Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

I had a conference call with a client yesterday with respect to an upcoming leadership meeting; I’ll be helping the organization think about some of the barriers they have towards innovation, and what they need to do to overcome these challenges.

One of the worst enemies of innovation are the "innovation killers." Click the light bulb for a great list of the attitudes and phrases that can shut down innovative thinking in your organization.

As we were talking, I scribbled down a short list of some of the issues that I was identifying with them.

•  tradition. Some organizations are too caught up with the past, which causes them to lose sight of opportunities for the future.
• culture. Often corporate culture can stifling, if not deadening. Some build up an organizational sclerosis which eventually clogs up their ability to try to do anything new.
• organizational memory. It causes people to focus on the past instead of the future.
• bureaucrats. Their job is simply to shut down ideas, get people to fill out forms, and reduce the everyday work experience to a series of mind-numbing tasks.
• stock markets. They cause too many senior executives to spend their time thinking about short term hits that can keep the stock price up, rather than working on the big bets that can provide for transformative opportunities. No wonder so many organizations are going private!
• job descriptions. They reduce the role of people to a narrowly defined set of activities and small goals. I’ve encountered few organizations where innovation success is actually enshrined into the job description, let alone the HR reward system.
• mission statements. They can be a great thing to give everyone an overall sense of purpose. On the other hand, most organizations don’t update and refresh them, which means that in many cases, the mission statement has nothing to do with what the organization actually needs to be doing.
• strategic planning. Some organizations get so caught up in the process of strategic planning that they never get beyond the planing statge. Where do you think the phrases “analysis paralysis” comes from — organizations who are busy analyzing things as part of their planning process!
• lone wolves. They’re often folks who can lead innovation, since they can have the brilliant ideas that are the spark for greatness. On the other hand, they can become so blinded by their belief that they refuse to accept the ideas and insight of anyone else, forgetting that collaboration is often at the root of all great innovations.

That’s a short list of some of the enemies of innovation – there are lots more!

From my CAMagazine column….

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Can you keep reinventing your business at the speed demanded?

I am not alone in thinking we’re in the midst of a significant economic transformation. As Mick Fleming, president of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives, said recently, “It’s going to be a move from a bad economy to the next economy.”

What is the shape of the next economy? In many cases, it will involve structural change based on an acceleration of business cycles. Consider manufacturing, for example. We’re moving from a world of mass production to mass customization, or what I call agility-based manufacturing. I often cite the case of Honda, as noted in a 2008 article on the financial website Bloomberg: “Honda’s assembly lines can switch models in as little as 10 days.” By contrast, the article suggests, it could take months for most rivals to make the same change.

Companies such as Honda can see what’s selling strongly and quickly reorient their production to fit that demand. In the meantime, its competitors are busy cranking out 700,000 versions of the same old car, hoping to sell it to consumers who have already moved on to something different. It’s no wonder Detroit is being killed off by its long-term reliance on gas-guzzlers.

Everyone now understands that the old Detroit-based manufacturing business model was deeply flawed. The newer model, based on agility and flexibility, is the model of the future. If an organization can rapidly change its production to accommodate what consumers are willing to buy, it has a good chance of future success.

This ability to respond quickly to change is a corner-stone of opportunity. Competitors will emerge, particularly as the new connected generation rejects existing business models and innovative people continue to shake up the fundamentals. Take the business model of Wizzit, a South African cellphone-based banking system, which could cause upheaval throughout the banking sector as mobile technology garners more of our attention.

Furthermore, the nano-cannibalization of markets is becoming a business trend rather than an aberration. For example, Apple broke new ground years ago by tossing out an entire iPod Nano product line worth billions of dollars of revenue, replacing it with a newer, up-to-date product. Imagine even considering that. How could it cannibalize its own product revenue?

I recently spoke at a leadership meeting for a global organization, where the CEO spoke of a future in which the company’s success would come from what he called “chameleon revenue” — the sales derived from entirely new product lines. The chart he presented said it all: the organization’s future consisted of a steady decrease in baseline revenue and accelerating revenue streams from markets it currently does not participate in.

I think this will become the norm for most organizations. The ability to rapidly enter and exit markets will define future success. The ability to sustain multiple, short-term product life cycles, each perhaps no more than 36 to 48 months long, will be a critical success factor. Agility at discovering, producing and capitalizing on new revenue sources will be a fundamental necessity. In other words, your ability to change your spots and your colour on a dime will be the key driver for your potential.

Which begs the question: does your financial system have the capability to provide information on your chameleon revenue streams? Does it provide the insight and analytical tools to tackle product life-cycle revenue so the organization can assess how quickly its chameleon revenue streams are evolving? If it doesn’t, what do you need to do to adapt?

A classic clip from the first season of Mad Men. Could we not have a more inappropriate clash of the generations in the workplace? A more inexplicable view of the clash of generations in the world of politics? Consider how quickly an entire generation has changed global politics – Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Lybia..

The key line comes in at about 1:42 into the video.

Back in 2003, I wrote this into this blog, in a piece about trends and the future:

“Kids are about to become politicians. That‘s right — the “Napster generation,” raised on computers, instant messaging and file swapping will come to make their presence felt on the political stage through the next decade. There is no doubt that they have views that differ from those of their forefathers. They carry with them an entirely different set of values and beliefs, and vastly different perceptions of what is required in terms of the laws and regulations that guide our society. The result? On the political, economic and social stage, we‘ll see an increasing generational dysfunction that will challenge business markets, industry structures, and accepted business norms. Smart organizations will work to understand the political and moral views and perspectives of this generation, and will take the time to learn how to tap into their uniqueness in order to thrive.”

Take a look around you. Egypt and the Middle East, Africa … significant political transformation driven by a generational desire for change. The corporate world – business models under siege from disruptive thinking, social networking, transformative ideas driven by a younger generation that has never known a world without connectivity.

Then ask yourself this question: as a leader, are you permitting some type of generational divide to stifle and kill your ability to innovate? Do you have your own Mad Men culture, some sixty years after the time-period that this video clip represents?

Just asking!

“Most people overestimate the amount of change that will occur in two years and underestimate the change that will occur over ten years” – Bill Gates

In 2001, the future was over already! Slow growth was sure to follow!

That’s a phrase that I often use when opening a keynote. When I’m on stage, about to blast into a high velocity 45 minute presentation that links fast-paced trends to the need for various types of innovation, whether with business models, customer support, skills access or new forms of revenue where revenue hasn’t existed before — I need an effective hook to grab the attention of the audience.

