Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

With a lot of university graduations and commencements, it might be a good moment and pause to think about a degree that colleges and universities should be offering their students. That’s why I opined a number of years ago that we needed to prepare people for a fast paced future by letting them enroll in a Masters of Business Imagination Degree.

Grab the PDF to the right, and share it around. Here’s how it reads.

“In a time of rapid, disruptive change can be a death sentence – not only for organizations, but for the careers and skills of those who work there! It’s time to abandon the thinking that has had you anchored firmly to the past – and to shift your focus to the future, with enthusiasm, motivation and imagination.

You can do this by abandoning any pretense that the skills of yesterday will be important tomorrow. Figuratively and literally, it is time to move beyond the thinking that has led us to a world of MBA’s – Masters of Business Administration – and focus upon the critical skill that will take you into tomorrow. The world doesn’t need more administrators. It needs more MBI’s – Masters of Business Imagination!

What are the attributes? MBI’s:

• see things differently
• spur creativity in other people
• focus on opportunity, not threat
• refuse to accept the status quo
• bring ideas to life
• learn and unlearn
• refuse to say the word can’t
• accept challenges with passion and enthusiasm
• thrive on diversity
• challenge assumptions
• are solutions oriented

Grab the Masters of Business Imagination PDF

Here’s my June CAMagazine column, about a new initiative that I have underway in my life.

Learning for a living
by Jim Carroll, CAMagazine, June 2010

So what does a CA who has evolved into a global futurist do for his next gig? Go back to school, of course.

It’s truly become an unusual job I’ve taken on over the past decade. At this point, I travel about 100,000 miles a year, speaking at 50 to 60 conferences or leadership meetings all over the world.

It’s a very odd feeling, standing backstage at the Theatre for the Performing Arts at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, about to go out and speak to 4,000 people. I can’t help but wonder, as an accountant, how did I ever get here? Continue Reading

Today, I’m speaking at a leadership meeting for HJ Heinz in Pittsburgh. I wrote this article in 2003, and thought it appropriate to make it available once again!

Coping with Ketchup, by Jim Carroll
Globe & Mail, September 2003

Go on, admit it: You still set the “upside down” ketchup bottle down cap up.

You’re not alone. Lots of people — adults mostly — automatically turn the bottle so the white cap is at the top — even though it’s been almost a year since Heinz started to offer the new bottle. It’s a pretty good example that when change comes about, there are plenty of people who struggle to adapt.

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Here’s an article that I wrote for the spring issue of Marketline, for the BCAMA. Some good food for thought on the future of branding, and how all this social networking might really evolve.

Key point: “The concept of branding is being re-energized. People care again”

Pat Boone Has an App
by Jim Carroll, Marketline, Spring 2010

Does that blow your mind? It should. After all, for some people, Pat Boone could be the most uncool guy around, and yet he has an App with a pretty good rating in the Apple App Store. I think that’s pretty cool.

If it doesn’t blow your mind because you don’t know who he is, then here’s the deal: he’s a singer who sold some 50 million albums during the 50s and 60s. Think Justin Bieber if he was around in 1956.

I learned about Pat Boone’s App when I set out to get my own. Given the nature of my business, I’m a brand, and I’m a big believer that we are rapidly entering the era of the personal brand App. And in fact, the same folks who developed Pat’s App pulled mine together and had it available in the App store within just eight weeks.

What does this have to do with the future of marketing? Probably everything and anything, in that we are in the very early stages of what is likely to be a very significant transformation in the energy that people have towards the concept of a brand.

Bill Gates once observed that “most people overestimate the amount of change that will occur in two years, and underestimate the change that will occur over 10 years”.

Think about that statement in the context of the current impact of social networking on brands and marketing.

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Does your future suck?

by Jim Carroll

Written for “Content Matters Newsletter, March 2010″, Content Management Corporation

So the big question, of course, is this: is there a future for the meetings and conference industry?

