Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

The International Dairy, Deli and Bakery Association has invited me to be the closing keynote speaker for the 2012 international conference in New Orleans. I’ll appear before an audience of 8,000 key players in this massive global industry.

I’m honoured to join a list of previous keynote speakers that includes Mike Ditka, General Colin Powell, Emeril Lagasse, John Cleese (!), and even Sinbad.

This is another sign that innovation, and keeping up with high velocity change — my main themes — continues to rise to the top in many corporations and associations. Consider what I’m talking about : here’s the brochure copy which announces my participation:

The New Normal: Innovation, Hyper-niching, and Transformative Change

The “new normal” says nothing will ever be normal again. Instead, deep substantial change is transforming nations, markets, industries, jobs, and knowledge. We’re at the leading edge of the merger of three perfect trends: the rapid and massive mobile infrastructure with increasingly intelligent devices; pervasive location awareness as a result of GPS and location intelligence-mapping trends, and a consumer mindset that is increasingly open to new forms of interaction. The result is massive business model disruption, market change, and obliteration of old assumptions aobut the nature of customer relationships. Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert Jim Carroll will show new ways to uplift product in retail space, how to change customer loyalty through new forms of interaction, and how to enhance one-to-one conversations through hyperniching. He’ll walk us through the impact of increasing business intensity, innovation, and creativity as it relates to the world of food.

The key phrase to think about is “deep substantial change.” And the key thing to think about, is are you ready for it? Is your leadership team, innovation strategy, partners, infrastructure, culture and mindset aligned for transformative change?

Folks, we’re going to look back at 2012 as a year in which the world began to change even faster than any other year prior.

My key phrase has always been, “the future belongs to those who are fast.”

Are you?

Trends Expert Jim Carroll to Keynote CGT’s Leadership Event

Trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll will deliver the keynote address at this year’s premiereConsumer Goods Business & Technology Leadership Conference, October 23-25, 2011 at the Ritz Carleton Grand Lakes in Orlando, Fla.

CGT is the leading magazine and information source on the technology and other trends impacting the CPG industry.

A leading international futurist, Carroll (www.jimcarroll.com) is widely recognized as a thought leader and authority on global trends, rapid business model change, business transformation during economic uncertainty and the necessity for fast-paced innovation. He is an author, columnist, media commentator and consultant with a focus on linking future trends to innovation and creativity. He has previously spoken at events for the Professional Golf Association (PGA), HJ Heinz, Johnson & Johnson, the Professional Retail Store Maintenance Association, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), among others.

Hosted by the Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) magazine, a publication of Edgell Communications, the Consumer Goods Business & Technology Leadership Conference remains one of the most significant consumer goods industry events and is now in its 13^th consecutive year. In attendance will be senior-level marketing, supply chain and IT executives from leading CG companies. Carroll joins an agenda jam-packed with presentations from leading consumer goods companies, like Kimberly-Clark, Dean Foods, PepsiCo, Del Monte and many more.

“We are the only event that covers all aspects of the consumer goods industry, with an extremely broad range of attendees by managerial function,” noted Albert Guffanti, publisher, CGT.

Guffanti continued: “We are very pleased to announce Jim Carroll as our keynote speaker, who will challenge our audience to ‘think big’ about their future by focusing on the theme, ‘What Do World Class Innovators Do That Others Don’t Do’. He has a track record that is recognized worldwide as a ‘thought leader’ and authority on global trends; rapid business model change; business transformation in a period of economic uncertainty; and the necessity for fast paced innovation.”

Carroll will concentrate on several key trends in his engaging keynote address: how world-class innovators possess a relentless focus on growth. They continually transition their revenue source through relentless product and service reinvention and solve customer problems before the customer knows there’s a problem. They focus on upside down innovation by sourcing innovation ideas through their customers and focus on long-term wins through constant incremental improvements. Carroll will also share his perspective on why right now is a great time to make bold decisions and do great things.

