured for slow.

Rant over.

The folks at Farm and Dairy Magazine interviewed me on trends to watch in 2018 in the world of agriculture. It’s a good read – you’ll find it below!

On stage in New Orleans, I spoke about the idea of Spock having a medical tri-corder on the farm. It’s not as crazy an idea as you thinK!

As I write this post, I’m down in San Antonio, where I’ve got two events where I’ll speak about the future of agriculture to several hundred dealers for a farm and ag supplier about future trends.

I love talking to farming groups – it’s one of the most innovative industries that I know. Watch this video for the reasons why!

5 agricultural trends to watch in 2018
Farm and Dairy, January 2018

SALEM, Ohio — The top five trends to watch for in 2018 are sure to keep farmers on top of their game.

With an increased number of events causing hysteria, with the rise of “fake news,” an overload of news in general — thanks to the world being at our fingertips — farmers have to work harder to tell their story, said Jim Carroll, futurist.

“All producers need to be honest in explaining the humane treatment of animals, to explain what they do. We need real ag folks to tell our story, we’ve got to increase real news,” he said.

Social media is the key, and farmers haven’t been in the conversation enough, Carroll said.

This year, we need to keep our eye on emerging issues, agritourism and marketing, adds Brad Bergefurd, Ohio State Extension horticulture specialist and educator in Scioto County.

In addition to the continuous need to tell our story, experts believe these five issues will be trending in 2018:

1. Increased speed of change

We’ve been talking about it for years, and now it’s happening: Young people are returning to the family farm — the iPod generation is gaining the reins, said Jim Carroll.

“The speed of change will pick up; those returning to the farm are open to all these new ideas,” said Carroll, who travels the country talking about the future. “People are scared of the future, but want to understand it.”

The average age of farmers is 58. Their average age has been inching upward for approximately 30 years, according to the USDA’s Census of Agriculture.

The census shows that during the past 30 years, the average age of U.S. farmers has grown by nearly eight years, from 50.5 years to 58.3 years, but that is about to change, warns Carroll, and that change brings rapid innovation adoption.

2. Fitbits for cows

A world with animal and crop health sensors will continue to flourish this year.

“Fitbits for cows, chickens, pigs — we see it happening now, but it will expand,” said Carroll.

Using drones to fly over herds to check on the health is happening. Farmers are monitoring the gestation of an animal, getting notifications from their iPhone, he said.

“We’ll see connectivity as a management practice,” Carroll said. “Being connected can save time and money on animal health.”

“Data analysis in the year ahead will supplement what farmers know intuitively,” he said, “and, in some cases, challenge those assumptions.”

New products rely on aerial satellite imagery, greenness sensors, soil maps and millions of weather data points — this innovation meshed with a group of early adopters is sure to keep technology pushed to the limits.

3. Global trade advocates

Global trade matters, it always has and it always will, agree Carroll and Tanner Ehmke, a former wheat farmer who is now the Knowledge Exchange manger at CoBank.

“Of course farmers in the Midwest are saying ‘don’t take apart NAFTA.’ NAFTA does matter,” said Carroll.

“Without a global perspective, the cost of food will double or worse. Without NAFTA, markets will be lost, trading partners and labor forces will be lost,” Ehmke said.

“There is room to be optimistic in trade in 2018,” he said. “But, we can’t lose NAFTA. No bilateral trade deals can replace the benefits of NAFTA.”

4. Labor shortages

Labor shortages will continue for highly skilled stoop labor, which tend to Ohio fruit, orchard, nursery, hops and vegetable crops, said Bergefurd, who focuses on specialty crops across Ohio.

“There were major labor shortages on Ohio farms in 2017, resulting in many acres of vegetables and some fruit not being harvested due to shortage of hand harvest labor,” he said.

He foresees a shortage of high quality, locally grown fruit and vegetables. Several large farms don’t have the needed labor, and, as a result, they are changing operations and not producing as many — or any — specialty crops, and are growing more grain crops instead, Bergefurd said.

Bergefurd predicts the acreage devoted to mechanically harvested pickling cucumbers will increase in northwest Ohio and few acres of the 80-year-old traditional, hand-harvested pickling cucumbers of Ohio will be planted due to labor shortages.

“Farmers who will plant hand-harvest pickles will adopt the use of harvest aids and will continue to move away from the crop share method that has historically been used,” he said.

5. Hitting bottom

“2018 looks like we will hit bottom, with grain and dairy prices bottoming out,” said Ehmke, who works to provide strategic insights about trends, structural change, and policy directives within the key rural industries served by CoBank.

“In 2018, we will see farm stress get worse before it gets better. We need to be proficient thinkers and use our relationships to get by.”

The world supply of crops will get tighter this year as usage picks up — starting to match with production, he said.

“We see the world demand, especially in Southeast Asia going up, and that is a good thing.”