What a silly question!

Of course there is: the fundamental trends that are shaping our future demand that organizations continually deliver regular, short sharp shocks of updated knowledge, and despite all the new fangled technology that surrounds us, many will demand that we continue to do so in human-to-humanget-togethers.

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Last fall, Microsoft invited me to speak at a series of events related to its Windows 7 launch; I’d be addressing C-level executives on the key business strategies organizations are adopting as we come out of the recession.

For the first stop on the tour, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke to the audience, so I went to hear what he had to say. He certainly stoked enthusiasm for the new Windows 7 product in the manner for which he is known, but he also spoke to the broader plans for Microsoft in the future. One comment about mobile devices stood out: that the reason why Apple is selling so many apps for the iPhone is because generally the browser on the phone isn’t very user friendly.

That’s quite true. I find when I access the Internet on my iPhone the screen resolution seems particularly challenging for these middle-aged eyes. My own website features fonts and a layout that look great on a big monitor but when accessed on an iPhone don’t work very well. Continue Reading

Here’s an article that just ran that offers some of my thoughts on what’s up with the global meeting and events industry.

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Convene Magazine, January 2010
by Maureen Littlejohn

During 2009, many organizations battened down the hatches and waited for the recession to pass. As we enter the new year – and a new decade – the time for waiting is over. It’s the organizations that keep their eyes peeled for budding opportunities – and are prepared to pounce on them – that will succeed. Convene asked futurist and trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll to identify five emerging megatrends of particular interest to the meetings industry.

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Convene Magazine is the official publication of the Professional Convention Management Association.

In their December 2009 issue, they have part 2 of their annual technology forecast : how will technology continue to shake up the meetings and convention industry.

My prediction focuses on the impact of location intelligence on the industry; here’s what I wrote:

With the meeting and convention industry still all abuzz about the impact of Twitter, a far more dramatic and far-reaching trend is soon upon us, with the impact of what has come to be known as location intelligence.

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The feedback on my Salt Lake City keynote for the National Recreation and Parks Association continues; earlier in this story, I had a blog entry from a message from someone at the event thanking me for “changing lives.”

The Past President of the NRPA has weighed in with an editorial in Perspectives, the NRPA’s national magazine. Headlined “Anticipating the Future,” Jodie Adams has this to say (excerpted).

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Shaping Tomorrow is one of the world’s leading trend watching services, observing on its home page that:

“We help 13,284 people and organisations anticipate, and respond to, how we will live”. Find opportunities for growth, discover new solutions, conduct risk and intelligence assessments, make strategic choices, plan and act on decisions, construct scenarios and join our global innovation and foresight network.

A tremendous number of global organizations use Shaping Tomorrow to track future trends. In line with that, the group has just launched a speakers bureau to provide its clients with the additional insight they need to deal with a high velocity economy. Continue Reading

There’s no doubt that one of the biggest issues facing the planet and its inhabitants in the coming decades is how we treat the dual challenges of energy and the environment. For years, I’ve been advising my clients about one of the biggest trends related to these two issues: the rapid emergence of an intelligent energy infrastructure. It’s happening now – all around you – and the implications are pretty huge in terms of economic growth. The big question is, what role can accountants play as this infrastructure builds?

From a high level, the trend unfolding is that we will be able to more directly and individually control how we use energy resources, giving each of us ways to reduce our own environmental footprint.

We’re seeing small steps already today: for example, I just bought the new IP Thermostat app for my iPhone; it provides instant access to the two Internet-enabled Proliphix thermostats in my home and ski chalet/cottage. (I could link to my thermostats before via a web page, but IP Thermostat makes it seamless and fast.) The technology allows me to actively manage my energy consumption and better manage my environmental footprint. A world in which hundreds of millions of people are doing the same thing would put a serious dent into heating and air-conditioning usage.

