Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

It’s big, and its’ getting bigger!

That’s the location intelligence industry, which is resulting from the rapid dominance of location-aware mobile devices, the rapid emergence of massive sources of spatial (geographic oriented information, i.e. Google Maps), the rapid user adoption of location-based applications (i.e. iPhone Apps), and a significant amount of innovative thinking as to how to capitalize on these very fast paced trends.

There’s a lot of people building a lot of new businesses around these trends. And it’s happening extremely quickly:

• in a just-announced test of location based advertising in Finland, MacDonalds’ has reported that location-relevant mobile ads resulted in a 7.0% click-through rate. Of those who clicked through, 39% then used the click-to-navigate option to find the closest restaurant. These are significant numbers
• one if 4 American’s uses location based mobile services, and half of those who noticed an ad while using such services too some action
• there has been a 68% increase in the use of mobile mapping and direction services in Europe in ONE YEAR according to comScore
• MarketResearch.com predicts increases of 37% compound annual growth for mobile advertising and 65% for mobile commerce, influenced by the speed of adoption of location-based services
• Juniper Research suggests that location based service revenues will top $12.7 billion by 2014, up from $3 billion last year
• another survey by RCNOS suggested that the mobile locations technologies market will grow at annual compound rates of 20%, reaching $70 billion by 2013, which includes both consumer and business intelligence/application (survey, mapping etc) applications
• it’s estimated that 1 billion people will access social networks by 2014. Most of them will use some form of location based application as they do so.
• GPS-enabled mobile phone devices will dominate the technology space, comprising 66% of all GPS devices by 2013

This is pretty significant stuff. Actually, its more than significant – it’s huge. Location is set to lead to significant industry transformation; some pretty dramatic business model disruption (think real estate); changes in consumer behaviour (product promotion and uplift); new business models (mobile, text message based banking which starts out via a proximity relationship.). There’s a huge amount of velocity out there!

There are two angles to the emerging market: consumer (i.e. iPhone) driven applications which will involve marketing, branding, product promotion, customer loyalty, point-of-purchase and a huge variety of other opportunities. The second involves corporate applications such as risk-minimization (i.e. mortgage risk analysis based on spatial data).

Regardless of how you look at, the overall impact of location intelligence is going to be dramatic.

It’s even going to come to impact sports. Here’s a clip from a keynote I gave for 4,000 individuals as the recent National Recreation & Parks Association: “Location intelligence and the future of recreation,” and spoke about the concept of a location intelligence professional.

Last week, I did a keynote for DMTI Spatial, a leader in this emerging space, particularly in the corporate application world. He has an interesting blog post that summarizes some of the unique issues that go with this fast emerging trend.

Location is the new intelligence. And its’ happening faster than you think!

And an increasing number of my keynotes and clients are asking me to focus upon the business opportunities that are emerging in this world. Stay tuned.

Related posts:

• Location intelligence, financial industries and business model change 
• Location intelligence and the conference industry
• Extract from Jim’s book, Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast 

A great little video clip from a recent keynote that outlines the challenges you face if you try and be an innovator!

You can find some useful information on dealing with innovation under the Innovation Inspiration section of my site, and through the Innovation tag.

Jim challenges an audience to think about collaboration in the era of the ‘global idea machine’.

In this case, Jim was the opening keynote speaker for the 2010 US Navy/Marine/Air Force Child Youth Program conference  in Dallas, Texas, and was there to challenge them to think differently in terms of service delivery, particularly as parents and children on military bases come to expect different forms of support and interaction.

Here’s an interesting clip about the emerging era of “personal energy infrastructure management.” It was filmed at my ski club back in January.

We put the clip together for the folks at CNBC Fast Money; they called expressing interest in the possibility of having a series of future trends vignettes that could be used to spark some discussion on the show. Hence, the reference in the clip as to “what does the Fast Money panel think?”

There’s been no progress yet on a go-ahead, but I thought it was a great clip anyways!

