Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

I often wonder if the discussion about health care in many parts of the Western world has come off the rails – with the result that many opportunities for real innovation are not being pursued.

That’s the focus of quite a number of keynotes I’ll be giving in the next few weeks, including for the American Association of Preferred Provider Organizations annual conference in Jacksonville, the 2012 National Pharmacy Forum in Tampa for the Healthcare Supply Chain Association, and a private leadership event for the Mercy healthcare group based in St. Louis.

Back in January 2000, I wrote an article for my weekly Globe & Mail column, that put in perspective the battles brewing between Hollywood and the computer industry.

The opening statement was particularly spot on, in light of the SOPA battles of today: “Decades from now, people will characterize the early years of the 21st century as a period dominated by a battle between the corporate entertainment world and the computer geeks.”

In January 2000, Jim wrote into a newspaper column that the early years of the 21st century would be characterized by a 'battle between Hollywood and computer geeks." The battle continues to this day.

The article was pretty prescient; yet at the time, one could have almost predicted that the SOPA / PIPA of battle today would continue.

The article is worth a read. Enjoy.

You can view the original PDF on the right.

For what its’ worth, my money is still on the geeks (you’ll see a comment below.) I think part of what is clearly happening here is a transitioning of the corporate entertainment world from baby-boomers who have never really understood the technology opportunity, to a younger generation who truly gets it.

On the one hand, we’ve got the head of the MPAA, former Senator Chris Dodd. I don’t he could explain what the DNS is, what it does, and why it’s important. ‘

On the other hand, we have the young  Rep. Darrell Issa in the House of Representatives. He’s a computer gamer, young computer geek who gets it. He took to a gaming bulletin board to announce his opposition to the bills.

In the longer term, old guys like Dodds won’t be around to push around the future much anymore. Young guys like Issa will be the politicians of tomorrow.

There’s hope yet.

(And I suppose I am old guy. I’m 52. But I’ve been online since 1982. I’m a geek. I get it.)

With all the recent merger frenzy, it’s become obvious that the corporate types have finally clued in to the Internet, e-biz and e-commerce. Yet to their horror, they realize that while fabulous opportunities exist on-line, a Pandora’s box of challenges has also emerged. In particular, it seems that they can no longer control the distribution of their products.

I’d hazard a guess that given the flurry of recent lawsuits, some media moguls have decided that the only way to deal with the Internet is to sue anyone and everyone who is challenging their business models.

The music industry has been busy suing various groups involved with MP3, the music format that makes it easy to distribute digital forms of music. The movie, television and entertainment industries are busy suing Toronto-based on-line broadcaster iCraveTV.com, charging it with “brazen theft.”

There are new lawsuits against computer geeks who have managed to figure out how to get around the copy protection scheme found on DVD-ROMs, which is arguably the hottest new entertainment technology on the planet.

Things are getting nasty: Just the other day, a 16-year-old Norwegian kid who figured out the mathematical equations behind the DVD code found the police banging at his door.

A battle royal is under way, and it’s fascinating entertainment. On one side, we have the entertainment companies, finally ready to take advantage of the opportunities of the wired world, and ready to use lawyers to defend their turf.

On the other side, there’s a ragtag army of computer geeks, bound by the global reach of the Internet, and impassioned by their collective distaste for anything that puts constraints on how they might use their computers.

I don’t know about you, but my money is on the geeks.

Regardless of the deep, troubling and complex issues at work here, the reality is that the folks who control the computer code will be the ones who will control the future. Any attempts to prevent the distribution of information by legal means in this digital world — whether it be music, movies or television signals — will ultimately be doomed to failure.

To understand why, you need to immerse yourself in the mindset of the technical community, instead of simply pondering the press releases from the other side.

One of the best starting points is to visit Slashdot (http://slashdot.org) — it uses the tag line “News For Nerds. Stuff that Matters.” It’s a geek perspective on the issues of the day, including the many legal battles. (Investors take note: It is probably also the best place to understand new technologies before they come out. The entire Slashdot community knew what Transmeta was up to before any public announcement was made.)

Often weird, slightly adolescent, extremely irreverent and often not understandable, it is still a goldmine of information as to how the Internet of the future will shape up.

There are countless other sites similar to SlashDot. Techdirt (http://techdirt.com) is but another example of these on-line communities.

You come to realize that all these lawsuits are viewed as nothing more than an amusing challenge to the geek community. The on-line mindset, when confronted by a legal letter or restrictive computer code, is to play a version of a popular quiz TV show. “I can crack that secret code in three steps, Alex,” goes the response to the challenge.

Instant communities, such as OpenDVD (http://www.opendvd.org/), are emerging in which the geeks passionately defend their right to open up technology or share information — and where they counter the PR spin from the corporate or entertainment world. This community often acts in bad taste, poking fun at the futility of lawsuits in the digital age.

I just visited a Web site and bought a T-shirt that contains the entire secret DVD code printed on the back.

What chance does Hollywood have in this battle, when its crown jewels are protected by a mathematical equations that can be printed on the back of a T-shirt once the geek community has figured it out?

Jim Carroll is co-author of Light Bulbs to Yottabits: How to Profit by Understanding the Internet of the Future, and can be reached by E-mail at jcarroll@jimcarroll.com

You will have no doubt discovered that a good portion of “the Internet” is protesting what is a fundamentally poorly thought out, and most likely dangerous, Act(s) proposed by the US Congress – SOPA and PIPA.

These Acts would essentially hand over power to the US government to effectively censor and shut down any Web site in the world. Regardless of where that site happens to be, and regardless of the law that site is subject to. The US Attorney General could, on a simple complaint, take action that would provide little recourse to anyone affected.