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One of the columns I write on a regular basis is for CAMagazine, which goes to about 100,000 professional chartered accountants. My big secret? Despite the fact that I spend my time advising some of the biggest organizations in the world on strategies for innovation and creativity, I’m also a professional accountant. I spent some 12 years way back in the 1980′s with one of the world’s largest professional services firm.

My June column is out — and it talks about the challenge of trying to reconcile the emerging demands for more financial disclosure with the short attention spans that come with the Twitter era.

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My latest CAMagazine article is out.

In January, I was invited to address a group of CIO’s and CFO’s from some of the world’s largest insurance companies — a pretty heavy duty crowd. My challenge? Get them away from focusing just on the here-and-now, and think a bit about some of the challenges that tomorrow will present.

Part of my voyage took them into a view of what their industry might look like ten years out. Here’s a few extracts:

Are you ready to open up your accounting and financial systems to the Facebook generation? In 10 years, that won’t seem like a silly question. But even today, it’s an issue you should think about

In the next few years, we are likely to enter the world of the “accounting mashup,” in which customers, suppliers and business partners start to interact with you through online widgets. As this happens, you’ll discover new business models that will provide sales opportunities, streamline customer support and reduce operating costs.

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Association Magazine has published my article, Metamorphosis: A Defining Success Factor for Associations.

A huge number of my keynote presentations are for professional, industry, trade or other associations. All of them are faced with some serious challenges — a decline in membership, an inability to maintain their relevance, or a lack of capability to innovate in terms of program delivery.

The article takes a look at the obvious trends which are to impact associations in the years to come. I don’t hold back any punches, opening with these words:

We know we live in a world in which new trends change everything we know at a furious pace. Rapid change envelopes us, consumes us, and pounds us with its reminders of its urgency every single day. There are many obvious trends that impact us; we often refuse or are incapable of assessing their impact.

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My blog post of a few weeks ago caught the attention of the folks at the Canadian Society of Association Executives — and so I quickly rewrote it to challenge their members to think about the role of “associations in the future.”

The April issue of the Advertiser magazine (“The Voice of the Marketing Community”) from the Association of National Advertisers features an article, “Five Secrets for Creating a Culture of Innovation.”

I’m quoted in the article with two key observations, on the issue of “taking risks and learning from them.” My concerns?

• “…he sees too much ‘bandwagon innovation” in marketing these days. Consider the rush by brands to launch viral videos on YouTube. ‘That’s not what innovation is … it’s admitting that everything we do — how we are marketing to the customer, what the brand means to the customer, and what we do to update uniqueness and freshness of brand — has to constantly change because everything around us is constantly changing.”
• I also talk to the importance of taking risks: “CMO’s who aren’t afraid to focus on ‘experiential capital’, as Carroll calls it, or encourage innovative thinking by taking calculated risks, regardless of the outcome, stand a better chance of being successful over the long run.

It’s a good article: there’s no doubt that the high velocity economy results in rapid change of consumer brand perceptions. Leading edge marketers work hard to beef up their innovation capabilities simply in order to keep up with consumers who are charging forward at a furious pace!

More information

• Read What a great idea!
• Why bandwagon innovation doesn’t work
• Is your brand from the olden days?

Gloom has set in on global markets. Volatility rages. Some organizations have gone into a mode of “aggressive indecision,” deferring action while they try to figure out “what comes next.” A pretty lousy strategy that is doomed to fail in the longer term.

Future oriented leaders understand the reality of growth. They know that we live in a time in which opportunities for growth abound. They’ve aligned the mission of the organization so that they are capitalizing on real opportunity, not short term economic challenges.

Growth is everywhere.

It’s easy during a time of economic volatility to lose sight of where the global economy is really headed. Yet while stock markets might rock, innovation thrives.

New ideas continue to be explored, markets grow, and industries emerge. A variety of trends indicate that opportunities for growth continue to surround us.