With the phrase from Bill Gates put out to the audience, I sometimes reach into the past in order to put the future into perspective. After all, it is very true that most people really don’t think about how quickly their world is changing around them.

With that in mind, let’s go back to this week in the year 2001. It was an innocent time — pre 9-11. The dot.com world had just collapsed, and the world was in the midst of another economic downturn.

The Internet? It was over, folks! We’d just witnessed the flameout of a huge number of dot.com startups — and people had convinced themselves that technology had run its course. And yet others knew that something big was still yet to come. It’s fascinating to compare the different perspectives of the time with the reality that resulted today.

(By the way, Apple’s market cap in March 2001 was about $10 billion US. Microsoft? $319 billion US.Today, Apple is over $300 billion, while Apple is about $228 billion.)

Just ten years ago this week, this is what you would have seen:

Internet access in cars? If you want to go online, get the (beep) off the road!
The San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 March 2001

• the implication being, of course, that we would never see anything so silly as having Internet access in automobiles. Today, of course, virtually every car company in the world is working feverishly to provide an enhanced dashboard experience involving a vast array of sophisticated technologies including, of course, all kinds of links to Internet-oriented data.

MLB to Start Charging For Audio on Internet
The San Francisco Chronicle, 28 March 2001

• early on, it was apparent that major brands that had loyal followers could invent and build new business models which would reach out directly to their fan base. MLB has always been spot on in this regard. Ten years after charging for audio, they’ve launched an extremely sophisticated, flat-fee iPad application that allows streaming access to a full range of live and archived video. Innovators don’t fight the future — they adapt to it and discover opportunity.

Michael Jackson TV goes on the Internet
The Globe and Mail, 27 March 2001

• back in the day, you had to be a global entertainment superstar to dump some video up on the Internet. It took megabucks to do it, and megageeks to figure it out. Ten years later, everybody has their own personal TV channel on YouTube, and the entire concept of TV has been forever reshaped.

Nortel Networks Teams to Create High-Performance Internet Village in California
Reuters Significant Developments, 30 March 2001

• Nortel — and a few other tech companies — blew up in spectacular fashion just a few years later, a victim of bad business decisions, an accounting fraud or two, and a basic inability to keep up with furious rates of technologiical and market change. Key message: today’s heroes can often become tomorrow’s zeros, faster than you might think. Do any of today’s fast social media startups know that they could soon too be in the dustbin? Complacency is a dangerous thing, especially in the context of history.

Many teachers find Internet of little use
Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, 30 March 2001

• well, this might still be true today in some cases, but certainly not in many other cases. Demographically, we’re just a few years away from a time when almost every teacher will have grown up with the Internet from their teens. And certainly students find the Internet to be of use – most studies show that it is the most important source for homework research!

Microsoft warns of problems with Internet Explorer
Associated Press Newswires, 30 March 2001

• well, maybe some things just don’t change over a decade!

Sign of the times: Companies call for Internet appreciation day
Associated Press Newswires, 31 March 2001

• put this headline in context. We’d just witnessed the great dot.com collapse. All kinds of dubious Internet startups were shutting down; there was gloom throughout Silicon Valley and other tech-hotspots. I remember one reporter calling me: “Since the Internet is now over, what’s next?” The mainstream and business media convinced themselves in this state of gloom that the Internet would have little to no impact on politics, business and society in the future. And so some folks thought it was important that we just sit back and consider how important the Internet might still be. Quaint.

Railroads, Like the Internet, Once Steamed the Economy
International Herald Tribune, 31 March 2001

• the implication being, of course, that in this state of doom-and-gloom, the Internet would no longer have an impact on the global economy. Oops! Then the world went flat — the Internet proved to be the backbone which steamrollered business models, provided the genesis for the birth of entire new industries, had a major influence on marketing and branding, caused global revolutions, and led to a few new multi-gazzillionaires (Facebook, Twitter, MyTube didn’t come along till many years after this headline.)

Napster, CD Burning, Internet Retail Are Hot NARM Confab Topics
Billboard, 31 March 2001

• back then, people stole music and burned it onto CD’s. Today, the music industry business model is all about the cloud, with systems like RDIO, Spotify and, maybe, Apple’s forthcoming cloud initiative set to continue to reshape the future. Ten years ago, the music industry was busy battling the future. Ten years later, many in the old music industry are still battling the future, while the new business models that will sustain music over the long term are being built today by faster, fleeted footed youngsters.

Any Patient Can Now Send Internet Messages Directly To Their Doctor’s Fax Machine
Internet Wire, 30 March 2001

• some braniac dreamed up a new business model, except they forgot to realize that within a decade, 75% of American doctors would carry some type of mobile or PDA device with them while working. History has shown us that many folks often miss the signs of massive technological shift — the result being that a great idea is often out of date before it gets to go mainstream

Struggling eMachines cuts 16% of jobs Computers The new CEO also eliminates most Internet advertising ventures.
The Orange County Register, 30 March 2001

• the beginning of the end of the “personal computer.” eMachines still exists, busy manufacturing low-end computers. 10 years later, technology growth is all about mobile devices, tablets / iPads, embedded technology, and who knows what else is yet to come?

Internet Is Dominated By the Rich World, Says Mando.
All Africa, 29 March 2001

• to be fair, it was difficult to get onto the Internet 10 years ago in many third-world countries. It still is today. And yet, we’ve witnessed throughout the Middle East and northern Africa the impact that the network can have upon autocractic regimes. In terms of numbers, the Internet is no longer dominated by the ‘rich world,’ and in terms of democracy, it’s having its biggest political impact far beyond that world.

The great Internet firewall of China
The Nation (Thailand), 26 March 2001

• ten years on, it is kind of chilling to realize that the nation has now spent a decade learning how to make the firewall work better. Here’s your challenge of the day: what will the headline of 26 March 2021 have to say about the ‘great Internet firewall of China?” Will they have succeeded, or will have it become the most massive FAIL of the century?