Effectively, as I understand it, the bills would in effect place complete power in the hands of the US government to fundamentally censor and control any information appearing on the Internet. Seriously. If you think this through, that is what it leads to.

The STOP SOPA campaign is not led by a series of wing-nuts or lefties or whack-jobs or people with an axe to grind. It is a grassroots campaign by people throughout the US, and increasingly around the world, who understand what is at stake here.

The proposed Acts are fundamentally wrong, dangerous, and without getting into rhetoric, the biggest danger to global freedom in many years. That is why there is such a fuss going on.

I’ve been online since 1982 – long before the Internet really became the Internet. I’ve been in awe of the power of global connectivity for 30 years.

I am in a state of shock that proposals such as SOPA and PIPA could make it even this far. We have in our hands the tool that will help to take us into the future — and we are in a situation in which the innovation opportunities that this tool can be taken away at a whim. That is not an understatement – that is a reality.

What can you do? Get involved. Learn what is going on.

I’m trying to in my own small way. I thought about shutting JimCarroll.com down for the day to join the protest.

But that would not be helpful – not too many would notice.

But I do get a lot of visitors – including you. So please, please, take the time to understand what is at stake here.

I encourage you to visit the link at the top right of every Web page throughout JimCarroll.com – Stop SOPA. The small banner you see up there? Click it — read it – participate.

Take the time to learn about these proposed Acts of the US Congress — understand why they are wrong — and realize that the protest is not some ill-advised idea by a bunch of ‘computer companies’ or ‘computer geeks’ or other characterizations.

The Internet, in being perhaps the most important invention of humankind, is too important to be subjected to frivolous, ill-informed, ignorant and polticially-expedient decisions by people who really don’t know what they are doing. The US Congress proposals are just plain, simple, bad laws.

I believe the Obama administration got it right. “While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

Stop SOPA / PIPA.

I think when someone looks back 10 years from now, they’ll realize that really aggressive innovation in the global healthcare industry really began in 2012. That’s because the scope of the problem is so “BIG.”

The scope of the challenge everywhere – the focus of a keynote I undertook in  Munich in July. I opened a private event in for a major health care organization — and spoke to the stark reality of some of the trends we face. Consider the issue of wellness and lifestyle disease:

• 1.6 billion adults are overweight or obese worldwide and over 50 per cent of adults in the US and Europe fit into this category.
• according to Reuters, “the number of adults with diabetes worldwide has more than doubled since 1980 to 347 million, a far larger number than previously thought and one that suggests costs of treating the disease will also balloon.”

Here’s a clip from that talk in Munich.

On a conference call with a client, the issue of optimism and pessimism came up. For many of the corporate or customer events in which I’m asked to speak, people are seeking my insight on the trends that will provide for future growth. In the call, I mentioned one recent keynote where I made a joke on stage about choosing optimism over innovation – in a bit of a unique way.

But my optimism is grounded by the trends I observe. In this short clip, you’ll also see a lead-in to how I plan to build the case for optimism.

It’s a short, good watch, I think with a key relevant point — and begs the question — are you able to consciously choose optimism over pessimism, despite the environment that you might find yourself in?

Here’s a fun little trend to think about — what will happen with the sports of snowboarding and skiing as we go into the future?

That’s the focus of a little trends documents that I whipped together for some fun, but never got around to posting online.

I just did a quick re-edit to bring it  up to date, and it’s available as a PDF on the right or here.

Here’s how it opens:

“By 2015, the ski industry had positioned itself to support the emergence of the next ski demographic.

It was well prepared through an investment in technology and people to deal with the reality that the majority of the new skiers and snowboarders of of 2015 — and many existing enthusiasts — were completely wired, mobile, and expecting a far more interactive ski resort experience. In doing so, the industry  was keeping up with the massive societal change that was occurring as mobile technologies, social networks, and location-oriented “apps” came to change the very nature of the skiing / boarding experience worldwide.”

I took up the sport of skiing at the age of 40, having never really known how to ski. I keep getting a little better every year; have had the opportunity to ski the Swiss Alps and other “big mountains,” and live a family lifestyle that involves a voyage to our home “ski club” every weekend. Both of my sons have become snowboard instructors — and I daresay that I think the sport has changed my overall life in a very good way.

Take a read — you might find the future of this sport, as it becomes influenced by mobile, technology, location and social to be kind of fascinating.

And there’s more on this topic through the links below, include some video clips where I talk about these trends on stage!

Related postings:

• Blog post – The future of skiing 
• Blog with video : Jim on the future of snowboarding and skiing 
• Jim Carroll on “the future of skiing” in the San Jose Mercury Post 
• read Don’t Mess with My Powder, Dude! (PDF) 
• Personal : Why we ski  

The Globe & Mail had a nice summary of my 2012 future trends prediction blog.

You can grab a copy of the PDF by clicking on the image to the right. Harvey Schacter, who summarized my original blog post, is a great guy!

You might find it a good document to fire up into your email and share around, retweet or Facebook!

I’ve had a number of media interviews and followup as a result of the article. If you are interested in contacting me for these purposes, please do so.

I enjoy seeing coverage of the trends and insight that I regularly provide in my blog. I think my job continues to be to challenge people to think about their status quo; how quickly their world is changing around them in ways that they might not know; and what they need to be thinking from an innovation perspective to deal with those realities.

This synopses makes for a quick read and summary, and so it’s always a thrill to see the blog post get shared in a unique and innovative way.

Sidebar: I actually wrote a weekly column for the Globe & Mail for four years from 1998 till 2002, in which I covered leading edge technology and Internet issues. It was well liked and always generated a tremendous amount of e-mail feedback.

