Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

Last November, I released my “What Comes Next” trends perspective, outlining some of the significant trends that I believed would have the most impact in our longer term future. It’s still worth a read, and I don’t think the economic turmoil has changed anything written there.

So I admit I was surprised, given the massive quantity of doom-and-gloom thinking which is smothering creativity everywhere, when I came across this advertisement, offering a 3-day executive level course on ‘Competing with Analytics.” And right there, they’ve quoted my “What Comes Next” document, which was re-printed in Toronto, Canada’s Globe and Mail earlier in January of this year: “Analytics is hot….it’s where the next-billion dollar industries will be born.”

I don’t disagree with that assessment, and neither does IBM CEO Sam Palmisano.

As quoted widely, and from an article in eWeek, in early November he made a speech in which he “called on the next administration to invest more money in refurbishing the electronic grid system to reduce the amount of energy required to power it, make better use of information technology to reinvent the way healthcare is provided and green technology investments that would enhance traffic and mass transit systems to make everybody who depends on these systems more efficient.”

Which, if you study it, revolves around analytics, linked to infrastructure. Where’s the growth? We all know where it is!

Obviously Sam is a bit self-serving with his call to action, but the truth is IBM is one of many companies that is at the forefront of smart infrastructure development.

There’s lots of growth out there. Innovators stay focused on opportunity, the future, and educating themselves on the trends that are going to have real impact in the future. Ten years back, you’ll look at this advertisement and think — “man, those guys were on to something.”

I think I’ll write the folks running the 3-day course and see if they will give me a complimentary admission. (-;

More information

• “What Comes Next: A Trends Perspective for the Future”
• Competing with Analytics course Web site
• Time for a new digital deal – eWeek

Last week, I spoke in Palo Alto for a a small, intimate dinner of a number of CIO’s for a variety of companies based in Silicon Valley. The focus of the talk was “how to provide for a culture and focus on innovation during a down market?”

I spoke to this issue from a number of perspectives. One issue I touched on was the inevitability of a rebound in the fortune of IT. If we cast our minds out two to five years, or perhaps even sooner, there are certain key trends in which we see a massive amount of innovation:

• pervasive connectivity: we’ve barely scratched the surface of the era in which everyday devices gain connectivity and intelligence. The Internet enabled thermostat in my home is but a harbinger of what is yet to come. With it’s own Web browser, it has become a fascinating tool by which energy usage can be more closely monitored. The same device is deployed throughout the Arby’s chain, and offers a significant new method of controlling energy-spend.

• continued growth of mobile: One recent survey of consumers suggested that while they might be willing to give up buying the latest plasma TV, there was no way they’d give up mobile or the Internet. Mobile is weaving itself into daily life, sophisticated platforms are finally here, devices are fashion, developers are on board in a big way, and the emerging applications are either real and useful, or just a tremendous bit of fun.
• location intelligence: we’re barely scratching the surface with this one. Every device around us is becoming connected (pervasive connectivity), and we’ll gain knowledge as to its status through sensory awareness. Not only that : we’ll know exactly where it is. Search for “location intelligence professionals” online, and you’ll discover a group of people who understand how unique our future is set to be.
• computational analytics: I’ve written about this before, in the context of this being “the next billion dollar industry.” Some of the biggest challenges we face and the solutions that we find for them — in terms of transportation, energy and the environment — will come from applying massive computing power and complex alogorithms to them. Think about smart highway infrastructure as an example: it would be ludicrous to not believe that we will see 5, 10, 15 or 20% incremental increases in energy conservation that will come from ever-more
  automated traffic systems.
• staggering new mass markets: six months ago, it was believed that in the next 10 years, 1 billion people worldwide would move into the middle class. Maybe it’s only half that now : who knows? But 500 million is still a staggering number. There is plenty of potential for connectivity, mobile, hardware and software to newly emerging mass markets.
• bio-connectivity: if I were a betting man, I’d have my money on this trend. Simply put, the global health care system is massively broken. Ten years out, home health care will pre-dominate, supported by a sophisticated infrastructure of smart health care energy devices. Yes, I’ve written about this trend on this blog too; see below.
• transformational thinking: an entire generation has been stuck in an older paradigm of how to network; the election of a younger President, wired to the nation and the world, who thinks, interacts, moves, plans, and acts differently, sets even more velocity to the power of connectivity. The Internet, mobile, social networking and blogs changed an entire presidential race; they’re set to change everything else in society on a continuous basis.