So that’s a look back at headlines involving the Internet but a mere ten years ago. What if we go back 20 years? In my news service, I could only find one for this particular week in which the word “Internet” was mentioned in the headline:

General Atomics, Performance Systems International, UUNET Technologies establish first Commercial Internet Exchange
BusinessWire, 27 March 1991

• in other words, but 20 years ago, today’s Internet was but a glimmer in the eye of but a few thousand geeks worldwide. A few networks were beginning to realize they could do something awesome if they plugged together. I was one of them. By 1991, I had already been online for some 9 years, starting out with early BBS systems, services like the Source and BIX (Byte Information Network). Yet all of a sudden, in 1991, visions were crystallizing of an opportunity to use a fast-paced emerging standard known as TCP/IP to link together all the computers in the world. Many of us thought the results would be astonishing. That’s an understatment.

So let me ask this: what are the headlines that you think you’ll see this week in 2021?

How small is your world? How big is your thinking?

So what do you do with the information you learned from this post? Go and read, “How small is your world? How thinking big could save you in the 21st century economy“

One of my most recent blog posts reflected on the death of my fax machine, and how we now live in a period of time in which many devices can simply “disappear” from our lives as they are replaced by new technologies, business models or concepts that we can’t even begin to imagine.

This is a fav0rite theme of mine; in a recent keynote, I used  my often told “Things from the Olden Days” story, which outlines how my sons view many of the things that were once a part of my life — as being positively ancient!

There’s an important theme here that can help you think about future trends, and the impact of increasing rates of product innovation and obsolescence.

One of the best ways to get a sense of the this velocity , is by taking a look at the world around you, and thinking about how it might change. I call it the “10 Things Test.”

Essentially, sit in a room, whether at work, home, in a factory, retail store or wherever you might be, and take a look around. Compile a list of ten items that you see, and then sit back and ask yourself, “How might these things change in the next decade?”

If you really took the time to think about the items you examine, you might be very surprised by the depth of the change that is coming. Here’s what I saw with my “10 Things Test” in my home office:

• Paint. It turns out that “white” could be the new “green” when it comes to the world of paint. Dulux, one of the world’s premiere paint manufacturers, is actively involved in learning how to use starch based plants such as pota- toes and wheat to replace upwards of 25% of the petroleum based products used in a typical paint. Given the increased focus on the environment today, this could be a significant and market-leading innovation.
• Window shades. Think “smart-glass.” Our need for window shades will soon be eclipsed by intelligent glass that will automatically adjust its opacity and transparency for various conditions. The windows will also soon be covered by a film that absorbs sunlight which will generate electrical power. Whether it’s bright sunlight, a need to better manage heating and cooling costs, or to provide for greater privacy, it’s likely that we’ll see rapid changes with this basic component of the home and office.
• Tissue box. It’s not the tissue itself which will have changed, but the retail technology which interacted with the box as you worked your way through the store. The box itself will have developed intelligence; it was busy updating the stores inventory system and revenue sales figures as you walked with it out the door. (You didn’t have to go to a check out; they’re so yesterday!)
• Eyeglasses. Sure, they’ll still be there. But maybe they will have the ability to link directly to an implant next to the neurons in your retina, providing a direct visual link through the bifocal part of the lens for close up objects. If that’s too farfetched, then a more realistic scenario would be genetic alteration of the macular tissue in your eye that would prevent any inflammatory genes from killing your vision cells – thus leading to a reduction in the leading cause of blindness in seniors – AMD (age-related macular degeneration).
• Ceiling lights. They’ll be drawing upon the solar panels on the top of your roof and that of your neighbors. You’ll have established a small community energy grid, which bypasses a need to tap into the local electrical network during the days when the sun is ready to rock and the wind is ready to roll. Solar panels are decreasing in cost at a steady pace, just as their efficiency is increasing; the same holds true for wind power. Given the likely increased volatility with traditional energy supplies, we’ll see an increasing focus on alternate, micro-grid energy innovations.
• Laptop. What laptop? Your desk is now monitored by a 3D virtual sensor that traces the action of your fingers. You aren’t really typing onto a keyboard anymore, since there isn’t one. Instead, the ceiling light has directed a holographic keyboard onto your desktop; simply simulate typing anywhere with the holographic keys that you see, and your words will appear on screen.
• Orange juice. It will still come from Florida, but it will be packaged in such a way that the shelf life has been dramatically extended. There are huge new innovations within the world of agricultural packaging; for example, some bananas are now shipped with a special membrane that doubles the shelf-life of the product by regulating the flow of gases through the packaging.
• Telephone. It’s likely to be “so yesterday.” The next generation of kids is fully immersed in interactive tools; for them, an office with virtual 3D long distance video chat will be as normal as apple pie. Not to forget the technology behind the telephone as well; there’s a good chance that you’ll be sourcing your communications service from an offshore supplier, perhaps in China, Russia or South Africa. The entire industry will have defragmented and disappeared, as technological change drives many of the current business models into absolute obsolescence.
• Eyedrops. The trend towards hyperconnectivity will impact medical products in a big way. The packaging in which the eyedrops are purchased will “connect” to the global data grid that surrounds us, automatically pulling up a short interactive video on whatever screen that happens to be handy, with instructions on use and precautions. In effect, the role of product packaging will have been transformed from being that of a “container of product” to an intelligent tool that will help us with use of the product.
• The view outside. For more of us, it won’t be of office towers and concrete jungles, but rather, our yards, the lake we cottage at, or the beach we play on. Ten years out, the concept of “what do you do for a living” will have changed completely to the idea of “what do you like to do?” as the itinerant career begins to dominate. (It’s estimated that in just a few years, some 60% of engineering professionals will be self-employed, providing their skills on a part time basis to the global economy.) You’ll be increasingly engaged in active life-design, carving out a series of activities that blend your personal interests with the need to go out and earn some funds. You’ll work at a regular series of short term, highly stimulating, frequently changing project assignments. You might not have a job, but you’ll certainly have some demand for your time.

Is all of this science fiction? It might seem like it, but most, if not all of the scenarios above are entirely plausible, based on science, technology and trends that exist today.

A friend of mine suggested if you are having trouble taking the 10 things test, then start off with this variation: name 10 things around you that have changed in the last 10 years. Include items that didn’t exist. In his case there is a laptop, a Blackberry, the iPhone, MP3 dictaphone with speech recognition, GPS unit, inflated plastic insulator packaging material, acoustic guitar with PZM mike and internal tuner, and bluetooth mouse.

The challenge in thinking about the future is that it can be difficult to comprehend the sheer velocity by which trends are occurring. That’s why the “10 Things Test” can be such a valuable method of putting into perspective the velocity of change, and from that, provide a starting point to begin to crystallize some of the opportunities for innovation that surround you today.