“I’m thrilled to participate in this annual conference,” noted Carroll. “While we might be in a period of economic volatility, history has taught us that it is those organizations who focused on innovation thinking during a period of uncertainty are those who are best positioned as economic growth returns. There is plenty of opportunity in the CG industry in all area of product development, operations, partnership structures, retail activities, taking advantage of the rapid evolution of mobile technologies, and branding and marketing opportunities. The future belongs to those who are fast — today, it’s all about scalability, rapidity and the ability to deal with extremely fast rates of change from every perspective. I’ll challenge attendees to concentrate on the core activities that will help them focus on the opportunities of the future, rather than the challenges of the past.”

Click here to access the event’s web page, view the outstanding agenda and/or to register.

It’s been a whirlwind of activity over the last two months, with about 20 major keynotes under my belt.

One of these was a corporate event for a food company with $7 billion in revenue and 24,000 employees ; my talk was on the key food industry trends of today that should be driving innovation from a marketing, product development and branding perspective.

Jim Carroll on stage at the Readers Digest Food and Entertainment Group Summit, in front of several hundred food and consumer product executives, advertising agencies, grocery and retail organizations and publishers of the world's most popular food magazines, speaking to the trends driving the food industry today, .

This is one of many events I do for food and consumer product clients – my global client list includes high profile keynotes or leadership meetings for the Readers Digest Food & Entertainment Division (the publisher of such innovative magazines as Everyday with Rachel Ray), the Produce Marketing Association Annual Fresh Summit, HJ Heinz, Nestle , FMC FoodTechnologies, Burger King, Yum! Brands and many more.

I was the keynote speaker for a meeting of their top 250 marketing executives; my mandate was to focus on how to innovate around the trends that are today impacting the food industry today, with a particular focus on consumer behaviour.

Below are a few of the many trends that I spoke about. I took on an extensive amount of research for this keynote, which is typical of how I approach these events.

In effect, I built my keynote around the theme “….these are the trends that will drive your brands……”, and from that, they could best learn how to change and innovate with their branding and marketing message.

1. Biggest trend: We are witnessing a changing relationship with food

My main observation is that we live in a period of time that sees consumers interacting with food, the purchasing of food, and the consumption of food in new and different ways.

An article, Observer Food Monthly in the Guardian Newspaper, 15 May 2011 caught this sentiment perfectly:

• “… never before has our culture been so engaged in discussing and experimenting with and agonizing over and fantasizing about and plain enjoying what is on the end of our forks”

Consider what is happening:

• we have a new form of interaction when purchasing food. Consider the number of iPhone apps by which we can research calorie counts, nutrition facts and other information while in the grocery store.
• we have new influencers in how we make these in-store food decisions. Think about the Monterrey Aquarium Seafood Watch iPhone app, which will give you background that can help you with your ethical food decisions.
• a change in how we manage our food intake. iPhone and Web sites apps such as Lose It, which allow us to track our food consumption on a calorie-by-calorie, product by product basis.
• a change in food packaging: ““…..interactive packaging, intelligent and active packaging, multi-sensory packaging, edible packaging … packaging as mini-billboards…” as noted by the research firm Reportlinker. Paackaging is going from passive to active, and is becoming more than just the vehicle for branding – increasingly, it is defining our relationship with the food.
• a change in our food relationships. Consider the impact of food traceability based on DNA. “Tonning’s restaurant is among more than 11,000 that Richmond-based food distributor Performance Food Group is supplying with DNA-traceable beef as an added value for customers of its premium Braveheart brand. The company, which has annual revenues of about $11 billion, said it is among the first distributors to use the technology.” Where’s the beef, Iowa Press Citizen, May 2011
• A more direct involvement with the ethics of food. “Wal-Mart, which sells more than 20 per cent of all US groceries, is developing an eco-labelling program that will give a green rating to all items sold in its 7500 stores worldwide.” Unlikely alliance, Sydney Morning Herald, February 2011
• and very significant transitional trends. “Whole grains are the hottest trend in sliced bread, with whole wheat edging out soft white bread in total sales for the first time……… The whole-grain craze has, after all, raised the bar on what consumers are willing to pay for bread that’s perceived as healthy…..” Grains gain ground; Focus on healthy eating helps wheat surpass white in sliced bread sales 1 August 2010, Chicago Tribune

All in all, these are pretty significant, systemic, long term transformative trends that will have a major impact through the next 5-10 years. Smart food companies will recognize that the very nature of our relationship with food is changing and will innovative around that reality. Massive opportunities for innovative thinking exist here!

