Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

In a whirlwind of activity over the last ten days, I’ve been the keynote speaker for conferences that probably represents the vast majority of global Fortune 1000 organizations, speaking to the trends that will impact the future of ‘corporate facilities.’

These have included keynotes for the  Professional Retail Store Maintenance Association annual conference in Orlando; the CoreNet Global Summit in New Orleans, and the International Asset Management Council Spring Summit in Colorado Springs. With these groups, we’ve got the folks who manage facilities for a good chunk of the world’s biggest retailers (including Apple, the Gap, Costco and others); commercial real estate executives for Fortune 1000 and government; and the senior executives who manage the same for large industrial and manufacturing organizations (Alcoa, Caterpillar, Whirlpool).

What are they thinking about? Adjusting to an economy that is more and more turning to growth. And to do that, I covered a wide variety of trends:

• they need to actively shift their role from tactical (managing costs in a downtown) to strategic (‘how do I help my organization to scale and support growth strategies?’
• ensure that the organization has the flexibility in terms of facilities and workforce to adjust to more rapid market and product innovation, faster competition, and more rapid change in consumer demand and choice
• take advantage of emerging opportunities with intelligent building management infrastructure
• be willing to challenge process and assumptions as to operations. I consistently used my story of broken business models, vs. business models built on rapid change – my Honda vs. Chrysler story
• adapt to a reality in which skills flexibility and innovation will be a key success factor. These folks need to access a lot of unique skills that are in short supply (i.e. green engineers), and so increasingly their success will come from their ability to access the right skills at the right time for the right purpose

Are people really thinking about growth? Here are the live results from a text message poll that I ran from the stage at the IAMC conference in Colorado Springs yesterday:

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• Innovation and the concept of ‘chameleon revenue’
• Riding fast paced trends in the consumer / retail sector 
• Finding growth with knowledge exponentiation (construction trends)  

At many of my keynotes, I focus on some of the most successful creativity and innovation attributes that I see within organizations. Here’s a list of guidance from a recent keynote for a group of executives in the consumer goods sector:

• Adapt to more challenging customers: customers expectations and needs are changing rapidly, and yet they are more demanding than ever before. Loyalty disappears….at the same time they expect creative perfection from you, they are more fickle, and far less loyal …. I’m not even sure the concept of loyalty exists any more for many brands! Continue Reading

Here’s a blog post that ran over at the Chicago Hospitality Insider blog with a report on my keynote last week.”

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Moving Beyond The Meltdown” with Jim Carroll
Posted on February 18th, 2010 by Jody Robbins

How is the tourism business impacted by a world where information is passed feverishly around the globe? Immediately and directly; that’s how, says Jim Carroll (Futurist and Trends & Innovation Expert!), today’s lunch-time speaker at the 2010 Illinois Governor’s Conference on Tourism.

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I spend a lot of time speaking to global financial organizations — some of the world’s largest institutions — helping them understand what they need to do from an innovation perspective to stay ahead of fast paced change.

These talks are often aimed at the idea of “how do we need to transition our advisory services — financial planners, investment advisors, insurance agents and brokers — to keep up with fast paced change?”

Here’s a laundry list of some of the strategies that I’ve been talking about:

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I was in Chicago earlier this week; I had a keynote for the leadership team of a company that’s involved in a sector of the construction industry.

They’ve had some challenges with the economic downturn; they’re also likely to see a resurgence as infrastructure spending kicks in.

But they’re thinking beyond what happens after that — they’re positioning themselves for long term growth — and so they brought me in to stir up some creative thinking as to what they need to do.

The focus of my keynote was the theme: “What is it that world class innovators do that other organizations don’t do?” Here’s some of the insight that I covered.

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Another report on my keynote for 4,000 at the annual meeting of the National Parks & Recreation Association, putting into a concise summary the key trends that I covered (from the Parks & Rec monthly magazine).

“… a solid turn-out of nearly 6,000 park professionals and advocates made the 45th edition of Congress a resounding success. …. The theme, “Looking to the Future,” permeated nearly every facet of the event held at the Salt Center Convention Center.

In keeping with the Congress theme, Looking to the Future, opening session keynote speaker Jim Carroll did not disappoint. The Canada-based futurist built his address around key themes and issues likely to confront the field of parks and recreation in the next 10 to 15 years.

Carroll encouraged the packed convention hall to think in terms of transformation.

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I’ll be shutting down through the next several weeks from today; I’ll still be picking up email, but my blog posts will slow down till the New Year.

I’ll mostly be hacking away at improving my pathetic abilities as a skier. (Actually, I’m not that bad….)

It certainly was an extraordinary year; I spoke at some 75 conferences, annual meetings and executive retreats. Global powerhouses such as Rockwell Collins, General Dynamics, Burger King, Yum! Brands, Diners Club and National Australian Bank had me in for executive level global meetings.

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Expectation gaps create tremendous opportunity

Chronicle Herald, November 2009

By Kelly Hennessey, ABC

There are two ways your community can look at the rapid-fire pace of change we are experiencing: Bury your collective heads in the sand and hope it goes away, or embrace the opportunity change presents for transformative growth.

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When you’ve got 4,000 people from large cities and small towns across America, thinking about how to solve some of the big problems faced by society, you can suggest small ideas, or whacky ideas. Here I am on stage, with a suggestion involving the latter.

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• PacManHatten

When you open up a conference for 4,000 people, you really need to get them inspired and ready to take on the challenges that they face in the future!

Here’s the first few opening seconds from my keynote earlier this year for the National Recreation and Parks Association annual congress. An insprirational clip!