Last September, I was the luncheon keynote speaker for the annual conference of the Utah League of Cities and Towns.

Conference brochure for Utah League of Cities & Towns keynote. Click for full image.

They certainly had some interesting copy in the brochure for the event, simply stating:

“Jim Carroll’s job is to make people feel uncomfortable …. maybe even a bit confused. Just when you think you’ve got things figured out, Jim probably sees it differently. He has a knack for predicting trends and change, and helping business and government leaders see where things are going, and how they can not only adapt to change, but lead it.”

In most cases, the client runs brochure copy past me before it goes to print, but in this case, for various logistics reasons, I didn’t see it in advance.

When I first read it, I thought to myself, “hmmm, does that sound right?” I thought perhaps it might put a bit of a negative spin on what I do.

Yet the more I thought about it, I realized it was a great description.

When it comes to the future, far too many people can be complacent about the trends that are going to impact them, and avoid the type of creative ideas that they need to pursue in order to keep up with the pace of change.

If you are too comfortable right now with the future, then you probably aren’t thinking hard enough about the trends that are going to impact you. You need to be scared; nervous; prepared to accept that things are going to change, and ready for action.

That’s why you should always remember the comments of Andy Grove of Intel: “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”

So maybe being a little uncomfortable and confused is a good state of mind to be in!

One of the biggest challenges in being an innovator is keeping faith in your belief as to where trends are going to take you.

You’ll find no shortage of people who will detract you from your goals, using one of the most effective innovation killer phrases: “that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

Certainly history has taught us this lesson! Consider how some have reacted in the past to what proved to be very significant, transformative developments:

• “There will never be a bigger plane built.” A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that carried ten people.
• “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” – Albert Einstein, 1932
• “Computers may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” – Popular Mechanics, 1949
• “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977
• “This telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” – Western Union memo, 1876
• “No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?“- David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920′s.
• “The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.” – Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.
• “Airplanes are interesting toys, but they are of no military value whatsoever.” – Marechal Ferdinand Fock, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre
• “While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.”- Lee DeForest, inventor
• “Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” – William Thomson, Lord Kelvin English scientist, 1899
• “Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.” - Alex Lewyt, quoted in the New York Times, 1955
• “Video won’t be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl F. Zanuck, Head of 20th Century-Fox Studios, 1946

When in a period of transformative change — as many industries now find themselves – it is all too easy to use disbelief to cling to the past. In order to be innovative, you’ve got to be willing to ignore the naysayers!

We are in the era of big thinking, yet a lot of people have a small outlook.

Consider what leading edge innovation organizations are doing today; they’re prepared to:

• make big transformations: I’m dealing with several organizations who realize that structured operational activities that are based on a centuries old style of thinking no longer can take them into a future that will demand more agility, flexibility and ability to react in real time to shifting demand. They’re pursuing such strategies as building to demand, rather than building to inventory; or pursuing mass customization projects so that they don’t have to compete in markets based on price.
• undertake big brand reinforcement: one client, realizing the vast scope and impact of social networking on their brand image, made an across the board decision to boost their overall advertising and marketing spend by 20%, with much of the increase going to online advertising. In addition, a good chunk of existing spending is being diverted as well. Clearly, the organization believes that they need to make bi broad, sweeping moves to keep up to date with the big branding and marketing change that is now underway worldwide.
• anticipate big changes: there’s a lot of innovative thinking going on with energy, the environment and health care. Most of the organizations that have had me in for a keynote on the trends that are providing for growth opportunities have a razor sharp focus on these three areas, anticipating the rapid emergence of big opportunities at a very rapid pace.
• pursue big math: quite a few financial clients are looking at the opportunities for innovation that come from “competing with analytics,” which offers new ways of examining risk, understanding markets, and drilling down into customer opportunity in new and different ways.
• focus on big loyalty: one client stated their key strategic goal during the downturn this way: “we’re going to nail the issue of customer retention, by visiting every single one in the next three months to make sure that they are happy and that their needs are being met.” Being big on loyalty means working hard to ensure that existing revenue streams stay intact, and are continually enhanced.
• focus on big innovation: one client stated their innovation plan in a simple yet highly motivating phrase: “think big, start small, scale fast.” Their key goal is to build up their experiential capital in new areas by working on more innovation projects than ever before. They want to identify big business opportunities, test their potential, and then learn how to roll out new solutions on a tighter, more compact schedule than ever before.
• thinking big change in scope. One client became obsessed with the innovation strategy of going “upside down” when it came to product development. Rather than pursuing all ideas in house, they opened up their innovation engine to outsiders, looking for more partnership oriented innovation (with suppliers and retailers, for example); open innovation opportunities, and customer-sourced innovation. This lit a fuse under both their speed for innovation as well as their creativity engine
• innovate in a big way locally: we’re in a big, global world, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t innovate locally. One client in the retail space pursues an innovation strategy that allows for national, coordinated efforts in terms of logistics, merchandising and operations, yet also allows a big degree of freedom when it comes to local advertising, marketing and branding.
• share big ideas. One association client pursued an innovation that was relentless on community knowledge sharing. They knew if they could build an association culture in which people shared and swapped insight on a regular basis on how to deal with fast changing markets and customers, that they could ensure their members had a leg up and could stay ahead of trends. Collaborative knowledge is a key asset going forward into the future, and there’s a lot of opportunity for creative, innovative thinking here.
• be big on solving customers problems. Several clients have adopted an innovation strategy that is based on the theme, “we’re busy solving customers problems before they know they have a problem,” or conversely, “we’re providing the customer with a key solution, before the customer knows that they need such a solution.” That’s anticipatory innovation, and it’s a great strategy to pursue.
• align strategies to the big bets. There’s a lot of organizations out there who are making “big bets” and link innovation strategies to those bets. WalMart has bold goals for the elimination of all packaging by a certain date; this is forcing a stunning amount of innovation within the packaging sector. Some restaurants aim to reduce food and packaging waste by a factor of dozens; this is requiring stunning levels of creativity in the kitchen

Hundreds of thousands have seen Jim Carroll on stage with a keynote focused on future trends, innovation & creativity....with a focus on the trends that will drive their future.

How SMALL is your world? Are you thinking BIG enough in terms of just how many big trends are going to impact your future?

Many people ask me how I spend my time in nailing many of the trends that will redefine society, industries, markets and nations into the future….