Read this document to get in the right frame of mind for the future…..and think growth. Think opportunity. Innovate for future, don’t stagnate with the past.

Download Where’s the Growth? Global Innovation Opportunities for the Long Term

Years ago, I wrote of the need for a new type of business degree: a Masters in Business Imagination. I’ve also called it a Masters in Business Innovation.

I wrote an article around the theme, and it remains one of the most heavily trafficked pages on my site. I’ve wrapped it up in a PDF : feel free to read it, share it, distribute it, and encourage people to think about it.

It opens with these observations: “COMPLACENCY In a time of rapid, disruptive change can be a death sentence – not only for organizations, but for the careers and skills of those who work there!

It’s time to abandon the thinking that has had you anchored firmly to the past – and to shift your focus to the future, with enthusiasm, motivation andimagination.

You can do this by abandoning any pretense that the skills of yesterday will be important tomorrow. Figuratively and literally, it is time to move beyond the thinking that has led us to a world of MBA’s – Masters of Business Administration – and focus upon the critical skill that will take you into tomorrow.

The world doesn’t need more administrators. It needs more MBI’s – Masters of Business Imagination!

• Access The Masters of Business Imagination PDF

Career issues are hot! And one of my favorite ways to open a keynote or executive session is by quoting from an Australian study, which indicated that sixty-five percent of the kids who are in preschool today will work in jobs or careers that don’t yet exist.

I passionately believe this to be true: and I’ve seen the trend occurring in countless professions and industries.

This week, I keynoted a Career Day event at Capitol One in Richmond, Virginia ; the focus was on the rapid emergence of new careers, and the rapid evolution of existing skills. My message, in looking at the future career opportunities, was that there’s nothing but upside, as long as people keep reinventing their skill set.

The topic of the future of careers is a big one these days; I’m being called into many organizations and events to talk about the issue, particularly in the context of recent economic trends. Some of these events have been local economic development conferences. In one talk in January, I spoke to an audience of executives and educators in an auto-sector city ; a group of people caught up in the throes of economic restructuring and turmoil.

Talk about an audience in the midst of challenge! Yet when you are in that type of economic bubble, it can be hard to see the future career opportunities that do exist. That’s why I didn’t focus on the short term economic turmoil, but instead, on the real, practical trends that are defining the careers of tomorrow.

Many sectors of the global economy: and in particular, the manufacturing and financial sectors, are being hit hardest by the US recession, the sub-prime meltdown, and global competition.

The auto-town event got covered in the local paper: and the story ended up being reprinted throughout the Canadian press, including in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal. One of the key observations I made in the article: “We have to figure out how we can continue to move up the knowledge ladder because there’s going to be a massive shortfall in specialized skills because of the rapid growth of knowledge.”

That’s an important issue to think about, and the article is well worth a read.

More information:

• Read Knowledge Explosion Key to the Future
• Read Global Economic Trends: An Interview with Jim Carroll
• The reality of future trends: grab the What Comes Next trends overview

Credit Suisse, headquartered in Zurich, is global financial powerhouse operating in 50 countries; 48,000+ employees, assets of $75 billion US, and net assets under management of $1.345 trillion.

They’ve just released their 2008 Bulletin magazine, a publication provided to key investment banking, private banking and asset management clients worldwide.

They’ve include a fairly lengthy Q&A with me, in an article titled Success Comes to Those Who Evolve, in which they wanted wide-ranging views on the word “growth.” It came out well: my key message has always been that we must always link the concept of innovation to rapidly emerging trends in order to constantly change what we do — often simply to keep up, or attain competitive advantage.

Here’s the key point: So what’s the recipe to kick-start innovative thinking? I think it’s about having your entire organization understand everybody is responsible for constantly figuring out how they need to change to keep up with the rapidly changing world. They need leadership that supports and encourages them to be open and share ideas, and that leadership needs to hammer home that message on a regular basis.“

More information

• Read: Success Comes to Those Who Evolve