That is, until the-then editor of the business section decided in the light of the dot.com crash that there would be no more future technology stories to unfold, and that tech coverage was just as good as dead!

Of course, after that, we saw the emergence of Facebook, the dominance of Google, the rise of the Apple infrastructure, iTunes and Apps and iPods, the explosion of social networking, the huge impact of Twitter, pervasive connectivity, digital lifestyles, the overthrow of government through national online networking …. and so much more.

Yup, tech was dead!

I still think that editor was one of the biggest bozos I ever met in my life! Just saying!

I do a tremendous number of keynotes in the agricultural sector — from groups such as the Texas Cattlemen’s Association to the Mid-America Crop Protection Association to the US Farm Credit Co-op. As I note on my agriculture trends page, I “spent so much time customizing the presentation for one agricultural conference that at the conclusion, one fellow came up and asked him how long I had been a farmer!“

With that in mind, I just got off the phone from a planning conversation for an upcoming agricultural keynote for the Grain Farmers of Ontario annual conference occurring this March.

I was speaking about generational turnover on the farm, the rapid emergence of new agricultural methodologies, and the impact of a significant acceleration in the science of agriculture.

Which brought me to mention an article I wrote way back in 2004, “I found the future of manure!” for Profit Magazine. Though a bit dated, it still helps to put in perspective some very critical and important trends — no matter what line of business you happen to be in.

What led to the article was that during my research, I discovered that a new career had emerged in this sector – professional manure managers. Heck, they even have their own magazine, Manure Manager. http://www.manuremanager.com/

Can you apply the rules of “I found the future in manure” to your particular industry? Probably!

“Believe it or not, manure can teach us a great deal about the future of business.” I wrote that back in 2004, and I still think it holds truth today!

Here’s the article!

The International Dairy, Deli and Bakery Association has invited me to be the closing keynote speaker for the 2012 international conference in New Orleans. I’ll appear before an audience of 8,000 key players in this massive global industry.

I’m honoured to join a list of previous keynote speakers that includes Mike Ditka, General Colin Powell, Emeril Lagasse, John Cleese (!), and even Sinbad.

This is another sign that innovation, and keeping up with high velocity change — my main themes — continues to rise to the top in many corporations and associations. Consider what I’m talking about : here’s the brochure copy which announces my participation:

The New Normal: Innovation, Hyper-niching, and Transformative Change

The “new normal” says nothing will ever be normal again. Instead, deep substantial change is transforming nations, markets, industries, jobs, and knowledge. We’re at the leading edge of the merger of three perfect trends: the rapid and massive mobile infrastructure with increasingly intelligent devices; pervasive location awareness as a result of GPS and location intelligence-mapping trends, and a consumer mindset that is increasingly open to new forms of interaction. The result is massive business model disruption, market change, and obliteration of old assumptions aobut the nature of customer relationships. Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert Jim Carroll will show new ways to uplift product in retail space, how to change customer loyalty through new forms of interaction, and how to enhance one-to-one conversations through hyperniching. He’ll walk us through the impact of increasing business intensity, innovation, and creativity as it relates to the world of food.

The key phrase to think about is “deep substantial change.” And the key thing to think about, is are you ready for it? Is your leadership team, innovation strategy, partners, infrastructure, culture and mindset aligned for transformative change?

Folks, we’re going to look back at 2012 as a year in which the world began to change even faster than any other year prior.

My key phrase has always been, “the future belongs to those who are fast.”

Are you?

A few years ago, right around the approach of the New Year, I wrote a blog post that I called ‘10 Great Words.”

Since that time, this inspirational post has become one of the most heavily tracked pages on my Web site; it also happens to provide the structure for the closing of most of my keynotes on stage.

In a few other years, I’ve updated the concept with other lists of inspirational words, and the meaning behind them. It’s always been a good way for me to clarify to my readers, and to my audiences while on stage, what they should be thinking about if they truly want to embrace the future and be an innovator.

With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about the words that might inspire people as they go forward into 2012. I’ve obsessed over this for quite some weeks now. I just haven’t been able to hit the right note.

And then while at the gym yesterday, and right after an interview for a newspaper in Sarajevo, the words for 2012 hit me like a torrent. Here’s what I think you should be thinking about as we go into a new year :

• optimism: 2012 promises to be a year of volatility – economic, political, social. I suspect it will be easy to lose sight of the future and maintain the focus that you really need to innovate and stay ahead of volatility. To do that, you need the right mindset — you need to be eternally optimistic! I am – I think that’s why I thrive in what I do. So make this your first step for 2012 — be grounded in optimism!
• perceive: make sure you understand the trends that surround you and what they might mean, and how they can build your optimism. Take the time to perceive where we might be going in the future in terms of your career, industry, company or skill set, and think about what it means.
• opportunity: to be optimistic with future trends, you must have a sense of how these trends will define your opportunity — the  third key word. The world is full of opportunity — if you choose to find it.
• attitude: add those three thoughts together, and you get to the fourth key word. Your success in 2012 will really come from the attitude that will carry you forward. Remember, some people see the future and are filled with fear. Others see the same future, and see nothing but hope!
• focus: of course, to maintain your optimism, you need to filter out the noise. You will be continually slammed by raging headlines related to the economy and all the other things that might go wrong. Stay focused – don’t lose track of your optimism; don’t let noise cloud the opportunities; don’t let volatility reshape your attitude!
• passion: do these things, and you are well set for the future. If this is the case, then you need to make sure that you develop a huge amount of passion for the opportunities that you see, and the activities and actions you intend to pursue.
• embrace: so you are in the right frame of mind, see the opportunity, and are filtering out the noise, and are excited about the future. Great — now you can embrace the opportunities for innovation and the future trends that surround you. Establish a goal, set a plan, and make sure you embrace this plan!
• experience: this means that as you begin to focus on innovation, you’ve got to make sure that you experience a lot of things that you haven’t tried to do before. That means that you must build up a lot of experience in areas where you lack previous involvement. Experience is a great word — the more you build up, the better you are positioned for the future. I call it experiential capital – explore that concept throughout this Web site.
• rebound: of course, if you are going to try to do some things you haven’t done before, you are bound to fail at a few of them. That’s where the word rebound comes in — pick yourself up, don’t focus on the failure, and try again!
• thrill. In my original 10 words, I closed off with the word “enjoy.” On stage, it’s often my last comment, as in “if you follow these 9 words, you get to the 10th most important of all, and that’s enjoy!” And that’s why for 2012, I still think the same thing holds true — if you adopt these 9 words, you’ll get to the 10th most important word of all — you’ll enjoy the thrill, as I do, of embracing the future and being innovative.

