Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

While I often speak to audiences of 500 to 7,000, including large scale Las Vegas events, I also spend a *lot* of time with CEO’s and other senior management teams in small, leadership oriented events, providing a key message on the necessity for innovation in the high velocity economy.

In fact, it’s long been one of the fastest growing areas of my business: my clients include events for companies seen in the list below!

These are highly customized events : by way of example, I’ve gone in and done a talk for Whirlpool/Maytag on the future of home appliances in the era of IoT (Internet of Things); Disney on the future of consumer behaviour; the BBC on the future of broadcasting; and New York Life on the future of insurance in the era of business model disruption.

There are well over 100’s more with very customized industry talks.

Recently I’ve been filming some videos in advance of these corporate offsite events; these are distributed to attendees in advance to get their creative juices flowing! Here are 3 recent ones.

Great companies establish a culture of high velocity leadership, so they are prepared for the rapid economic, market and industry change that surrounds them.  In that vein, I’m often retained by the CEO or other senior management representatives in order to provide a presentation that will help to shape the strategic direction of the organization.

In a nutshell, these talks cover very specific industry trends, challenges and opportunities, based on highly original research, and can often include an interactive discussion that addresses a variety of issues, including:

• establishing forward-oriented leadership skills
• shifting your culture from fearing threat to capitalizing on opportunity
• promoting innovation, flexibility and adaptability
• establishing an innovation culture based on creativity, curiosity, courage, collaboration and change-awareness
• encouraging a certainty culture in the presence of rapid change.

Want to learn more? Inquire into Jim’s Availability

Send some details, and he will get back to you in person as quickly as possible!

Take a look at my client list. I’ve developed a worldwide reputation for keynotes and talks at Fortune 1000 leadership meetings that go beyond customization – they go to the heart of the transformative issues that need to be discussed in the room.

What’s my secret sauce? Read about how I work with you in this little video clip!

I’ve been booked by the folks at Eye Recommend to close two conferences in Edmonton and Niagara Falls, Canada, next month and this fall. I will be speaking to several hundred optometrists and their staff/vision care specialists on trends related to he future of their industry. This follows a highly successful similar talk for Nikon Optical in Tokyo.

I filmed this little video overview of the big trends impacting the profession and industry going forward.

There’s lots going on! Enjoy watching!

Siemens has booked me to headline a major energy conference in Houston in May.

So I did a little video about what to expect. Give it a watch. We are going to see more change to the global utility/energy industry in the next 5 years, than we have seen in the next 100!

Let’s face it – your annual event, conference or leadership meeting is critically important. The last thing you need is a speaker in the opening or closing keynote slot who is going to give you perfunctory attention, deliver a canned talk, take your money, and leave you wondering, ‘what was that all about?’

Not me! I take the approach that I’m going to have to work hard to have the right to take your money!

Consider a recent project I worked on with the Trapeze Group, a software company in the urban transit space. After some back and forth, they decided I was the right guy to open their annual conference in Nashville this June. What helped to convince them was the level of customization I do in terms of the topic — something that has earned me a global reputation with a massive A-list set of clients.

But it wasn’t just that – it was the fact that fact I would go the extra mile for them with ‘event collateral’ – material they could use to drive interest in and attendance at the event. After all, that’s one of the most important up front goals.

We’re not even 2 months away from the event, and here’s what the Trapeze Group has already!

A customized video, focusing on the rapid trends impacting the urban transpiration sector, and encouraging people to attend. Learn more about how I put these highly polished, professional event videos here.

In addition, the organization did an interview with me, involving a fair bit of back and forth, which result in a lengthy Q&A article on the types of issues which would be covered at the conference — and why people in the industry should be in attendance. You can read the full article here:

Then there was the press release which went out, in order to continue stirring up the buzz.

Of course, then there is all the social media that goes with this material.

The conference isn’t till June, and we’ve already got same great buzz underway!

Some speakers will show up, do their keynote, and take your money.

Not me! I will do more before I even show up – I will work hard to take your money!

So, I had a potential client ask, “do you have any really futuristic video clips that don’t involve some of the trends of today?”