2. A need to respond to faster consumer preference/taste change

I’ve long been pointing out that consumer preference is changing faster when it comes to food, and that leads to the rapid emergence of new opportunity, or the rapid decline of existing product lines. A few of my observations:

• behavioural change and food as fashion! Fresh-cut snack food grew from $6.8 billion in to $10.5 billion in one year. Notes one publication: “Snacks are like a fashion category…..People want a change. it’s going to be short-lived–maybe a quarter, maybe six months, then changed out” Private Label Buyer, May 2010.
• We spend more of our day with our food – it’s not just breakfast, lunch and dinner anymore. Canadian consumers are snacking more frequently. Snacks were 24% of all “meals” consumed by 2010. Fruit leads in the category, and healthy snacks are driving growth – the top 7 snacks include yogurt and granola bars.
• Food categories can explode in growth over night. US Greek Yogurt sales grew from $33million in 2007 to $469 million today!

The key point with all of these trends is that it reflects our busy, compressed lives — smart food companies will continue to learn how to innovate within that reality with new products, aligning themselves to health concerns, and other trends.

3. The impact of business model change and social networks on food and taste trends

Business model change with pop-up restaurants drives the more rapid emergence of new exotic tastes and flavors!

Clearly, massive connectivity is coming to influence the growth of new foods, brands, tastes, patterns.

I spoke, for example, how bacon has quickly become so trendy as something used to enhance countless recipes. It can be traced right back to an effective social networking campaign.

• “If there’s one food trend that illustrates how top-down and grassroots phenomena combine it might be bacon….. in southern California about six years ago, Rocco Loosbrock paired peppered bacon with Syrah wine at a tasting….”swine and wine…..!” The mysteries of food trends: How bacon got its sizzle, Associated Press Newswires, March 2011

• In the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of pop-up restaurants and “Eat St” food – street food!
• what is happening here is a lower barrier to entry in terms of new restaurant start up cost — more people can get out and start out a restaurant as “street food”, and experiment with new, bold, and exotic tastes and flavors
• there’s also a very big trend underway that links restaurants and markets together in one location. Go to the restaurant, like the food and want to cook it at home next time? Visit the market in the same building, and buy the exact ingredients for that exact recipe. We call these Resto 2.0′s : for example, Murray’s Market in Ottawa, based on locally farmed food, “….sells cheeses, meats, produce and house-made foodstuffs, providing customers with many of the same raw ingredients they use as their restaurant next door.” Globe & Mail, June 1, 2011
• all of these trends involve a new breed of restaurateur / entrepreneur;  they’ve learned to link these efforts with very effective social network campaigns. The result is that we now have even faster emergence of new taste trends. Smart food companies will learn how to innovate around the sheer velocity of what is occurring here – ‘faster is the new fast!’

My key point? Innovation is all about time to market … and the brand message needs to match the new speed metric…

4. A new consumer volatility

Back in 2009, I keynote global events for both Burger King and Yum! Brands. One of the major points in both keynotes was the consumer and public health concerns would come to drive more of a focus on a healthier diet; hence, the need for more aggressive innovation around a balanced menu that offered up more healthier choices.

Since then, looking back, it looks like one chain took the message to heart, and the other didn’t. Can you guess which ones?

What’s happened since then? Restaurant chains — and by extension, food companies — are discovering that consumer activity has become very volatile. They might talk of the need to go out and eat healthier, but then go out and continue to buy big, fat juicy cheeseburgers.

But then the news continues to hammer home the cold realities of North American food lifestyles, and the impact of childhood obesity.

• over the past 30 years, childhood obesity rates in North America have tripled
• 1 in 3 children are overweight or obese
• 1/3 of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives
• many others will face chronic obesity-related health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma

Add to that new messages from Michelle Obama, Jamie Kennedy and other influencers around this debate — and all of a sudden, behaviour begins to change faster than people expect. Consider comments in the article Dining chains shape up menus ;Customers place low-cal orders now, 13 April 2011, USA Today