It involves a lot of research and a great deal of listening to other experts. But it also comes from the fact that I spend my time as a speaker at corporate meetings, massive association events and board retreats, with the resultant opportunity of seeing what many of the most innovative organizations in the world are focused upon. Just take a look at my client list, and you’ll get a sense that I have a constant stream of global executive level insight that drives my view of the future. Take a look at the track record of what I’ve been up to. There’s some pretty solid and significant insight happening here. Take a look at what world class innovators do that others don’t do.

My trending observations also involves a lot of common sense. Take the “expectation gap” which I outline below. This is a pretty significant trend, and it’s pretty well blindingly obvious when you think about it,

So what comes next? Here’s a quick list of 10 trends that you could be thinking about as we go into 2011. I’ve got dozens — no, hundreds — more. Hang out on this blog, track my thoughts, jump in, and let’s continue to innovate our way into the future!

• the expectation gap: it’s one of the most obvious, most significant, and most challenging trends going forward into the future. Quite simply, Western society is defined by an increasing divergence between what people expect, and what they will get. People expect the world’s greatest health care services; with the aging of society, it is dramatically clear that the system won’t be able to deliver what they expect. Boomers expect that they will have a comfortable retirement pensions; the economic reset and collapsing home values have made it increasingly clear that their hopes will likely have been dashed. People expect that they can live longer, but the increasing prevalence of lifestyle diseases due to obesity and other factors means that in some areas of the Western world, 60 is the new 70. People expect that they can reduce the size of “big government” but have no sense of just how to go about doing this without a great deal of pain. Whatever the case may be, our future is increasingly defined by this gap, and it is going to have huge ramifications for just about everything around us. And here’s the reality: a lot of organizations are going to make a lot of money in helping to close the gap! Take health care and what is really going to happen in terms of future trends. Huge opportunities for growth!

• industries blur: In the past, we’ve have “industries” which have focused on particular products and markets. Increasingly, the concept of an “industry” is going to blur as fascinating new trends provide interesting new opportunities. Consider this: the world of fashion and healthcare are going to merge. We are going to see an increasing number of bio-connectivity health care devices that will be used for the remote monitoring of health care conditions. Quite simply, people will increasingly wear small “smart appliances” that will monitor their compliance with exercise programs or that will keep their doctors up to date with key health indicators. But people won’t want to wear medical appliances though: they’ll want to wear fashion! Health-care jewelry anyone?
• energy gets smart: Clearly we’re going to see continued high-speed innovation with renewable energy sources, and velocity with grid-parity: the point in time at which the cost of producing renewable energy equals that of carbon based sources. Much of this is coming about as Silicon Valley gets aggressively involved in the energy sector Taiwan Semiconductor, one of the largest chip manufacturers in the world, has invested $193 million in solar-cell maker Motech Industries. That’s but a small example of a major trend in which hi-tech companies are getting aggressively involved in every single aspect of the renewable energy marketplace. Just look at what Google is up to with wind-farms off the Eastern Seaboard!
• the collapse of attention spans: Everything changes when people lose their ability to focus: sports, shopping, living…..the numbers with the next generation of consumers are simply staggering. The average teen sent 435 text messages per month in 2007; it’s now 2899! That’s 97 messages per day, an increase of 566% in just a few years. It’s estimated that they now spend 7.5 hours a day engaged with some type of media screen; if you add in the fact they are multitasking, it comes out to 11 hours of screen time per day — or 53 hours a week. Thats’ more time than involved in a full time job, and more time than their parents spend at work. What’s the impact? Continued hyper-speed in the evolution of branding and advertising; surreal rates of change involving products and services; unbelievable rates of change in how decisions are made and people are influenced. If you don’t know how to think, market and promote at nano-speeds, you’re not ready for the future!
• faster market evolution: If we’re thinking faster, than we are innovating faster! New products flood the market at ever increasing speeds, and fast-consumers snap them up in a moment and evolve their lifestyles quicker. We’re all going to begin moving at Apple-speed as Silicon Valley increasingly comes to control the pace of innovation in many industries. Put it this way: it took two years for Apple to sell two million iPhones, but only 2 months for them to sell 2 million iPads! And just about a month to sell 1 million iPhone 4′s! We’re seeing the same trend in many other industries and product lines: the business of outsourcing the manufacturing LCD TV’s exploded from $9.4 billion in 2009 to over $21 billion in 2010, and an estimated $30 billion in 2011. Some products are obsolete before they are released: Lenovo learned this fact when they cancelled their planned “tablet computer” this June due to the unbelievably fast success of the iPod with market domination.
• innovation partnerships. Given this rate of change, companies are quickly learning that in this fast paced world, they can’t innovate on their own; it is simply too difficult to keep up. And they’ve realized that they can enjoy greater success through open innovation and other external innovation partnerships. A great example of what happens when innovation “opens up” is seen with the partnership between consumer appliance maker Phillips and Sarah Lee on the single-serving coffee machines. It’s a market that grew from nothing to 12 million machines and 7 billion coffee “pods” in just 5 short years! Everywhere I go, I see organizations focused on challenging the core concepts of how they do “new things.” There’s a new mindset, and this is going to drive a big part of the growth for organizations going into the future.
• the fight against workplace boredom. When there’s so much fun and fast change in the world, a job can be a mind-numbing experience. That’s why one survey suggested that 67% of Gen-Y admitted on their very first day on a new job, they were already thinking about another job. Organizations are fighting back against boredom by trying to keep staff engaged. At IBM’s Bromont Canada plant, the “3×10″ program aims to combat workplace boredom by changing employees full set of responsibilities 3 times every 10 years. The program is managed by someone who has worked in 10 different jobs within the plant over the last 28 years. Expect within a few years the likelihood that a 3×10 program will have shifted to a 2×1 program….
• American-Idolatry : People love competition, they love winners, and they relish the battle! Everyone is learning that if they are to succeed in the future, they have to appeal to the new base of hero-worship that comes from our new awards driven society. Everywhere I go, I see companies who are far more willing to celebrate and elevate heroes. DHL holds an annual innovation day which includes an award ceremony with partners who have worked with them on innovative ideas. Deloitte South Africa hosts an annual “Best Company To Work For’ survey and combines into it an elaborate awards ceremony. The future of workplace and partner renumeration is all about the red-carpet, the spotlight, and the celebration of success!
• the big impact of small incrementalism. Everyone is learning that one way to win the future is by having a lot of small wins that add up to big gains. The oil industry currently retrieves only 1 out of 3 barrels per well on average, yet a 1% improvement represents huge revenue gains! 7% of power on transmission and distribution lines are lost as heat, yet reduce that loss by 10% – and that would equal all the new wind power installed in the US in 2006. Todays’ typical automotive system uses only 25% of the energy in the tank — the balance is lost to waste, heat, inefficiency. Work on increasing that on a year over year basis, and there are some pretty solid gains through innovation. .At DuPont, the savings add up: globally, they now produce 40% more material as a global company using the same amount of energy they used in 1990. Up to 30% of the energy used in a typical industrial or commercial building today is wasted, but new, incremental improvements in green building design and other eco-principles are fixing this fast. Every industry I am dealing with sees small marginal wins adding up to huge tactical advantage! Small is the new winner…
• communities redefined: there were 37 million senior citizens in the US in 2006, or about 12% of the population. By 2030, there will be 71.5 million of them, representing 20% of the population. Other nations in the Western world are seeing the same trend: we’re all about to become like Japan! And the reality of funding issues means it will be impossible to have the same seniors-housing or assisted living type of infrastructure that we’ve had in the past. The next generation of retirees are going to live at home longer; they’ll live with each other more; the hippies of the 60′s are going to find themselves in the seniors communes of 2015! Community-bliss: far out, man! What does it mean? Communities are going to have to be rethought, re-designed and reconstructed – community ergonomics is going to be a massive growth industry! Overall, we’ll see a lot more growth in high density, compact, mixed-use communities – and a lot of innovative thinking as to just what the concept of ‘community’ means.