The clip was produced by David Mitchell, who is a long time snowbaord/skiing video professional; he’s currently the producer of the Disney XD show, Shreducation.

How is social networking impacting brands? Take a look!

How quickly can you scale if you encounter a new market opportunity? How quickly can you react to a crisis. In this clip, JIm takes a look at the concept of corporate agility

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.

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.

In February, I was the closing keynote speaker for the American Nursery and Landscape Association. This was a second booking by this group; they had me in previously for a leadership meeting in Vail.

Here’s a clip in which I’m setting the stage for the rapid changes occuring in their industry: in the context of how quickly basic knowledge is evolving, suggesting that “learning is what most adults will do for a living in the twenty first century.”

Does this line of thinking apply to garden store managers/owners? You bet — individuals in the nursery and gardening industry indeed have to be masters of fast knowledge. There is a regular and ongoing release of new products; new store formats; new retail and branding methodologies; not to mention the need to have a lot of innovative strategies as to growing the business during a recession, or managing costs to survive challenging times. It’s all about learning, sharing ideas, and gaining new insight. Continually learning.

If you’ve been reading the press, you know that recently, many meetings and events have been under attack, driven by what has come to be known as the “AIG effect.” Quite a few organizations have cancelled leadership meeting, fearing that it might look bad. Yet any politician or journalist continuing to beat up on the meetings industry should watch the video that “Today’s Garden Center” magazine has put online; it’s a video called “What I Learned at ANLA Management Clinic 2009.”

In it, we’ve got nursery, garden and landscape managers from across the US — small business owners — talking about the things they’ve learned at the conference; the ideas they’re taking away; the specific actions they’re going to pursue from what they’ve learned.

It’s a pretty compelling video, and if anything, it really puts into perspective what these events are all about.

More information

• Watch: What I Learned at ANLA Management Clinic 2009

Here’s a clip from my keynote for the World HealthCare Innovation & Technology Congress, where I focus on the key trends impacting the healthcare industry out to 2020.

This was based on a posting I wrote some months back, “It’s January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade?” That is as good a synopsis of the transformative trends that are occurring now.

More information

• It’s January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade?
• The future of healthcare – a concise, quick summary

Here’s another clip from my closing keynote at the World Healthcare Innovation & Technology conference — in this case, I’m talking about the dreaded “innovation killers.”

What do you do if you have these people in your organization? Learn more here.

I received the DVD of my closing keynote for the World Healthcare Innovation & Technology Congress today. It was a barnburner of a speech!

The attendees had just encountered three wonderful days covering all the fascinating new ideas, technologies, methodologies and change that is coming to the world of health care.

I spoke to them on how to ensure that they pursued all the innovative ideas they heard about. There’s a number of clips that I’ll put up.

In this particular clip, I’m providing a bit of guidance on “setting bold short term goals” and avoiding “aggressive indecision” ; I talk about the seven stages of economic grief — and how you need to move beyond anger and denial to innovation.

More information:

• Innovation and the “Seven Stages of Economic Grief?”

There are a lot of hits coming into my web site searching for “food industry trends 2009″ or “2009 food trends.”

I’ve spent a fair amount of time through the last few years, focused on trends in the consumer, food and retail sector, talking about some of the unique trends which influence shopping behavior.

Here’s a clip from a major food symposium I keynoted in New York City in September 2008; I spoke to a wide variety of trends impacting the industry. In this short clip, I’m speaking to the issue of market fragmentation, and the need for ever more small niche markets:

The key point: while economic trends are impacting consumer choice, there are still many other trends at play. At the conference, I spoke about a variety of other the “new influencers,” rapid product innovation, fast-paced consumer choice change, and the impact of brand interactivity.

I’ve been talking to my clients for years about the problems with the auto industry manufacturing model, comparing the slow, ponderous mass-manufacturing techniques of Detroit to the faster, more nimble overseas competitors.

I dug this clip out from my July 2008 keynote in Sydney, Australia — it’s a good, quick hit on the different approaches to innovation in manufacturing.