Remember – some people see a trend and see a threat. Other seem the same trend and see nothing but opportunity.

We’ll see you throughout 2012!

Here’s some of the key trends that I see unfolding through 2012 and beyond.

My unique job allows me the opportunity to see and hear what a lot of CEO’s and senior executives in a lot of organizations are thinking about. The  nature of my keynotes and small board / leadership meetings allows me to understand what folks are focused on. The research I do, whether for a major manufacturing conference in Las Vegas or a small corporate meeting with an ice cream company allows me to see the key trends that are unfolding right now.

And so given this unique perch, here’s some of the most important trends which will play out in the year to come.

•  Biz competes again. North American and Western European companies have lived with constant fear, with the rapid rise of China, the BRIC countries and the N11 on the world  stage. And yet, we’re now witnessing a scene from the movie 2010: “HAL-9000 – ‘What’s going to happen?’ DAVE – ‘Something wonderful.‘ My sense is that a wide variety of industries, from agriculture to manufacturing to industrial design have been going through a renaissance of thinking in the last few years, and have learned what they need to do to re-innovate, grow again, and aggressively return to local and global markets. Read my “Build-America” blog post for some of what I’m thinking here — and stayed tuned!
• The rise of the tinkering economy. The future is once again being built in the garage next door. But this time, it’s the hyper-connected, innovation oriented tinkering economy which is driving things forward. Get used to phrases like “micro factories,” “hobby designers” and”personal factories.”  The future of design, business and manufacturing is being reinvented at collaborative idea factories such as Ponoko, Etsy and  eMachineShop.com. There’s a revolution underway which is being driven by a globally connected, creatively driven new generation of hobbyists, and the impact is going to be massive!
• Relationships change. Everywhere around us, the relationship that we have in our lives with the things that surround is, well, changing. Our relationship with food is changing as mobile technologies come to influence what we buy, how we shop,  and how we track our food intake. Our relationship with our body is undergoing a change as we come to use those same mobile technologies to monitor our diet, track our blood pressure another vital signs. Our relationship with clothing is changing as embedded technology becomes a part of what we wear — think about GPS enabled shoes for Alzheimers patients and Zephyr’s smart-clothing — which can be used by athletes to track their performance. When relationships change, everything changes, and opportunities for growth and innovative thinking abound!
• Generational re-generation: everywhere we look, there’s a massive generational turnover underway, with a change in ownership of organizations from slow moving change adverse baby-boomers to a younger generation that inhales change as a form of innovation oxygen. As family farms and ranches are passed on from father to son and daughter, the rate of adoption of new farming and herd management ideas takes on a greater degree of speed.  As older doctors and nurses who were weaned on the paper-heavy patient file head into retirement, they being replaced by new medical residents who are arriving in the clinic, operating room and by the hospital bed with their iPads, ready to plug in! A shift from change-aversion to change-is-the-greatest-drug is a trend that speeds up our world even more!
• Revenue reinvention. Every company is coming to face the reality that they have to become just like Apple in order to survive. The fact that Apple generates over 60% of its revenue from products that didn’t exist 4 years ago might today be an aberration, but given the increasing velocity of business cycles, product innovation, the arrival of new business models, changing customer expectations, the impact of social networks and a series of other trends, and soon every organization will find itself in a reality in which constant, relentless reinvention of its product or service line will the crucial to future success.
• The Dominance of Design. We’re on the edge of a massive new era of creativity, with a trend that we might even call the ‘IPad-ization of Life.’ All one has to do is look at the new Nest thermostat to realize that a new generation of brilliant creativity is about to remake our world. We’re not doomed to a future in which everything around us in the future is going to look just like it did in the past – Apple’s design influence is quickly going to impact everything around us – from the cars we drive to the lamps we use to the fridges we open, to the buses we catch. Clean, simple, easy interfaces and crisp, cool lines, But it’s not just the looks — its the fact that with this new era of design comes intelligence. Our future is going to look great , intelligent and interactive!
• Chip-velocity! Moore’s law used to apply only to the computer industry. Yet the rule that the processing power of a computer chip doubles every year while its cost cuts in half is taking on new meaning, as your phone becomes a credit card, your car watches how well you drive on behalf of your insurance company, and your clothing talks to your doctor! All of a sudden, in the era of relentless, pervasive connectivity, innovation in every single industry speeds up when Silicon Valley takes over the innovation agenda!
• Life beyond politics. While the US Presidential election and political turmoil will dominate the headlines for 2012, a new generation of leaders are focused on BIG THINKING, BIG IDEAS, and BOLD MOVES. There’s a realization that political gridlock is the new normal, whether its the Democrats and Republications staring each other down, or France and Germany looking at Italy and Greece with a mystified sense of stunned confusion. So while politicians fail to get things done, innovative organizations are casting their mind to the future trends which will really provide opportunity in the future. It’s fascinating — the future is back in vogue again! And the thinking that is driving it is that we aren’t going to fix the problems of the future by doing what we’ve done in the past. And if we do things differently with those problems – that’s how we’ll discover the next big opportunity. This is the new mindset driving activities in the world of energy, the environment and healthcare!
• Leading locally. There’s something odd going on — as the world gets global, we’re all going local.  We’re seeing it with sustainability  and local foods; angst and anger at banks and moves to credit unions; and a new volunteerism – as unemployment grew to 7.6%, volunteer service grew by 16%! We’re seeing it with local business – a University of Pennsylvania study found that areas with small, locally owned business (<100 employees) had greater per capita income growth than those with the presence of larger, nonlocal firms! There’s a new focus on local co-ops — with more than 100 million people employed worldwide in some type of local co-op. Thats’ why its fitting that 2012 is the International Year of the Cooperatives, a business model that has stood the test of time for over 150 years. Where-ever you look, while we are thinking global, we’re acting local!
• Strategy re-dos. The impact of all these trends? Executives quickly coming to realize that what they’ve been doing in the past isn’t to hold them forward into the future. It’s time to throw out all the old assumptions and try things that are new!