I’m not quite sure what the question actually means – interpreting what a client is looking for is sometimes a great mystery, which is why I always suggest that they jump on an exploratory conference call with me.

But if a client wants freaky futuristic stuff, I’ve got that too. Here’s a clip, where I’m on stage at the World Government Summit, talking about a future in which we might enhance the ability and capacity of our brains through Human-Computer Interface technology and off-brain storage, through what I would call a Yottabit ball. Sort of the type of stuff we might see in 2030 or further out.

The fact is, we will witness the next evolution of the size of the human brain with this type of thinking. Like, wires that go from our brain into a crystal ball that will help us to offload some of our thinking and brain processing. Current trends with HCI might lead us to this type of future.

But I don’t do a lot of this type of thing on stage. I really find that freaky doesn’t work in getting people to align themselves to the future.

But for the fun of it – here’s the trend at play. Every step along the way in human evolution, we’ve seen a big increase in brain capacity. The arrival of tools, and then weapons, saw big increases in cranial capacity. The arrival of the Internet, global connectivity and more, is leading to the next wave in the size of our brains. HCI leads us there – the next wave of cranial capacity increase will come from an extension our human mind to a light based cube. The math and science supports it. We can take the trend there.

But I often wonder – how are such stories helpful? Sure, there are some futurists who do really freaky talks about freaky trends and where we might be 50 years from now. Yet I often find that type of keynote is a little bit like Chinese food: people get excited, have some fun, but sort of forget about the context in an hour and are hungry for more.

I tend to put into perspective trends on a 5 or 10 year timeline, some of which surround us now, and which will have profound impacts on our business models, industries, skills. 25 years on stage has taught me that is what resonates. such as found in my 2018 outlook videos.

And so, as always, when I am mystified in trying to figure out what a potential client actually wants, I encourage them to pick the phone and call me.

I’ll actually answer the phone.

The National Fire Protection Association has booked me to headline their annual conference in Las Vegas this June.

As with every organization, they know that effective event marketing is a key to their success: and that they need to work harder to build attendance and interest in their events. To that end, I’ve been working relentlessly on some extremely customized, short videos that can be shared in advance of the event. Take a look at some of them here.

For this particular event, I pulled together 3 distinct video clips with my producer. Have a watch – they focus on future fire risk, accelerated infrastructure risk, virtual reality and more.

 
You can also watch the full, long version. We need to change things up a bit – long versions for the Web, shorter versions for social media!

Want to take your event to the next level? Work with a speaker who actually cares about your event and your own message – not theirs!

Do you want to book the same old boring speaker who will show up and deliver a canned message – or do you want to book someone who truly cares, and goes the extra mile? If you are like most people, you’ll do what you’ve alway done, and will end up with the same old boring, predictable, uninspiring leadership event. That’s sad.

The Admiral Beverage Group in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has booked me to come in for an upcoming leadership meeting that will focus on the future of retail, consumer behaviour and more. They join good company – organizations like Disney, The GAP and Godiva Chocolates have had me in for similar events.

To get the leadership team thinking in advance about the event, I went and filmed this little video clip about the event, trends and more. Give it a watch!

Then ask yourself – are you going to go out and book the same old boring speakers like you always do – or do you want to kick up your event a notch?

Back in the fall, I was the opening keynote speaker for the Annual Coffee, Tea & Water show in Dallas, put on by the National Automatic Merchandising Association. Great feedback – one fellow wrote “Jim, it was just simply astounding. I go to a lot of events and see a lot of speakers, but you hammered home the point that change is inevitable with solid insight, indisputable facts and powerful motivation. Well done!”

That’s my job – to take you in the future. It’s why organizations like NASA, Disney, BASF and hundreds of others have engaged me to come in for a talk to rattle their cages.

“Talk about disruption, in just 90 minutes, Jim Carroll, futurist, and trends and innovation expert, managed to terrify me, Miss geeky nerd!” Is this the right approach to the future? Read on!

And sometimes, fear is a great motivator!

Read this article which just ran in CoffeeTalk, the magazine for the industry association, which just ran. In the context of the quote above, at least I know I am getting through!