Way back in 2003, I started talking about the “car company of the future,” in the context of a “Google car.” The clip seems timely now, as does a posting in July related to the video clip.

More information

• read Faster is the new fast: also in auto

Here’s another video clip from the New York keynote — actually, this is from the Readers Digest Food & Entertainment (publishers of Everyday with Rachel Ray) keynote.

At this event, I was speaking to an audience of advertising executives, food companies, packaging companies and others about how innovation models are shifting. Today, innovation is much more:

• partnership oriented – think Disney!
• flexible in terms of solutions – think tin-cans!
• faster in terms of market response to rapidly changing consumer demand

The section closes with an overview comparing Honda’s capability for rapid change to those of traditional US automakers.

The key point : faster is the new fast — because consumer choice changes faster than ever before.

Here’s a brief clip from a recent event in New York City; I focused on the need to have a forward-oriented strategy given the recent economic events.

Frame of mind — and the tone set by senior management — is a critical factor right now. I wrote about this in Ready, Set, Done, in a chapter titled “Key success factors for innovative organizations.”

The first point I made is that innovative organizations have a growth orientation.
Quoting from the book:

Growth orientation. They’ve managed to instill a culture that has everyone thinking about what can be done – they are forward oriented. It’s a culture in which people are thinking less about the problems that have occurred, and more about the cool strategies that could be pursued. They don’t run ‘change-management workshops’: they have strategic sessions on ‘growing the business.’ It’s not an easy task, but innovative organizations have managed to get their people away from ‘right now’ to ‘our next step’.

They are focused on the opportunities of the future, not the challenges of the past. They are ready to pursue transformative change, built on top of a share vision. They are not busy examining what went wrong and why it happened — they’ve already moved on to the next step.

They’ve moved beyond the “anger and denial” stage of economic grief, and are already busy, focused on innovation and the next steps!

More information:

Grab a copy of Ready, Set Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast

Where are you on the “Seven Stages of Economic Grief?”

It’s back!

Aggressive indecision! With all the economic turmoil, leaders, executives and staff have the “deer in the headlights” syndrome.

I spoke about this trend extensively on stage during the last recession in 2001-2002. People got into the message, and it restored their enthusiasm for the future and innovation.

I actually wrote about “aggressive indecision” in my book, What I Learned From Frogs in Texas: Saving Your Skin with Forward Thinking Innovation. Ask yourself if you are seeing these signs:

Take a look around you – at yourself, your co-workers, your organization, and the business world at large. What do you see? People mired in the thick mud of aggressive indecision. They tend to wait for absolutely perfect information which will help convince them that the time is right to make a decision, rather than making decisions based on imperfect information as they had done in the past. They’ll take a look at the information they have, decide that it’s just too darn risky to make a decision on what they see, and do nothing.

The result is an economy in which everyone seems to be stuck in a rut, unwilling and unable to move forward. The fact is, our confidence in the future has been shattered. Corporate nervousness has become the watchword, with the result that everyone is taking the easy way out: deal with uncertainty by doing nothing.

An era of “aggressive indecision:” a very dangerous attitude to have, given that organizations must be in a state of continuous innovation in order to cope with the rate of change that now surrounds us.

Look, organizations that innovate and adapt at high speed, while trying to deal with the harsh new realities that surround them, have a good chance of coming out the other side of this thing. On the other hand, if you let aggressive indecision rule your corporate culture, you are probably not going to do well.

Share the video, and the original article around. Get out of your funk! Innovate!

More information:

• Read the original article Paralyzed by indecision: Just Do It
• Read Jim’s blog entries on the global economy

Given the rapid pace of global economic developments in the fall of 2008, it’s interesting that the number of organizations bringing me in for a leadership or management event has increased.

That’s because, despite perilous economic times, CEO’s in a variety of industries are working hard to ensure that their organization stays focused on growth.

At these leadership meetings, I’m offering insight on growth markets and opportunities; innovation strategies to stay ahead in the downturn; and unique insight on how organizations are working hard to re-align their strategies and structure with fast paced market change.