Politically, trade uncertainty looks to continue this year, which won’t help the markets. Dairy prices continue to be under stress, as we see expansion globally, he said.

As prices hit bottom, Ehmke is optimistic that they will start to go the other way in 2019.

“I hope to see the dollar soften a bit. It won’t be a game changer this year, but it will start to help,” he said.

Beneath the surface of normalcy lies a hidden layer of complexity. And the fact is, we are building a big, global, complicated machine, and it’s obvious that people don’t know how to secure it, ignore the challenges, or take advantage of those who don’t understand what is going on.

What do South Park, Pineapple’s, the BBC and admin:admin have in common? Watch this!

 

If there was one word in the security industry in 2017, it was this: Equifax. I don’t even need to explain…..

Yet going forward, we will continue to see many more Equifax situations that will result in the destruction of billions of dollars of corporate value. Some CEO’s will be held accountable; others won’t. Yet the sad fact is that entire companies will disappear to avoidable negligence with respect to security and infrastructure issues. The trend will become accelerated as technology driven disruption comes to drive forward every industry. We might one day see a car company go bankrupt — not because of fraudulent diesel mileage manipulation, but because someone hacked into the internal IT engine of millions of cars through a known backdoor.

Add to that the fact that 2018 will probably be characterized by the emergence of cryptocurrency scams as one of the leading news computer related news stories of 2018. You simply can’t have an important trend go supernova without a lot of fraudulent activities coming to the forefront as people “rush in to share the riches.” Blockchain is a critically important and transformative trend, but as with any trend, the good will come with the bad. I suspect that we will see not only individuals make stupid mistakes as they work to cash in without knowing what they are doing — but corporations and government as well.

Add to this increasing hyper-connectivity. The Internet of Things (#Iot) is only going to make the voyage more challenging, as we continue to link billions of devices to this big global connectivity machine. As we do so, many aren’t paying proper attention to the issues that come with #IOT either — read my 2 posts on #IOt that cover some of these security issues here and here.

It’s not like we haven’t known about the risks. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, I regularly read Peter G. Neuman’s Risk Digest, and even contributed a few emerging risks to the regular newsletter. Looking back, most of was predicted back then has come to pass, including the hacking and hijacking of election systems and technologies. It’s only going to get worse; I covered these challenges when I did 2 talks for the chief legal officers for a vast number of Fortune 500 companies last month, as covered in my post, Understanding, Managing and Minimizing Accelerated Risk.

Why does IT risk continue to be an issue? Because the fact remains : companies simply do not pay attention to what must be done to protect themselves against KNOWN RISK, because it is not at the level of the Board. Most major companies do not have IT or security as a Board level skills matrix responsibility; they are still focused on legal, finance, executive compensation and the other same old stuff they’ve always been focused on as Boards. Yet I’ve long said that IT and risk management needs to be something dealt with at the Board – until then, things will not change!

Gosh, back in 2003 – 14 years ago — I wrote in a post: “There is a common theme here — companies continue to ignore security issues, and the result is significant business damage. And to be frank, this isn’t just a small issue anymore — we are witnessing the actual destruction of corporate value due to negligence! THIS IS A CEO LEVEL ISSUE NOW, FOLKS!” —> https://www.jimcarroll.com/2003/02/security-has-to-start-at-the-top/

I used CAPS!

Then I wrote in that same post: “Until senior management wakes up and realizes that without action, they can see their corporate value destroyed over night, we’ll see more of this.”

Sadly, I nailed that trend….

Sadly, for many organizations, nothing will change into 2018 and going forward.

If you do anything, pay attention to security. The future of your organization depends on it.

You asked, we listened. I’ve got one client in 2018 who is bringing me in to demystify what is quickly becoming one of the most disruptive issues today.

Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Bitcoin and the End of Money: Understanding The Ultimate Disruption”

In as little as ten years, the very concept of money will have been forever changed. And the fact is, it’s happening now in real time. But it isn’t just money that is being disrupted: the blockchain concept promises to unleash a wave of innovation that parallels and exceeds the impact that came with the arrival of the Internet economy.

Making sense of the trends and the reality of what it represents can be a challenge. A new vocabulary has emerged that involves radical new concepts, the decentralization of authority, and rapid hyper-innovation : blockchain, Ethereum, ASIC and currency miners, hard forks and smart contracts! At the same time, headlines speak of the ongoing rise in the value of grandfather of all crypto-currencies, Bitcoin, while other news outlets and experts label it a bubble.  Merely interpreting all of the components of this new world can be a fascinating journey.