• :Something odd is afoot in restaurants where Americans have typically gone to gorge: healthier grub. This nutritional U-turn is taking place at some of the unlikeliest of eateries, including Denny’s, IHOP, Friendly’s, Sizzler and even at the nation’s biggest casual dining chain, Applebee’s, where the numbers are eye-popping.“
• “For the first two months of 2011, the top-selling entree at Applebee’s wasn’t a gloppy burger or flashy fajita plate. It was a sirloin and shrimp entree from the chain’s diet menu. This marks the first time that a low-calorie item ever ranked as the chain’s best seller for a single month — let alone two in a row.“
• “I’ve been in the restaurant business for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Mike Archer, president of Applebee’s.
• “When Applebee’s launched the under-550-calorie menu in 2010, it didn’t immediately take off, says Archer. But after some tweaks, it caught fire early this year. It now accounts for up to 8% of sales”

8 percent of sales! For healthy options! The key innovation opportunity is to keep innovating with food and taste trends around trends such as health, local, regional. The consumer is volatile, and will change faster than ever before.

Key marketing and branding innovation points?

• consumer behaviour is now more unpredictable than ever before!
• sudden, dramatic shifts driven by sudden external influences or other pressures are the new reality
• it’s easy to abandon marketing momentum / commitment due to slowness of trend (i.e. healthy lifestyle – consumers say one thing, and do another!)
• yet success from ability to quickly rejig marketing message based on trend spikes – speed matters!

And  so branding innovation is … sticking to the message behind the key trends, even if the trends unfold at a curious and unpredictable pace….

I spoke about many other trends within the keynote, particularly the impact of mobile marketing and moving into hyper-nice marketing. I’ll cover more of that later.

This is typical of the type of unique research I often do for a keynote. If you are interested in bringing me in to a leadership meeting at your corporate organization, feel free to give me a call!

A few weeks ago, I was the opening keynote speaker for the 2011 Multi-Unit Franchising Conference held at The Venetian in Las Vegas.

The audience were owners and operators of multiple franchise operations, primarily from the restaurant / food sector, but also from other franchise operations in auto, pet care, home supplies and other retail product lines.

An audience of close to 1,000 listens to Jim Carroll's keynote on fast paced consumer, retail and restaurant industry trends in Las Vegas

My keynote topic was built on the theme “”Where Do We Go From Here? Why Innovators Will Rule in the Post-Recession Economy – And How You Can Join Them!”

What did I take a look at? A wide variety of the fast-paced trends impacting the retail / restaurant sector today. I broke my talk down into 3 key trends, what I might call:

• Consumer velocity
• Mobile madness
• Intelligent infrastructure

1. What We Know: Consumer behaviour shifts faster today than ever before

“The average consumer scans 12 feet of shelf space per second.” That’s a stat I’ve long used to emphasize that the attention span of the typical shopper of today is shorter than ever before — and retailers need to innovate to ensure they can keep the attention of today’s consumer.

It’s not just keeping up with fleeting attention spans — it’s about adapting to the fast pace of how quickly consumer choice changes. Consider what is happening with the rapid emergence of revenue in the late night business segment – it was up 12% in 4th quarter 2010, compared to 2-3% for other parts of the day. That’s why major chains have been focusing on new “happy hour” offerings — and so their success increasingly comes from how quickly they can scale and adapt to fast moving trends.

We’ve seen plenty of fast innovation from various organizations in the sector to respond to quick consumer change. Morton’s capitalized on the new consumer sensitivity towards value when it jumped on the trend that involves the “casualization of fine dining” with its’ $6 mini-cheeseburger.

Other fast trends drive the industry. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a great article in April of 2011, noting that “… the world of cooking and restaurants is becoming more like an arm of show business …..” with the result that “everyone wants to see the chef.” That’s why we are seeing many restaurants from fine-dining to fast casual moving the kitchen to the “front of the house,” or in other cases, a lot of TV display technology that provide for video links from tables to the kitchen. The evolution that is occurring is that the chef is becoming the star, and more and more of the staff are becoming ‘performers.’ Innovators in appropriate sectors would see the opportunities and jump on this trend.

Whatever the case may be, the consumer of today changes quickly, and innovators check their speed and agility in being able to respond to this reality.

2. What We Know: Technology – especially mobile – has become the key influencer of today’s consumer decision making.

Simply put, the velocity of mobile adoption, local search and product promotion is evolving at a pace that is beyond furious.