These are but a few trends that I’m thinking about. I’ve got HUNDREDS more.

Think about these trends from this perspective: there is a lot of transformative change that is underway.

This is no time to think “small.” This is the time in which you need to be thinking “big.” How “small” is your world: do you have a narrow view of opportunity? The reality is that right now, thinking BIG in terms of opportunity and the future will be crucial to your future success.

What does that does it mean for your future? In the old days, companies had “industries” that they worked within, “markets” that they sold into, and “business models” that they pursued. Assumptions that drove their decisions.

Every single assumption that you might have about your future could be wrong. Challenge those assumptions, think about the rapidity of future trends, innovate — and you’ll find the growth opportunities that seem to elude so many others.

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

Way back from about 1999 to 2005, I would often talk on stage about “things from the olden days.” It was a story that reflected how my young sons, from the ages of 3 & 5, saw certain things around the house as something completely ancient — when just a few years previous, they had been a part of my life.

Earlier this year, I keynoted the joint US Navy, Air Force, & Marine Child Youth Program conference in Dallas, Texas. I had about 1,500 folks in the room who manage social, counselling, day care and recreation programs on military bases worldwide. The focus of the talk was around innovation in delivery of services. In order to get across to this crowd the rate of change, I resurrected my olden days story.

It still makes for good viewing, and can help you to think about the rate of business change that continues to occur out there today. And in fact, if you look around you, you’ll find that an ever greater number of things are becoming things from the olden days, and it’s occurring at a faster rate.

Ask yourself this question: do you work in an organization that just simply doesn’t get it? Who is oblivious, blind, completely unaware of just how much business model change is occurring out there?

Here’s the thing — there are three types of people in the world:

• those who make things happen
• those who watch things happen
• and those who say, “what happened?”

I’ve often pointed this out on stage, and have emphasized the point, by suggesting that  the folks who find themselves last on the list sit back and say, “whoah, dude, what happened? Where’d that come from?”

In other words, they’ve been completely blind to the trend which would cause massive upheaval within their industry, or refuse to accept the significant business model disruptions which are already occurring.

Guess what — it’s happening right now as a lot of financial institutions don’t realize just how quickly mobile technology is going to change everything in the consumer financial services industry! Or in countless other industries where the blindness of current market leaders is leading them to their own “whoah, dude” moment.

So let’s make it simple: when it comes to innovation, make sure that you are in the first camp!

What should you do if you make that conscious decision, and are trying to steer your organization into the future?

• turn forward! establish an overall organizational culture in which everyone is firmly focused on the future while managing the present.
• change the focus: make sure that you link the corporate mission of today to the major trends and developments that will influence the organization through the coming years;
• pursue speed: use a leadership style that encourages a culture of agility and allows for a rapid response to sudden change in products, markets, competitive challenges and other business, technological and workplace trends;
• watch more stuff: establish and encourage an organization-wide “trends radar” in which all staff keep a keen eye on the developments that will affect the organization in the future;
• share more: make sure that you’ve got a culture of collaboration in which everyone is prepared to share their insight, observations and recommendations with respect to future trends, threats and opportunities;
• change responsibilities: ensure that staff are regularly encouraged to not only deal with the unique and ongoing challenges of today, but are open and responsive to the new challenges yet to come;
• take risks: you won’t get anywhere if you don’t make sure that are encouraged to turn future challenges into opportunities, rather than viewing change as a threat to be feared.

I continue to be stunned by how many organizations today continue to be caught flat-footed by the pace of rapid trends that impact them. It seems like it should be so simple to avoid this. Yet there likely still lots of “whoah, dude” dudes out there.

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.

Of course, we can all be forgiven for an inability to cope with ketchup bottle change because it involves instinct and ingrained behaviour.

It’s when we can’t deal with other kind of change — things that you have to control and adapt to — that things go wrong.

The problem is, we live in a time that involves a rapid rate of change. Just take a look around. Technology continues to invade our workplaces, resulting in massive change to day-to-day business processes and procedures. The customers and marketplace have changed, with so much new competition that the idea of “captive consumers” and “guaranteed revenue streams” has gone by the wayside.

New products come and go at an increasing and often infuriating pace as innovation comes to take hold in many organizations. Mergers, breakups, reorganizations and restructuring result in an almost constant shuffling of job and career responsibilities.

In times like these, you can guarantee yourself that there will be much more new in your life tomorrow than just a different ketchup bottle.

Yet the issue of change continues to be a big problem for organizations, because so many people find it difficult — or simply don’t want — to cope.

The implications are huge: Projects get bogged down or fail. Tension and workplace stress rise. Misguided strategies are introduced and ill-founded rumours fly. All the classic signs of an organization full of people who aren’t prepared to cope with change.

If you are dealing with these realities — either as an individual seeking to enhance your career, or as an executive responsible for taking your organization forward — there are a few ways out:

• Get into the right frame of mind

Years ago, the Pogo comic strip featured a panel in which he observed: “We is faced with insurmountable opportunities.” Rather than seeing change as a threat, take a look for the opportunity that might exist within any type of change.