Like everywhere, Silicon Valley is being impacted today by a focus on the downside. This happened in every earlier recession; but at the same time, innovators toiled away, coming up with the next amazing devices, concepts, software, ideas and infrastructure that later boggles the mind. We’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of what comes next.

More information:

• Read about what happens When Thermostats get connected
• Read the article about bio-connectivity, The Doctor is in around the clock
• Read the article Minds of their own
• Read “Bioconnectivity and the rapid emergence of new markets”
• Read the article Command and Control – Opportunity Awaits Companies that Master Hyperconnectivity

It’s been announced that I will be a keynote speaker at the World HealthCare Innovation & Technology Conference, to be held in Washington, DC in December. In particular, I’ll be taking a look at the importance of one of the most significant trends that is just starting to unfold.

Twenty years from now, most people will look back and realize that right about now, we had three huge, transformative trends underway: device connectivity, geo-connectivity, and bio-connectivity

Essentially, everything around is about to become linked in — every device that surrounds your life. My home thermostat is linked to the Internet, and that has changed the scope of how I interact with energy.

Layered on top of device connectivity is spatial intelligence for each device — vis-a-vis Google Maps types of applications. Think about new forms of energy management built upon sophisticated geographic mapping applications.

Add to this the fact that this type of technology will migrate to devices that will help us better manage complex health circumstances.

I’ve been writing and speaking about the idea of bio-connectivity and the concept of “hyper-connectivity” for over a decade (before Nortel lamely built a lame marketing campaign around the latter phrase a year ago.) It remains one of the most significant trends that will yet unfold in the health care sector. Our concept of health care delivery will be forever transformed.

Simply put, link the scope of the looming health care crisis to the momentum that will come from Silicon Valley for medical device connectivity, and there are some pretty powerful things happening. Think about what happens as spatial device connectivity comes to everyday things around you — such as a baseball bat! Read more below. There’s a lot going on in this space, and you’d do well to understand it.

Opportunity through the next decade is going to be found by those who will adjust and adapt buisness models, attitudues, structures, methodologies and capabilities to this new reality.

More information:

• HealthCare Innovation & Technology Conference
• Read about what happens When Thermostats get connected
• Read the article about bio-connectivity, The Doctor is in around the clock
• Read the article Minds of their own
• Read “Bioconnectivity and the rapid emergence of new markets”
• Read the article Command and Control – Opportunity Awaits Companies that Master Hyperconnectivity

My “infrastructure is the new plastic” post drew attention; at a keynote last week, I was asked, “what other areas are seeing the emergence of the ‘next plastic?’” (It’s a play on the theme in the sixties movie, The Graduate, when the kids dad’s friend mentioned “plastics” as being the industry of the future.)

• Analytics. The future is owned by the math geeks. We’re entering an era in which extremely intelligent people who know a lot about how to throw a bunch of computers at a complex problem in order to come up with interesting solutions. Here’s an example: backyard energy. Lots of people would like to do their part in helping the environment by having their own back yard solar or wind power station. The problem is that most of the North American electric grid wasn’t designed for two way transmission — meaning that you can’t pump your excess energy back into the grid. Yet, some smart math dude will come along and come up with a fascinating new load-balancing technology, based on sophisticated mathematics and massive amounts of computer processing power, to solve the problem. There are going to a be a lot of unique solutions, and hence, unique industries that are set to unfold.
• Location-intelligence. Think about the transformative change that can occur when you link the type of information found in GoogleMaps to existing corporate data. In the insurance industry, individuals are looking at how they can link existing insurance policy information to spatial (i.e. geographic) oriented information, in order to come up new forms of assessing, understanding and underwriting insurance risk.
• Pervasive connectivity. Everything around you is about to become “plugged-in”, and life is about to get really strange. One day you’ll get up, and your weigh scale will send an e-mail to your fridge. Just kidding, but consider this reality: many of the things that we use in an industrial, commercial or residential setting are about to undergo three distinct transitions. They are gaining intelligence; and at the same time, we are seeing the emergence of information that advises us as to their location, and their status. Think about what happens when you bring home a box of popcorn, and it interacts with your microwave, linking into a centralized database to determine the best cooking duration for your particular microwave brand.
• Hyper-innovation. China is rapidly transitioning from the “made” phase to the “created” stage. Think “Designed in China” as the next big wave that will lead to rapid product innovation. Half the population in China is under the age of 25. They’re collaborative, highly educated, and eager to continue the transition into the wealth that comes with being a member of the Chinese middle class. They’re about to innovate like crazy, and will soon be flooding our stores with all kinds of innovative consumer products, not to mention stuff for the industrial, health care, packaging and just about every other industry out there. Someone is going to import, support, sell and install this stuff.
• Skills specialization. The future of every career is either extremely specialized, or massively general. Most professions are fragmenting into dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of specialities. Someone needs to understand all this, and help organizations tap into narrow bands of knowledge. In the health care industry, we are seeing the emergence of “hospitalists” : medical professionals who now fulfill the role of steering a patient through the ever increasing complexity that is the world of medical care today. The field is expected to swell from about 15,000 today, to 120,000 within a decade. The rise of similar “uber-generalists” is expected in most other industries as well.