Earlier this week, I spoke to a group of executives for a financial institution in Sydney, Australia, live via a fibre optic link — a distance of almost 10,000 miles (or 15,000 kilometres)

The client had wanted to bring me directly to Sydney, but the timing conflicted with a number of other events. Hence, the alternative method of “getting me there.”

Utilizing the services of Toronto based TV2GO, we had a direct fiber optic video and audio link into the conference at the Hotel Intercontinental in downtown Sydney. In addition, I had a live feed of the audience; not only that, but a number of “runners” had microphones available which provided for a direct, instant 2-way Q&A session at the end of my talk. In addition, I had a full Powerpoint deck running on separate screens in Sydney, transitioning to my cue from Toronto.

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Over the next several weeks, I will be speaking at a series of events sponsored by Microsoft related to their Windows 7 launch. The audience includes key executives (CIO’s, CFO’s, CTO’s and IT managers) from a wide variety of industries.

While much of the news coverage of Microsoft focuses around the “consumer” side of the Windows 7 launch, of equal significance is the release of several new server infrastructure upgrades that permit large and small business to take their business into the next level of operational innovation.

In Toronto the other day, Steve Ballmer was speaking to this aspect of innovation. I find that some media gave the message short shift, because their planned story spin didn’t fit his message.

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When you walk off stage, you always wonder how you did!

Last week, I was the opening keynote speaker for an audience of up to 4,000 parks and recreation professionals, at the National Recreation and Parks Association annual conference in Salt Lake City.

Expectations were running high; many tweets were going out under the #nrpacongress tag, indicating enthusiasm for my upcoming talk.

I came off stage feeling like I did a real barnburner of a motivational talk, encouraging the crowd to adapt to the high rate of change that surrounds them.

It must have hit home with some: I received this wonderful email today.

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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

I head to Salt Lake City next week; I’ll be the opening keynote speaker for the annual conference of the National Recreation and Parks Association.

GovPro News recently ran a press release on my keynote, commenting:

The recession has created an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty for many, and those who work in the parks and recreation field are not immune. With so many forces – the economy, politics, and social and leisure trends, for example – out of the control of parks and recreation professionals, thinking about the future could cause a few sleepless nights.

Futurist Jim Carroll has helped hundreds of organizations minimize their sleepless nights when preparing for the future, and he will discuss some of the upcoming challenges and opportunities in the field of parks and recreation when he delivers the keynote address at the National Recreation and Parks Association’s (NRPA) annual Congress and Exposition in Salt Lake City.

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Next week, I’ll be in Jacksonville, as the lunch time keynote speaker for the annual meeting of the Materials Handling Association of America. We’ll have about 300 executives in the room, from a broad cross section of North American industry.

My topic? “Moving Beyond the Meltdown: Aligning Yourself for Growth Through Innovation“.

In the last twelve months, I’ve had a unique first hand opportunity to witness what’s happening on the ground throughout corporate North America as companies have grappled with the recession. Throughout this time, I’ve been fortunate enough to speak at a wide variety of leadership meetings, management get-togethers and other corporate events for a fascinating list of Fortune 500 organizations, as well as many prestigious national associations.

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Two weeks ago, I was featured as the closing speaker at the 2009 Governor’s Conference on Economic Development, the 51st annual event of this type. Governor Jay Nixon addressed the crowd on Thursday, Sept 10th, noting in his keynote that:

To compete – and win — in the 21st century, we must encourage entrepreneurship and small-business growth; enhance our workforce; and embrace emerging science and technology as critical industries of tomorrow.

I followed up with a closing keynote on Friday that took a look at the trends occurring with small business, workforce trends, and the rapid pace of innovation in various markets : particularly, energy, the environment, and what I’ve come to call “manufacturing 2.0.” Here’s the session description:

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I’m thrilled that Microsoft has asked me to be the opening speaker for a number of events this fall, related to the Windows 7 launch. We will be talking to CIO’s, CFO’s and CTO’s for a wide variety of organizations from multiple different industries.

My talk with focus on the theme: “Achieving Growth! Why Innovators Will Rule in the Post-Recession Economy–And How You Can Join Them!“; and specifically:

“Jim will share his insight into the key trends facing every organization, and the methods by which organizations are positioning themselves for the rapidly changing economy of the 21st century, where time-to-market is the new metric, and fast-innovation rules.”

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Summer’s over, and things are happening fast!

I’m off tomorrow, to deliver the closing keynote for the 2009 Missouri Governor’s Economic Development Conference in St. Louis.

After that, I’ll be spending time with executives at such organizations as Microsoft, General Dynamics, Oracle, the National Recreation and Parks Association, and many others, all around the theme of “innovating into the recovery.”

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One year ago today, I was on stage in Sydney, Australia, opening the 2008 Toshiba Mobility Exchange Conference.

Part of my talk focused on the issue of “innovation in the high velocity economy.”

Looking back at a clip from the talk, one year after the global economic meltdown, some key points continue to remain extremely valid going forward as the economic recovery begins.

In a summary, my point then, and my point now, is that innovative organizations concentrate on:

• an accelerated innovation cycle
• rapid ingestion of new technologies / methodologies
• faster time to market
• rapid re-focusing of resources for opportunity or threat
• rabid focus on operational excellence
• innovating for rapid customer change
• nomadic workforce
• rapid response to volatility

If you can nail those things, you are well positioned to deal with what the global economy tosses your way.

Looking back at my slide deck, I concluded with the observation that high-velocity innovators concentrate on “global scalability, rapid assembly of teams, and hierarchy destroyed, because of a relentless focus on fast, emerging opportunity.”

I don’t think any of that has changed despite everything that has gone in the last year, and it still provides a good framework for innovative thinking.