The wrong frame of mind is illustrated in a comment by Ogden Nash: “Progress is great but it has gone on far too long.” If that is the way you react to new technologies and new ways of working, then you are almost making it certain that you’ll battle progress — and as soon as you do, you’ll be setting yourself back.

• Get rid of your ‘not-my’ barriers

Many people and corporate cultures react to any type of change, particularly those involving business or workplace processes or corporate structure, by erecting as many barriers as they can.

Immediately, the refrain starts — it is “not my department  / responsibility / job / area of expertise / problem / day!“

Putting up such barriers almost guarantees that you’ll let the change get the worst of you. Rather than trying to avoid something, seek to take an active role. That way, you’ll guarantee yourself a learning experience, develop new skills and capabilities, and ensure that you take an active and healthy role in helping to ensure that the specific type of change is successful.

Don’t deny change

Accept the inevitability of change. Like it or not, things will be different tomorrow. There’s a statistic that is used by Australia’s innovation council chairman: 65 per cent of children in pre-school will be employed in roles and jobs that don’t exist today.

Believe that, and use it as a barometer for the type of change that is set to occur within every job and career today.

Banish from the workplace the worst phrase ever to be coined: “We’ve always done it that way.” Well, so what? Maybe that means it’s ripe for a change. Why not try something new?

One day, someone at Heinz looked at the same old ketchup bottle they’d been selling for decades, and asked, “Why not turn it upside down?” Can you imagine the reaction — a likely chorus of naysayers who immediately suggested that it would be impossible, and perhaps downright dumb, to do such a thing. Yet look at the result today — a practical, sensible new product — and it is evident that the change was a success.

• Anticipate change

Establish some type of “change radar.” You should always be on the lookout for signs of the forthcoming business and industry change that might affect you. Keep your ears and eyes tuned for any signs that could result in a change in your job or career circumstances. If you learn to identify the signs of impending change, then you can begin to determine what you might need to do to enhance your career skills, any necessary training you might need to take, in addition to gaining insight into some of the new responsibilities and activities that you might be able to undertake.

• Adopt the attitude of kids

The younger generation today seems to have an ingrained ability to cope with change. They see the ketchup bottle, and say “Kewww.!” They’re accustomed to change — because they are growing up in the midst of it. To them, change is normal and to be expected.

Adopt their attitude — “change is cool” — by turning every situation of change into an opportunity rather than a threat.

Have you been to your local grocery store as of late? Have you seen the StarKist Tuna plastic re-sealable pouch? That little package – a new product innovation if there ever was one – is responsible for almost $200 million in new revenue since it first hit the shelves.

That’s not displaced revenue, but entirely new revenue that didn’t exist before.

It’s a big change – and it took a long time to come about. After all, StarKist sold tuna for 110 years in the same old way – in a tin can. Yet they finally managed to come up with something new, and the results are stunning.

The new tuna pouch is a good segue into what is perhaps one of the most important issues for innovators to deal with – getting people out of their tin-can rut.

How many people do you know who are stuck in a 110-year old rut? Still delivering a tin-can day in, day out, with no desire to change? Quite a few, I would guess. Maybe not for 110 years, but at least for the last few years.

After all, a lot of people have lost their motivation to change – the stock market downturn, the housing market collapse, the Wall Street scandals, a new distrust of government. Such constant negativity and so much failure has meant that many people and organizations have lost their innovative spirit. Who wants to try anything new today?

The result is that many people have lost their drive, their courage to go forward, and their willingness to change. They’re still making tin cans, when new re-sealable pouches could revolutionize who they are and what they do.

That’s why the StarKist story is so important. Here’s an organization that has somehow shaken away the complacency that enveloped it for over a century. It woke up to the opportunity that comes from real innovation. And the fact is, it’s all part of a reawakening that is underway throughout the food industry, in which — the package is the brand.”

Over the last decade, food and packaging companies have come together in a partnership that redefines how new products are developed. Packaging companies, previously restricted to the sidelines, now take a lead role in the development of new product. Food companies, who used to be the only ones responsible for new products, now realize that if they are willing to open up their minds to a new way of doing things, they can see some darned powerful results.

Is your organization stuck in a rut? Is your culture representative of an industry that is still making tin cans? If so, what are you doing to try to wake them up? It’s an important question, and with world that continues to evolve at an ever-increasing pace, one that needs to be addressed.

What’s your tin-can? Think about it.

With all the upcoming leadership events and keynotes that I have on my schedule, I’m on a pretty constant stream of planning conference calls.

As I dig into the culture and attitude of a client through interviews with the CEO and other team members, I’m always mystified to find  that some organizations just seem to do everything they can to shut down new ideas.

Here’s a few of the key mistakes that I think organizations make when it comes to innovation. They:

• form a committee. An absolute sure fired way of shutting down ideas! The herd mentality takes over, and activity sclerosis soon sets in.
• defer decisions. It’s easier to wait than to make any bold, aggressive moves. Uncertainty is a virtue; indecision is an asset.
• hide failure. If anyone tries something new and doesn’t succeed, make sure that no one else sees it. You don’t want to set a message that it is important to take risks.
• let innovators work in secret. You want to make sure that the concept of innovation remains some deep, mysterious process that not everyone can participate in. That will help to ensure that most of your team doesn’t pursue any type of fresh new thinking. They’ll just keep doing what they’ve always done.
• banish fear. Make sure that everyone thinks that everything is going to be all right. You don’t have to deal with potential business market disruption, new competitors, significant industry transformation or the impact of globalization. Everything will look the same ten years from now, so just keep everyone focused on doing the same old thing!
• accept the status quo. Things are running perfectly, you’ve got the perfect product mix, and all of your customers are thrilled with your brand and the levels of customer service. There’s no need to do anything new, since it’s all going to work out just fine!
• be cautious. Don’t make any bold, aggressive moves. Just take things slowly, one step at a time. If you move too fast, things are likely to go wrong. Let complacency settle in like a warm blanket.
• glorify process.  Make sure that everything is filled out in triplicate; ensure that process slows down any radical ideas.  It’s more important to do things perfectly than to make mistakes.
• be narrow. Keep a very tiny view of the future. You can’t succeed with any big wins, because there aren’t going to be any dramatic surprises in the future. Think small. Act accordingly.
• study things to death. Don’t let any uncertainty creep into your decision making process. Make sure that if you are to do anything, that you’ve spent sufficient time and effort to understand all the variables. Your goal is ensuring that any decision is free of risk, unlikely to fail, and will in retrospect be carefully and fully documented.