Consider the growth rates underlying today’s technology. It took two years for Apple to sell two million iPhones. It took 2 months for them to sell 2 million iPads! It took 1 month to sell 1 million iPhone 4’s!

The impact of such trends is an explosive rate of growth of wireless Internet usage. Mobile represented but 0.2% of all Web traffic in 2009. That grew to 8% by 2010, and is expected to hit 16% of all traffic this year.

Some suggest that mobile searches now exceed the number of computer based searches. What is also well known is that most mobile searches are for “local content.” Not only that, but Google has found that when someone gets a smartphone, the number of searches they make increases 50 times!

What is clear is that people are using their mobile devices to find nearby – stores, retailers, restaurants and just about everything else. Combine this with the emergence of new promotion opportunities (through apps and other tools) and you’ve got a revolution in the making in terms of local product promotion. That’s why the success of many retailers / restaurants will come from their success with location-sensitive coupon technology.

Bottom line? Innovation is: rethinking in-store uplift in terms of new methods of interaction!

3. What We Know: We will have far more opportunity for operational innovation through the rapid emergence of new technology, infrastructure and other trends

Consider how quickly near-field payment technology is going to steamroller the retail / restaurant sector. Simply put, over the next few years, the credit cards in our wallet will disappear as our iPhones, Blackberries and Android phones become the credit card infrastructure of the future. This is a HUGE trend — it provides countless opportunities for innovation, disruptive business model change, new competitors, and all kinds of other fun opportunities.

The trend has enormous velocity – we can expect $113 billion in transactions by 2016,  with 3.5 billion transactions – and with this comes new opportunities for loyalty and contact followup. From an innovation perspective, the sector will have to ensure they can ingest the new infrastructure quickly enough, and keep on top of the industry change that it will cause to ensure that challenges are turned into opportunity.

There are all kinds of other areas of fast change that present opportunity. Consider the issue fo ‘green buildings’ and sustainability. The West Australian newspaper recently noted that “with the rapid increase in knowledge, skills and availability of materials, costs have fallen. The industry now understands how to build green and building a 5-star Green Star building is now generally cost neutral.”

Some franchisees are taking this to heart, with aggressive plans involving eco-friendly buildings. Chick-fil-A has a  LEED initiative in building a test model restaurant that has water usage down by 40% through rainwater collection; an electricity reduction of 14% through the use of skylights & energy efficient appliances; 20% of the building content is from recycled material; and 30% more fresh air than regular buildings. While the structure is 15% more expensive to build, they expect a fairly quick payback — and will manage to get a branding image to their customer base that they don’t just talk sustainability – they do it!

From this perspective, innovation is keeping ahead of and planning for hyper-innovation with IT, energy, environmental and other infrastructure trends that impact facilities or the nature of the customer interaction.

Innovators get ahead by focusing on bold ideas, and exploring the concept of 'experiential capital' - Jim Carroll

I also emphasized that innovators aren’t afraid to make bold moves. Every franchise and retail organization today is looking for opportunities for cross-promotion, cross-selling and product placement. So consider this observation from the Dallas Morning News in March 2011 in an article titled: Funeral home adds little sip of heaven: Starbucks Coffee.

“At McKinney’s Turrentine Jackson Morrow Funeral Home, it’s now possible to pay your respects to the dead or plan your own funeral with a venti Caramel Macchiato in hand”

Craziness, or smart niche-marketing? I think it’s innovation!

So what do you do? My message to the folks in Las Vegas was to get involved and explore these fascinating new worlds that surround you!

Many of them might hold themselves back from Facebook advertising, because the concept might simply seem overwhelming for a small to medium sized mulit-unit franchise operation. Yet, today Facebook now accounts for 1 of 3 every online ads. And we are seeing the rapid emergence of new online ‘aggregators’ that are focused on helping small business take advantage of that fact. These organizations — such as Blinq — manage the buying of thousands of individualized ads, based on age, location, interests.

They should simply try the world of mobile promotion. Buffalo Wild Wings gave it a shot for one recent NFL based initiative, and indicated that they tripled the return on their investment.