Here’s to 2012!

A big shout-out to the 10 companies that helped the most in keeping the JimCarroll.com Web site infrastructure in great operating shape throughout 2011. If you want to do a great Web site, you need to do it right. These are some of the technology companies that have supported my site in various ways through the year.

• 
  Awesome, reliable WordPress backup!
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  Another fabulous WordPress backup service
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  Web site analytics – amazing dashboard – deep insight!
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  Absolutely fabulous real time, deep traffic insight
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  Fast, responsive Web hosting – great service!
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  Web site caching service – performance booster.
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  Customized coding – they designed this cool slider!
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  Web site performance monitoring
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  Rock solid domain name service.
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  Live text message polling

Throughout 2011, my Web site has played an incredibly powerful role in supporting my speaking activities worldwide.

Quite a few clients have told me that they’ve found it through a Web search for a ‘futurist’ or ‘innovation speaker’, or have been sent there by one of my speaker bureau clients. They’ve told me they’ve watched the video clips throughout the site, and that with other background information, has convinced them that I’d be a great addition to their corporate leadership meeting or association event.

Keeping a Web site such as JimCarroll.com up and running with little downtime,  in a way that it is fast, responsive, and always available, takes a bit of effort. I do all the maintenance, blog postings and updates on my own. But it’s also through the help of a variety of partners that I’ve got a site in which the average Web page loads in under 3 to 4 seconds — pretty good for a media rich, complex site.

And so as we wind down the year 2011, I thought it would be a good time to give a shout-out to the many technology partners that I use to keep this Web site in tip top shape, or let me watch how well it is working. In no particular order, these partners include:

• Blogvault: A fabulous WordPress backup service. Plug it in, pay a small fee, and you’ve got peace-of-mind knowing that your Web site is being backed up on a regular minute by minute basis. What’s better is their 1-button Web site restore. For example, I just had to move my son’s Web site over to my main Web server, and using the backup copy it worked like a charm – instantly!. Highly recommended!  
• VaulltPress; another WordPress backup service that I am using. I started out with VaultPress before I met Blogvault, but I’m not one to easily leave a relationship that is working so well. Like Blogvault. this service does a regular minute by minute backup of my entire WordPress based Web site. Redundancy of backup can be a good thing – that’s why I’ve got two backup services!  
• Woopra – Web site analytics software. With these folks, I’ve got a fabulous real time dashboard that shows me how people are using my Web site — how they found me, what they’re looking at, and what pages they are spending their time on. This has allowed me to continually redesign my site, ensuring that my clients can easily find the insight they are looking for. There are almost 1,000 blog posts — and I’ve discovered where people really spend their time. 
• OpenTracker. These folks are a competitor to Woopra — and have their own unique strengths. I particularly like how I can do some pretty deep analysis of Web traffic as it is happening in real time – it gives me a real sense of what people were looking for, and what pages really draw significant attention. 
• MediaTemple: extraordinary Web hosting with incomparable service — if you are willing to pay for a strong, reliable host, you’ll get stellar service. I had a support question on Thanksgiving Day — and it only took minutes for them to respond. I started the year out with a shared Web hosting service, and to be honest, you can take a significant performance hit if your site gets busy. In April I moved over to their DV (Dedicated Virtual) service, so that I’m the only one running as a server on the space I share. I’ve seen major performance improvements and fabulous reliability. Pingdom tells me I’ve only had 5 outages, and I know that each of those times has been due to something I’ve screwed up on my own. 
• W3TC: a typical Web site / WordPress blog can slow down when it is serving up a variety of video, images and other information rich sources, particularly under heavy traffic loads. That’s where this service comes in — it spreads out the content to my “content delivery provider,” Amazon CloudFront …so that the images that you see on the Web site don’t actually come from my site, but from a variety of Amazon servers around the world. If you want to speed up a WordPress based Web site, W3TC is likely the best tool out there. 
• CopterLabs: every once in a while, you need some custom programming done on a Web site. I found and hired Copter Labs to design the cool ‘image slider’ that you see on the top of this post. They do great work, are extremely professional, and truly do draw upon a team of WordPress experts worldwide – while my project was managed from Portland, Oregon, the actual work was done by a fellow in the UK. 
• GTMetrix: to keep this complicated infrastructure moving and in great operating shape, you’ve got to able to do some deep analysis of where any bottlenecks might be emerging in your site. Every time you add a new feature, you run the risk of introducing some slow performance. GTMetrix lets me look into performance and continually fine tune its operations.  
• easyDNS: the key component to any Web site is having a domain service that figures out just “where” jimcarroll.com happens to be located — and where and when images are being serviced from Amazon Cloudfront. Not just that, but a great domain service should automatically flip your Web site to a backup host in case things go wrong. That’s the role of easyDNS — I’ve been using them for 15 years — and could not recommend them more highly!  
• Poll Everywhere: last but not least, but PollEverywhere ranks as my favourite tech tool of 2011. I was described in a blog post as a ‘raving fan’ of this service, and that is extremely true. I use PollEverywhere to do live text message polling while on stage – while they’re not really a part of my Web site, they are a very, very important partner! 