Dig beneath any of these trends, and you’ll find the birth of billion dollar industries, the emergence of new careers, and all kinds of opportunity!

In my “Where’s the growth?” trends overview written a few months back, I noted that one of the key drivers for growth into the future will come from the massive spending to occur on infrastructure — globally. One estimate suggests global spending will go from $750 billion to $1 trillion in a few years. I think we’ll see more.

This morning, I caught wind of a blog entry that commented on the general crankiness of American’s towards their “crumbling infrastructure.” For example, Thomas Friedman commented in a New York Times article this week: “A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons.

It’s the rapid ramp-up in sentiments like this that drive the reality that infrastructure is the new plastic. It’s one aspect of the global economy where spending is going to increase at a furious pace.

Consider the trends that are coming together that provide for this simple reality:

• spending on infrastructure through what has been fondly known as the “first world” will increase, by virtue of the simple reality that much of what is there is crumbling and creaky. After 50 or 75 or 100 or 150 years or so, stuff simply breaks down, and needs to be replaced.
• spending on infrastructure throughout Asia and the Pacific region will continue to ramp up as society moves up the rung of personal wealth
• sophisticated solutions to challenging problems — think energy, and spending on solar / wind / tidal solutions — will drive ever more complex infrastructure projects, and hence, more infrastructure spending. Simply put, there will be lots more options of where to spend money as new ideas come to market.
• global competition simply means that economic regions will have to boost their infrastructure — simply to stay as a global competitor. It’s a matter of economic pride — and necessity.

One really interesting aspect of all this is that anything that goes with infrastructure spending is set for a rocket ride. Think intelligent project management, global collaboration capabilities, and resource/skills scalability: these will be the defining success factors for anyone working in this global marketplace.
Who wins? Construction companies, specialized skills, economic regions that decide to invest — and most important, firms that have a deep, scalable global talent pool.

And perhaps one of the biggest, yet unforeseen markets, will have to do with “intelligent infrastructure.” Think thermostats!

More information:

• Read Where’s the growth : global innovation opportunities for the long term
• The reality of future trends: grab the What Comes Next trends overview
• Intelligent infrastructure: When thermostats get connected
• Read my Credit Suisse interview for my thoughts on “growth”

I explained to a client today that when I’m preparing for a keynote or workshop, I often end up putting 30-40 hours of research into each talk. I’m well immersed in that process for about six upcoming presentations between now and mid-March. This morning, I’ve been taking an in-depth look at:

• key business trends in the oil and gas sector, including concepts such as BP’s “Field of the Future” effort and Shell’s “Smart Fields” programs, both of which involve significicant change throughout the exploration and development process, for an upcoming session for SAP
• issues of real estate management, and the strategic role and value of the real estate function within organizations, for my upcoming keynote for the International Asset Management Conference in Tucson
• and an examination of the “culture of entitlement” that pervades society and what it means when it comes to emerging global infrastructure risk, whcih I’ll be speaking about at an upcoming annual meeting for a major insurance company

Whew! And the fascinating thing is, all of these topics tie together …. and it’s a good example of the different types of issues I delve into.

Back to the books….