If you need to get your staff and team mindset in the right frame of mind for moving forward in this high velocity, rapidly changing economy, you might need this type of high level, energetic message.

To help you get in the right frame of mind, here’s a little motivational video clip from a recent keynote I did on stage in Sydney, Australia.

One of my recent keynotes for a global organization focused on the issue of high-velocity change. No matter who you are and what you do, there are certain realities: your markets, customer expectations, competitors, cost structure and business model continues to change really, really fast, and will continue to do so. This little video clip captures that message.

Innovative organizations recognize this reality, and orient themselves to a state of constant, forward-oriented innovation, not only to keep up with but to exceed the constantly rising bar of innovation that surrounds them. They do this by subscribing to several key ideas. Innovative companies:

• adjust to rapidly evolving markets: it doesn’t matter what industry: consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, electronics, industrial supply, construction. Every industry is impacted by massive and sweeping change, in terms of product innovation, customer expectations, new business models. Look around you, and there’s fast paced change.
• re-align for new workforce realities. With new career attitudes, the migration to the global, contingent workforce, and increasing skills specialization, deploying the right skills at the right time for the right purpose is becoming a core focus of innovation efforts.
• jump on rapidly emerging trends: new ideas now evolve faster than ever before because of the global infinite idea loop. New products, markets and innovation can now go from concept to market in a matter of months or weeks. Innovative organizations know where they are headed, because they are tuned into the global idea loop that envelopes them.
• track the impact of fast-science on product innovation: billion dollar markets are being born through global collaborative science. It’s a trend I explore in my Future Trends document on this blog. Understand it, and innovate from it.
• generate ideas through generational collaboration: innovative organizations recognize that different generations have differing attitudes towards change. Rather than battling this reality, they work to ensure that they are getting the best ideas from the experience of longer term staff, combining that with the inspiration and innovative ideas coming from what I call Gen-Connect. Watch the cardboard people/plasma people video on this blog: it provides a good example of what can happen if you don’t capitalize on generational insight.
• streamline process: innovative organizations focus on the concept of “agility” — structuring themselves for rapid response, fast solutions to emerging challenges, and quicker focusing of resources on the changes occuring within the high velocity economy. Search this site for the phrase “agility,” and you’ll find a wealth of ideas.
• innovate upside down: innovative organizations recognize they can’t do it all. They seek partners with everything they do, recognizing that there are of lot of really wonderful innovative ideas that transcend their organization and their culture. This allows them to discover new innovative ideas they hadn’t thought of before; a process I call upside down innovation.
• continue to innovate in times of stress: it goes back to my recent blog post, Leading in turbulent times: How to innovate through the recession. Some economies might be in recession: but innovative organizations are already focusing on innovating for the inevitable upturn.

It’s a Sunday afternoon, and a full day of skiing is done: and all the roads home are closed because of the snow. So we’ve settled in for an evening in the chalet with blankets of snow falling outside.

Skiing provides a wonderful metaphor for innovation; it involves taking risk, trying to do things you haven’t done before, and always seeking for improvement. When you ski, you are constantly exploring new territory, examining new methods of doing things, and making discoveries that lead to something unknown. Skiing involves constant skills upgrading; there’s no end of opportunity for new ideas by examining what others are doing on the hill.

The same type of thing you do when you instill an innovative mindset, either on your own or within an organization.

Two years ago, I keynoted an audience of thousands at the Swiss Innovation Forum. In my closing remarks, I linked the innovation theme to skiing — because I was leaving from the event to ski the Swiss Alps. That for me was a huge achievement – because I didn’t know how to ski less than 9 years ago.

I’ve caught that little video clip — it’s a little bit inspirational, and perhaps a little bit hokey, but captures for me, the importance of the link between innovation and skiing.

Related postings:

• Blog post – The future of skiing
• Jim Carroll on “the future of skiing” in the San Jose Mercury Post
• read Don’t Mess with My Powder, Dude!