Think differently in terms of new ways of reaching the consumer. Pizza Pizza, a Canadian chain, recently released a new iPhone App that allows online ordering. Nothing new or special about that – such apps are becoming a dime a dozen, and are quickly becoming de rigueur. What is cool is that the chain has revealed that it is working to link the  app payment system to university meal card plan, in recognition of the fact that many students in the target market might not have credit cards (or “credit worthy” cards.)

Bottom line? One of my key closing messages was that innovators focus on the concept of “experiential capital” -there’s a lot going on, and to figure out, we should just get out and do it! Try new ideas, explore new initiatives, undertake new projects. One of the only ways to get ahead is to work quickly to build up your experience in all the new opportunities that surround you.

I’m in Las Vegas Thursday, as a keynote speaker fo rhte Multi-Unit Franchising Conference at the Venetian.

"Time to market and corporate agility are the new capabilities to focus on"

I’ll be speaking to  a wide variety of consumer, technology, demographic and other trends as they impact franchise operations.

Multi-Unit Franchise Magazine just ran a small article in which I comment on some of these trends.

This should be a great crowd and fun audience – it’s a very entrepreneurial group, with a lot of success under their belts. But they live in interesting times — cost inflation perhaps being the biggest challenge they are faced with.

Not to forget the impact of mobile technology – a good portion of the folks in the room are going to be in the restaurant end of the franchise industry, and they are being impacted extremely quickly by mobile coupons, and other location intelligence technologies. Online ordering via mobile devices is a tidal wave of change coming into the industry at a furious pace. Then there’s faster evolution of consumer taste trends.

Whatever the case may be, there’s a lot of change going on, and plenty of opportunity for innovation. This event comes after I had keynoted the global Burger King franchise conference for about 5,000 people in Vegas, and a keynote for the global leadership team for Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut) on the same themes — which also led to a keynote for VIBE 2010 (Very Important Beverage Executives), the individuals who run the refreshment end of things in chain restaurants. Lots going on in Vegas!

Tracking the Future

Jim Carroll keeps his finger on the pulse of the world around him and particularly, the future. He is, after all, a futurist who identifies business and cultural trends ranging from technology and business model change, to innovation, global challenges, and growth. Carroll’s list of
clients includes Northrop Grumman, Visa, Rockwell Collins, Lincoln Financial, and the Walt Disney organization.

Prior to his speaking at the Multi-Unit Franchising Conference in April, we asked Carroll for his take on the ever-evolving consumer, technology, and the franchise business marketplace. He outlined five key – and critical – areas for multi-unit franchisees to be aware of when considering new brands and concepts to add to their portfolio.

Paying Attention. Consumers today face more stimuli around them than at any previous time in history – computers, Internet, cell phone, video games, etc. He says today’s interactive world demands that franchisees to be engaged in all mediums. “Marketers must work harder than ever to capture the attention of the consumer and make a connection. Brands must keep up with the pace of consumer change in order to stay relevant,” says Carroll.

Changing Family Dynamics. There’s a new definition of family in America and it’s no longer nuclear. Successful franchise brands must acknowledge and respond to this reality. “Hyper-nicheing is the new brand reality as the market becomes more specialized and fragmented. Marketers can no longer rely on preconceived segmentation strategies, but rather need to think differently about who they are trying to reach and how to reach them.”

Under the Influence. Celebrities and peers are influencing consumers more than ever. These peers are sought out for advice and brand recommendations. “Social networks are the new brand influencers and marketers must find ways to connect with consumers who are highly influential in their peer groups.”

Shifting Behavior. Socio-economic shifts are affecting consumer behavior. Consumer tastes and preferences continue to change and evolve. “Faster-paced preference change is the new reality and brands must be nimble to keep up with consumer demand.”

Rapid Deployment. New products and innovation are being brought to market much more quickly. Brands, products, and services must keep up. “Time to market and corporate agility are the new capabilities to focus on.”

In April, I’ll be one of the keynote speakers for the Multi-Channel Franchising Conference in Las Vegas. Franchising.com recently caught up with me for an interview on some of the issues that I’ll be focusing upon. Here’s the interview!