That’s my list of my key 10 providers for 2011. Obviously, there is a lot more at work here in terms of the technology infrastructure. I must mention Apple in light of the  : the home office consists of a Mac Pro, new Macbook Pro, iPad, iPhone, and just about everything-Apple. Between the home and the chalet, we’ve got 4 Apple TV’s and just about ever other whiz-bang iDevice possible. The fact is, Apple has helped to take my business to new levels — Pages, Number, and most importantly, Keynote have all replaced the Microsoft office tools that I was using up until 2007. Earlier this year, while on stage, I actually had to use Windows 7 when I wasn’t allowed to use my Mac on stage — and I was completely, totally lost!

Not to forget as well Keynote Pro: these folks designed the Keynote presentation template that I use on stage — one that has now probably been viewed by over 100,000 people in the last two years alone. It’s not a key part of what I do on my Web site, but from a stage perspective, it’s certainly a key part of my success! 

Thanks to all – and here’s to 2012!

Update: For those asking about how I manage to walk on stage and do what I do, and also manage the tech infrastructure — you can’t figure out the future if you don’t deeply into the technology that will drive it! For what it’s worth, I’ve been geeking out as a hobby since 1982, starting with a Radio Shack Model III. My latest project, in my ongoing effort to keep the Website humming along, is to utilize a MediaTemple VE server running on an “LNMP stack.”  (I’ve had a test site running with Apache and Nginx as a proxy, but there’s still a lot of Apache overhead.) So the next stage involves a barebones Ubuntu operating system (Linux), running Nginx (instead of Apache, for performance), Mysql and PHP. (Hence, LNMP, not LAMP). It’s based on this article here. Looks awesome!

The future belongs to those who are fast — Jim Carroll, from the opening to a keynote to an audience of thousands in Las Vegas!

Approaching a new year is always a good time to check your mindset. Do you have the right degree of optimism and enthusiasm to tackle the opportunities of the future? Are you spending enough time of thinking about what you can really do if you are innovative? Are you really prepared for how the ‘next generation’ of wired kids is going to change our world? Here’s a few video highlights from various keynotes throughout the year that might get you thinking!

• Do you really think about the scope of opportunity that is unfolding on a global basis?
• On stage for the PGA of America, with a message on retaining the concept of innovation – open up your mind as to what it’s really all about!

• Are you prepared for increasing intensity and velocity of business cycles?
• What happens when 250 high school kids are TOLD to text in class!.
• Think big, start small, scale fast — the title of the book I’ll release in 2012!
• What’s the mindset that you’ll carry into 2012?
• Do you need an MBI degree to take you into the future?
• Are you really ready for this next generation?
• Have you stopped innovating because of uncertainty?
• Are you thinking big enough?
• Three words – mobility, location, awareness!
• My personal favourite clip from the year
• Change – deal with it!

Here’s a preview of just a few of the upcoming events for 2012!

• 
  In Orlando, I’ll host a major conference on innovation in the manufacturing sector at the Manufacturing Innovation conference
• 
  Enercom 2012 will focus on innovation in the global energy industry; I’ll be the opening keynote

• 
  PCUS 2012 in San Diego, oriented towards credit unions, where I will take a look at trends impacting the industry, and the massive opportunities for innovation!
• 
  I’m the opening keynote speaker for the upcoming 2012 Accenture International Utilities and Energy Conference in San Francisco, focusing on future opportunities for innovation in this critical sector.

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There are many others already booked — it’s going to be a great year. To give you a sense of just one of the topic areas I’ll be covering, here’s the keynote description for my address to the 2012 International Dairy, Deli, & Bakery Annual Congress in New Orleans.

The New Normal: Innovation, Hyper-niching, and Transformative Change

The “new normal” says nothing will ever be normal again. Instead, deep substantial change is transforming nations, markets, industries, jobs, and knowledge. We’re at the leading edge of the merger of three perfect trends: the rapid and massive mobile infrastructure with increasingly intelligent devices; pervasive location awareness as a result of GPS and location intelligence-mapping trends, and a consumer mindset that is increasingly open to new forms of interaction. The result is massive business model disruption, market change, and obliteration of old assumptions aobut the nature of customer relationships. Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert Jim Carroll will show new ways to uplift product in retail space, how to change customer loyalty through new forms of interaction, and how to enhance one-to-one conversations through hyperniching. He’ll walk us through the impact of increasing business intensity, innovation, and creativity as it relates to the world of food.

A report from T. Rowe Price on my recent keynote for the 2011 Investment Symposium follows, where I was one of three keynote speakers (the other two being Colin Powell and Charlie Cook). You can find some blog links to each of the three key themes in the article at the end of the article below.