Wait! That’s 11 ways! And there are certainly more attitudes that help to destroy innovative thinking.

What do you think? What are the other attitudes and ways of thinking that manage to shut down organizational idea machines?

And do you want more insight like this? Check my Innovation Inspiration page!

How do you master innovation? Through the powerful story in this video clip, I point out the challenges that organizations face with the different generations in the workplace — and introduce the concept of “generational collaborative capability” as being a key component of succcesful innovation.

I had quite a few financial oriented keynotes through the last year, for banks, mortgage groups, credit unions and others. If there was a key theme as to the insight my clients were seeking, it was this: what are the BIG trends that are going to impact us (I’m a futurist), and what do we need to do about it (I specialize in insight on what global leaders are doing in the area of innovation.)

The scope of some of these engagements is pretty significant; Diners’ Club featured me as the opening speaker for their global franchise conference; my focus was on the big trends that would impact the organization into the future.

I guess I had generated enough buzz on my theme within the financial services industry such that I was booked for a keynote down into a major bank in Sydney, Australia, via a fibre optic link. (I couldn’t make a flight connection work!)

What should financial executives be thinking about? There are dozens of significant trends. Perhaps the most important has to do with the fact that 2010 is the year that location intelligence is coming to the industry as a significant business model disruptor.

Here’s a snippet from an article that captures a bit of what I’ve been talking about. The world of banking is going to witness massive change as mobile and location intelligence technology becomes married together. Consider:

Jim pointed to an Australian study that found 65 per cent of children in preschool today will work at jobs that don’t exist today.

“Think about the concept of a location intelligence professional.”

He discussed the possibilities presented by marrying smartphones equipped with global positioning systems to spatial-oriented information websites such as Google Maps.

“In the not-too-distant future, it’s quite likely some real estate organization is going to roll out an iPhone app that you will go through and you will pre-identify the types of properties that you’re interested in. It’s going to use the location capabilities built into the iPhone to build you an interactive tour of those properties. And you’re going to use your (iPhone) to drive around the neighbourhood and look at these homes through your phone.”

The same application might refer users on to a mortgage broker, he said.

“What do you do when the essence of your business model and the nature of the referrals that you get into your business begin to change?”

Halifax Chronicle Heradld, “Expert: Essence of life is change”, November 25, 2009

Give me any financial organization, and I can give you an organization that likely isn’t prepared for the fact that their innovative agenda is going to be subject to some pretty significant change.

What I’ve been doing is outlining for my clients the trends that are going to impact them, and the innovative thinking they need to pursue to capitalize upon those trends.

How do you prepare people for the future, if they have no interest in it?

That might seem an interesting question, but I’ve come to the conclusion, after dealing with hundreds of industries and thousands of executives and professionals, that there are quite a few people out there who love the sentiment once professed by Ogden Nash: “progress is great but it’s gone on way too long.”

I’ve learned that there are two types of business executives: those who think about the future quite a bit and who are very forward-oriented in their thinking. They are very innovative, realistic, creative, and open to new ways of thinking, because they are actively preparing for rapid change in terms of skills, markets and industry fundamentals.

Then there are others who are stuck in the status quo.

Once you get into the idea that everything around you is changing at a furious pace, and you had better adapt to it, you might consider doing something about it. This might include ‘change-quotient’ inventory of your organization. If your people are hopelessly mired in the issues of “today” and aren’t thinking how their market and industry will be changing tomorrow, then you’ve got a pretty big problem.

How do you determine the change-quotient? Focus on these issues:

• velocity ratio: What is the rate of change within your industry? What’s the velocity of business model change? How many new competitors are there, and how quickly is the industry blurring as they come into play? What’s the staff turnover rate? How quickly do new products come to market?
• the rate of ‘rising tides‘: How quickly are customer expectations changing? If you’re in an industry in which there are rapidly rising tides in terms of minimum service delivery, you’ve got an industry in which there are countless opportunities for innovative, future oriented products and processes.
• innovation index: Is the industry widely innovative, or are there only a few scattered folks who dare buck the current reality? Is everyone in the industry generally stuck in the past, or is there a widespread focus on the future, with a lot of innovative activity as a result?
• retirement rate: Not to be crude, but how many boomers are there hanging around who want the benefits, want the salary, and want the executive responsibility, but don’t want to have to do anything to confront change? This, more than anything, can be one of the key measures for change-capability.
• generational tolerance: Out on the speaking circuit, I’ve been meeting thousands of Gen-X and Gen-Connecters in a lot of industries who scream in silent frustration each and every day. They’re stuck in organizations with management who actively work to kill new ideas. They’re full of innovation, but they have no outlet for it. On the other hand, there are other industries where the frustration doesn’t boil away, but instead, is tapped for opportunity. Spot those industries — where “young people” are welcomed as a source for ideas — and you’ve got an industry with massive agility and a high change-quotient
• wisdom wealth: Boomers need not be change-barriers; indeed, there are some who understand where change is occurring, and who are using their years of experience – often with devastating effect – to spot and capitalize on opportunity. These are some of the most powerful organizations on the planet. They’ve merged the generations, and are change-masters.

Take the time to look at how quickly the future is coming at us today, and then assess whether you, and the organization you work for, are ready for it.

Here’s a short video clip about the fast future, and a challenge as to how you think about the future.

Which camp are you in?

Here’s a video clip from a recent keynote in Las Vegas.

I was on stage in front of an audience of 4,000, speaking for a global organization.

In this clip, I’m speaking about the challenges that organizations face with innovation — and in particular, the fact that every organization has people who wake up each day and ask themselves, “what can I do today to kill innovation?”

Do such people exist? Are there really attitudes like this out there with such high-velocity change in the economy out there? You’ll realize the answer to this question is yes, as soon as you hear the list of the “innovation killers.”

Think about what they say:

• “We’ve always done it this way”
• “It won’t work”
• “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard”
• “That’s not my problem”
• “You can’t do that”
• “I don’t know how”
• “I don’t think I can”
• “I didn’t know that”
• “The boss won’t go for it”
• “Why should I care?”

I challenge the audience with this issue, and get them thinking about the need to innovate — faster — to keep up with rapidly evolving trends.