Transition and Relentless Disruption as the New Reality
by Kerri Goodman, CoffeeTalk, January 2018

While attending the recent NAMA Coffee, Tea & Water conference, I was impressed/terrified by the keynote speaker whose topic was Innovation, Disruption, and Our Industry. Now, I have always prided myself at being not at just the ‘leading edge’ of technology, but at the ‘bleeding edge’ blazing trails through trial and error, rather fearlessly. In fact, CoffeeTalk launched our website in 1994, quite some time before even Coca Cola!

Talk about disruption, in just 90 minutes, Jim Carroll, futurist, and trends and innovation expert, managed to terrify me, Miss geeky nerd!

He began with a seemingly innocent reference to one of my favorite childhood programs, The Jetsons. It was fascinating to have this worldwide authority on transformative change walk us through exactly how this cartoon actually accurately predicted the future from robots and Roombas to at screen TVs, video chat to digital newspapers, even drones and smartwatches! Perhaps we all need to find the reruns online and take a peek at what is still to come?

However after the fun of seeing this 1962 TV show accurately predict where we are today, he returned to the terrifying ramifications of this constant disruption from technological advances: 65% of five-year-olds, right now, will be working in a job that does not currently exist. In fact, half of all first-year college students will have the knowledge they acquired in college be obsolete by the time they graduate! is is basically what Moore’s Law predicted back in 1965, technological advances will double every two years. DOUBLE!

Carroll stressed: No matter what we think or want, relentless disruption is the new reality. Even the Coffee industry is full of this disruption: k-cups changing the face of coffee consumption; smart roasters that can give you detailed information to create truly consistent roast profiles, brewing equipment that can reach out to service technicians to let them know they need to be fixed (IOT) before the operator even knows and so much more.

So how do businesses ride this tidal wave of disruption and transition? To be very honest, my first thought was to move to the deep woods somewhere and live off grid. Thankfully that was quickly replaced with hope. The solution starts out quite simply: business people and leaders must learn to think in a new way!

Disruptions are not threats, they are opportunities!

And so it is with a resounding Yeehaw that I say goodbye to 2017, most definitely the greatest personally transitional year of my life.

Nothing stays the same.

I spoke last night at this massive conference which explores the edge of innovation and opportunities for the transformation of government. Here’s a great little highlight clip – it even comes with epic music!

It was covered in The Gulf, a local newspaper, this way:

Innovation expert fast forwards time to showcase glimpse of future
February 12, 2018, The Gulf

DUBAI: An era of instant knowledge obsolescence and exponential job creation are around the corner, according to Jim Carroll. The acclaimed futurist, trends and innovation expert was speaking at the ‘Fast Forward to the Future’ session at the ongoing sixth World Government Summit, WGS 2018, in Dubai on Monday.

Carroll said that new learning is occurring so rapidly that half of the knowledge that is acquired during our first year of college will be either obsolete or revised by the time of graduation.

“The future belongs to those who are fast. It is your ability to embrace these fast-paced trends that will determine your success. Seven out of 10 children between five and six years old today will work in a job that doesn’t exist right now. That’s why this event is so critical. It provides an incredible opportunity to ingest knowledge and speak to thinkers and innovators from around the world, which is absolutely critical to our future success,” he said.

He added, “We live in an era of acceleration. What we once considered to be ideas and products meant to live only in science fiction or in the distant future are becoming an integral part of our reality. We live in a time where we can expect companies that do not yet exist, to build products that seem inconceivable, using materials never before imagined.”

Carrol concluded by envisioning a not-so-distant future where trends will merge, where the speed of change will accelerate, science will develop at an exponential rate, every industry will become a software industry and Moore’s law will define innovation velocity.

Jim Carrol is globally recognised for his unique insight into trends. He has researched key innovation success factors for dozens of industries, associations, professions, companies and individuals. Over the last 25 years, more than two million people have shared his insight with his events on stage. He has authored books including The Future Belongs To Those Who Are Fast, and Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast. His latest book, Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast: Stories from the Stage on Innovation, Disruption and the Accelerating Future will be published in Q2 2018.