""We thought Jim was amazing - just the positive message we wanted to leave folks with"

It was a fabulous event, and a great opportunity to get a pretty impressive audience — investment managers for a broad range of investment managers for a broad range of Fortune 1000 organizations, pension funds and government agencies.

Summary:

Futurist Jim Carroll, one of the world’s leading experts in global trends and innovation, described how advances in technology and human innovation will combine to create positive change in the future. He explained how businesses can be held back by what he calls “aggressive indecision”— postponing action because they are constantly waiting for economic conditions to improve. Carroll noted that as the pace of change accelerates, the companies that prosper will be those that can adapt and innovate most quickly.

Key Points

• Long-term trends that will lead us into the future. Silicon Valley is redefining everything—industries that get involved with Silicon Valley will be brought up to their speed. One powerful trend is pervasive interconnectivity—the fact that electronic devices are connected and can communicate with each other—as a driving force. For example, a staid industry such as air conditioning and heating benefits when people can control their entire home environment remotely through a cell phone. On the health care front, sensors can monitor the activities of seniors and report any changes in behavior, allowing people to live independently longer. On a more dramatic note, he believes advances in exploring the human genome will change medicine’s focus from reactively treating disease to proactively searching for potential health problems before they occur.
• The paradox of pessimism and reality. While many business people are pessimistic about the future and believe economic recovery is at least two years away, technological advances are creating the potential for greater productivity and efficiency. For example, the auto industry now has the flexibility to produce in response to demand instead of building huge inventories that may go unsold. Products can also be brought to market much faster to take advantage of changes in consumer tastes.
• The next generation. The next generation has grown up with rapid advances in technology, so they are at home with change. This familiarity means young people will greatly increase the rate of innovation as they enter the workforce. This group is not afraid to take independent action—50% believe self employment offers more job security than working for a company. The next generation will receive $12 billion to $18 billion in intergenerational wealth transfers in the next 12 years alone, which could help fund their ambition.

More information:

• Major 10 year trend: The future of every industry to be controlled by Silicon Valley Innovation  
• The new face of manufacturing: agility, insight and execution 
• Creativity and the new workforce 

The phrase is bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?

Get used to the concept. It’s part of an overall massive trend in which computational analytics come to play an increasingly more important role in helping us solve some of the big problems in society, in the fields of health care, energy, the environment and other industries. I wrote about this some time ago in a post, “Computational Analytics is the New Platstic.” It’s one of the next new billion dollar industries and it’s happening now.

Here’s a keynote from a recent keynote in which I’m talking about these “From a recent healthcare keynote, based on my Healthcare 2020″ keynote. The slides are running at the same time that I’m speaking – watch the screen as the data unfolds! Then cast your mind into the future….

Here’s a clip that I had out on Youtube, but realized that I had never worked it into the blog. It’s a quick clip on the “innovation killers” — the attitudes and actions that some people posses that manage to stifle innovation within an organization.

As we wind down 2011, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the events I highlighted this year. It proved to be quite the year year, with many fascinating events where I opened or closed a large scale conference or corporate meeting with a keynote address.

One of Jim's key themes is the opportunities of the future - at one in Las Vegas, one fellow was so inspired by the message that he asked Jim when he might consider running for President of the United States. Click to watch!

As we approach the end of the year, everyone turns their attention to 2012 — and begins to wonder “what comes next?” All of my clients are focused on that theme when they engage me for a keynote or corporate workshop — and so a sense of what they were thinking about in 2011 gives you a good sense of what’s going to be important in 2012!

Some of the highlights from this year includes these events:

• CSC Executive Exchange 2011, St. Andrews, Scotland. A small, intimate, invitation only event where I shared keynote duties with Jimmy Wales, the Founder of WikiPedia. I had CEO’s, CIO’s and CFO’s of some pretty major global organizations. Key theme: “The Next Wave of Digital Game-Changers” – I took a look at how every industry is soon to be caught up in Silicon Valley velocity, as technological comes to change every industry at lightening speed.
• McKesson IdeaShare 2011, San Francisco, California. Changing roles, changing opportunities. I open this annual event with a message for 4,500 pharmacist / owners that with significant challenges and change in the world of healthcare and retail, the time is ripe for them to innovate with their role and their methods because their has never provided a bigger time for opportunity. The big theme: “Healthcare 2020: The Transformative Trends That Will REALLY Define Our Future.” This proved to be a huge topic for this year, and continues into 2012, as people come to seek insight on what will really happen in the world of healthcare beyond the current political rhetoric.
• Multi-Unit Franchising Conference 2011, Las Vegas. I share the stage with Sean Tuohy, subject of the Blind Side, who owns quite a few franchise operations on his own. The focus in my keynote is on the fast changes occurring in the world of retail with consumers, technology, advertising and branding, social networking – you name it all!
• US Air Force Research Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio: This group, which controls the entire research budget for the Air Force, brings me in to open a conference in which they examine new opportunities and methodologies for innovative thinking. Fascinating audience, and indicative of the fact that every organization realizes that the world is changing so fast that a lot of traditional assumptions about innovation and R&D are changing at lightening speed!
• Consumer Goods Technology Magazine 2011 , Orlando, Florida. The pre-eminent conference for packaged goods, food and consumer products companies, with a huge number of Fortune 500 executives. My theme focuses on ‘what world class innovators do that others don’t do‘, particularly to keep up with changing consumers, mobile technologies, social networks and a variety of other trends. It leads to a blog post by one fellow, “Some mind blowing stats from Jim Carroll ….” Big themes: “Mobile, Social, Location!“
• Maple Leaf Foods, Toronto, Canada. A blog post, “Food industry trends 2011; Report from a keynote” was based on this talk. This blog post is now one of the first search results for anyone searching for anything having to do with food trends — and is now easily the most trafficked Web page on my site. After health care, food trends is probably the second busiest topic area for the year.
• T. Rowe Price 2011 Investment Symposium. 600 investment managers, senior executives and CEO’s. The other keynotes are Colin Powell and Charlie Cook. My job is to close this two day event with an inspirational, motivational message based on the theme “When Do We Get to Normal? Why Thinking BIG Will Help You Seize The Opportunities of the 21st Century.”
• World Pharma Innovation Congress, London, UK. I’m honored to open this renowned global conference on innovation within their crucial sector – most of the global heavy hitters from the world of pharma and bio-science are in the room. Opportunities for growth and innovation are coming from hyper-science, opportunities for externally sourced innovation insight, and the big global ‘idea machine’ that is revolutionizing opportunities for innovative thinking.
• Interactive Manufacturing Exchange, Las Vegas, Nevada. A massive highlight from September — with a dinner keynote for 600 major manufacturing executives, and a morning keynote for 1,000 more. My keynote focus is that there is plenty of room for growth in the North American manufacturing sector, given the tremendous advances that have occurred with methodology and technology. My message must have resonated — after my talk, one fellow got up during the Q&A and asked if I would consider running for President of the US!
• DSSI Forum, San Antonio, Texas. One of the largest seniors care conferences in the US. I spoke at length and with passion about the big opportunities for innovative thinking in the sector, particularly in light of the big challenges that society faces. This was a very personal event; those who know me well know that we have learned quite a bit about the challenges society faces with Alzheimer’s as a close family member has suffered from the disease.
• Lockheed Martin, Washington, DC. I’m asked to speak at their 2011 global HR conference. The organization is aligning itself to deal with fast paced change in ever sector of its operations: my theme is what companies are doing o achieve “skills agility”, and why the issue of “deploying the right skills at the right time for the right purpose” is an increasingly important model for the future.
• Pearson 2011. The future of education. A talk that linked key future trends to the need for massive, transformation thinking in the world of knowledge delivery. Noted one attendee: “Jim Carroll gave a particularly poignant keynote address about the need for true, innovative thinking.  (Think of a 5 year mission on steroids…)”
• Bombardier Global Operators Conference. The future of corporate and leisure travel. Manufacturing innovation. Consumer change, and the impact of mobility. A wide ranging talk that challenges global airline operators to think about innovation in every aspect of their operations.
• Fairmont / Raffles Hotels International. A corporate event, focused on the future of the global meetings and events industry. Key theme: organizations will increasingly require short, sharp shocks of knowledge delivery — corporate meetings and events are a big part of this trend, and are a key part of the short term strategic planning cycles that organizations are focused upon.
• Texas CattleFeeders Association, Amarillo, Texas. The 2nd of two major talks for the cattle/beef industry in the US. Earlier in the year, I opened a private event that had in the room the top 100 cattle ranchers from across the country – representing a  multi-billion dollar investment. My keynotes focus on the significant opportunities for growth in the agricultural industry.
• International Foundation 57th annual Employee Benefits Congress, New Orleans, LA. A morning keynote for 4,500 people at 730AM in New Orleans — and they all show up, confirming that description that “what I do for a living is go out and talk to large groups of hungover people.” It’s a rousing talk on the theme of Healthcare 2020: Today’s Trends, Tomorrow’s Opportunities
• Linde Health Group, Munich, Germany. Global opportunities in the world of healthcare – how do we link future trends to opportunities for growth.

There were quite a few other keynotes for associations, government and corporations. In addition to these high profile engagements, which featured audiences of up to 6,000, I also hosted a number of small CEO level events. In one case in Washington, I spent the morning with a small group of 15 CEO’s/CIO’s/CFO’s in a boardroom style setting, where we explored the opportunities for growth that coming from linking future trends to innovative thinking.

Advance bookings for 2012 are exceedingly strong — so far, I know I’ll be in Palm Springs, Tampa, Orlando, Phoenix, Aspen, New Orleans (x2), San Antonio and many other locations.

Think growth. Think opportunity. Think trends. Think positive!

For over 20 years, I’ve been working from my home office, serving a global clientele that includes some of the largest organizations in the world, with unique insight on future trends and innovation. Everyone from the PGA of America to Johnson & Johnson, NASA and the Walt Disney Company. Not unsurprising, this has involved some pretty heavy duty travel – I’ve seen the world!

This week, I’ll have the perhaps dubious distinction of surpassing 1 million miles on one of the airlines that I utilize the most. That’s 1 million miles actually IN THE AIR. (I’m told by the airline that I’ve actually earned over 5 million miles if we add in all the flight, car, hotel, credit card and other bonuses.)

That’s like going to the moon twice and back. At an average speed of 500MPH on a jet, it’s about 2,000 hours spent in the air — more counting taxing and all the other delays. Just over 83 days “up there.”

Out of a sense of curiosity, I did a few calculations, and figure that I’ll pass this milestone somewhere over Lake Michigan on my return to my home airport of Toronto, Canada.

I can’t help but thinking of this scene from the movie Up In The Air, starring George Clooney, in which he surpassed 10 million miles. I couldn’t imagine! So with this dubious distinction in mind, here’s the clip.

Fortunately, unlike the fellow George Clooney portrayed in the movie, I very much have a life beyond flying! Most of my trips are short and to the point ; there is much time in the home office and with my family; and for many of my more exciting international trips, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of bringing my wife and two sons with me. Just this summer, I was booked to keynote a pretty significant CEO level event in St. Andrews, Scotland — we all went on the voyage, and managed, of course, to get a round of golf in.

Here’s to the next million miles!