Yet the voyage becomes even more challenging when faced with opinions that are all over the map. What does it meaan when when Jamie Dymon, the head of  JPMorgan Chase calls Bitcoin a fraud and the people who buy it “stupid,” and yet at the same time, the head of the IMF says that Bitcoin could give existing currencies and monetary policy a run for their money? When a cryptocurrency goes from a valuation of a few hundred dollars to over $10,000 in a matter of months? When 2018 will be defined by an acceleration of the acceptance of distributed ledger concepts at the same time that a horde of fraud artists invade this fascinating new world? When some countries state they will abandon long held concepts of a national currency in favour of digital cash?

But wait, there’s more! The impact doesn’t stop with the arrival of the first wave of concetps as found in ‘money’ such as Bitcoin. What is emerging is the infrastructure and a foundation for the next economy: one that is reliant on distributed, digital trust, the elimination of the middleman from many business interactions, and fundamental, disruptive concepts that run up against most of the economic models of the last 100 years. These are challenging times, and difficult questions are being presented.

What does this complex new world mean to your business and your business model? Is it a fraud, or is it a bubble? What’s real, and what’s not? Are we in the midst of the latest Tulip and dot.com phrase, or is there substantial change underway?

In this keynote, futurist and technology expert Jim Carroll peels away the layers of the world of cryptocurrency, outlining the challenges and opportnities that come with the end of the concept of money as we know it. These are truly transformative times – for the realty of blockchain goes far beyond the current hype surrounding Bitcoin. The concept of distributed ledgers will change entire industries, challenge the very nature of the legal concept of offer and acceptance, and unleash a torrent of hyper-innovation around business models.

I just wrote this one up for the brochure copy for an upcoming 2018 event.

The issue of Amazon isn’t just about retail — it is about any industry with a middleman. Insurance, wealth management, finance, medical or dental care, home services and renovations. You name it. And the big question is – what are you going to do about it?

Disrupting Amazon : Accelerating Strategies for Success in the Era of Industry Transformation

Amazon is the elephant in every industry room. They will challenge and disrupt your business model, and shake your belief in the future to the core.

Why not change that before it changes you? Don’t wait for Amazon to disrupt you – disrupt yourself and disrupt Amazon first! As we witness the Amazonification of industries, deep insight into this massive-but-cheetah-like-elephant is critical, a fast strategy is required.

Futurist Jim Carroll has a key message: Don’t compete — transform! When Amazonian scale disruption occurs, you can’t hope to complete on price, the sophistication of the online interaction, or the other areas in which Amazon (and similar disruptors) clearly excel. You need a different proposition, different ideas and a different strategy. In many cases, this will come about through an implicit decision to compete based on the unique value you can bring to the relationship – service, support, personal interaction and other factors. In doing so, you specifically choose to not compete based on a race to the bottom and price.

Futurist Jim Carroll has headlined ‘Amazonificaiton strategies’ at a wide variety of corporate leadership meetings and association events in the medical, dental and veterinary industries; in the global optometric industry; in the agricultural dealer market, in the home renovation sector, and many more. He has provided deep insight on the transformative strategies and mindset that needs to be pursued.

The acceleration of disintermediation via Amazon is a cruel reality of our modern day world. Think about the business model of a a group of agricultural dealers who sell products to farmers. The simplistic view is that they buy products from the manufacturer, and then sell them to the farmer, with an obvious markup in price. Amazon could do this (and will) with a more sophisticated online system, and avoid the cost of the markup, thereby offering a lower cost alternative. How to compete? Become an invaluable partner to the farmer in terms of advice, expertise and personal support for new initiatives, products and ideas.

In the era of Amazon, you can’t hope to compete on price — because you will watch your business disappear! Futurist and innovation expert Jim Carroll outlines the key trends, strategies and opportunities to be pursued in the ear of Amazonian acceleration!

We will see more change in every industry in the next 10 years than we have seen in the last 100 as transformation and disruption sweeps the world.

Every company is faced with the rapid emergence of new competitors, significant new business models, more challenging consumers, the acceleration of science a race to the pricing bottom, and a transition to the speed of innovation that will define their future. How do you get ahead? By turning on your innovation engine, firing your creativity thrusters, and strapping in for a rocket ride into your faster future.

In this keynote, futurist and innovation expert Jim Carroll shares the insight that he has gained by spending the last 25 years with a relentless focus on what turns organizations into high-velocity innovation heroes. None other than NASA has invited Jim in – twice – to share his insight on innovation strategies.

Innovative organization accelerate their creativity by turning their innovation engines upside down, focusing on customer oriented innovation and other unique models. They excel at sourcing ideas from the outside, turning that unique insight into fuel for their internal innovation factories. They challenge themselves on speed by getting into an iterative process of constantly rethinking, adjusting and redoing in order to discover the next best thing. They challenge themselves on business cycles, time to market and more.

In accelerated organizations, partnership is a key focus, collaboration is critical, agility is oxygen and imagination is relentlesss.

Launch yourself into the faster future with this unique, high energy keynote for global futurist, trends & innovation expert Jim Carroll!

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