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Jim Carroll loves to predict where the world is going. As such, he has become one of the world’s leading international futurists, trends, and innovation experts. His analysis digs deep into topics such as technology, business model change, fast paced innovation, and global challenges and growth. He’s been in demand with such clients as Northrop Grumman, Visa, Rockwell Collins, Lincoln Financial, and the Walt Disney organization. He was featured as an innovation expert on the global CNBC show, the Business of Innovation, and was named one of four leading sources for insight into innovation by Business Week magazine.

He’ll be bringing his latest insight to the Multi-Unit Franchising Conference this April at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas where he’ll be a keynote speaker.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Carroll and posed some franchise-specific questions. Here’s what he shared with us.

In terms of the future, what do multi-unit franchisees have to fear?

Well, there’s nothing to fear really, if you view future trends as being full of opportunities rather than as a threat. I find that many of my clients think about future trends and think, “oh, this can’t be good, it’s going to be pretty difficult to deal with.” The first step with getting into an innovative frame of mind is to think of every trend as an opportunity, not a threat.

So let’s think about a few of them. Consider social networks, there are huge impacts on how consumers perceive, interact, and provide feedback on brands. Obviously, if you don’t pay attention to the trend, it can turn into a big negative for you. But if you get involved, engage the new consumer, and continually experiment with new ways of taking advantage of this new form of interaction, then you are doing the right thing.

What kinds of things do multi-unit franchisees have to look forward to?

Oh, there are just so many opportunities to grow the business. We’ve got all kind of new location-intelligence oriented opportunities – people walking around with mobile devices that have GPS capabilities built in. Think about instant couponing apps that might encourage customers to drop in and purchase something. There are new methods of getting the brand image out there – we’ve seen so many franchise groups with successful viral videos. For restaurant franchisees, there’s the rapid emergence of the new health-conscious consumer and opportunities to reshape the menu to take advantage of that. I look around and I just see a countless number of methods by which a franchisee can run the business better, grow, and transform their business. And that’s what innovation is all about!

What kinds of things do multi-unit franchisees need to be doing in their businesses right now?

Investing in experiential capital. Look, there’s so much new stuff happening out there, and markets are changing so quickly, that the only way to get ahead is to try out a lot of new ideas.

In a world in which Apple generates 60 percent of its revenue from products that didn’t exist four years ago, it’s critically important that an organization constantly enhance the skill, capabilities, and insight of their people.

They do this by constantly working on projects that might have an uncertain return and payback – but which will provide in-depth experience and insight into change. It’s by understanding change that opportunity is defined, and that’s what experiential capital happens to be. In the future, it will be one of the most important assets you can possess.

What kinds of things should multi-unit franchisees stop doing?

Making excuses. Look, it’s all too easy to avoid the future and not do the tough things. Stop using what I call the “innovation killers,” phrases like:

• “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?”

What can multi-unit franchisees do better right now and how?

Change their attitude to try new things. Innovation is critical. Innovative companies act differently. In these organizations ideas flow freely throughout, subversion is a virtue and success and failure are championed. There are many, many leaders who encourage innovative thinking, rather than managers who run a bureaucracy. There are creative champions throughout the organization – people who thrive on thinking about how to do things differently. Ideas get approval and endorsement rather than stating “it can’t be done,” people ask, “how could we do this?” People know that in addition to R&D, innovation is also about ideas to “run the business better, grow the business, and transform the business.”

The word “innovation” is found in most job descriptions as a primary area of responsibility, and a percentage of annual remuneration is based upon achievement of explicitly defined innovation goals The fact is, every organization should be able to develop innovation as a core virtue — if they aren’t, they certainly won’t survive the rapid rate of change that envelopes us today.

While clearing off the desk today, I came across a planning document for a keynote for fairly major organization I did quite some time ago.

It’s a good summary of the issues that my keynote would have to address, and the potential innovation solutions that emerged. This particular organization was in the retail space; through conversations with several member of global management, we built a list of the key issues that I would focus in on my talk: these being the key issues that the leadership believed that the rest of the team need to be thinking hard about.

• faster emergence of new store infrastructure : i.e. contact-less payment technology is now emerging with Blackberry, iPhone’s, and other smart-phones. What happens when this occurs on customer interactions ; how quickly can a retail / restaurant organization scale to deal with it (i.e. rapid technological innovation is continuing unabated despite the economic downturn, and things like this will have a big impact on how business is done!)
• faster challenges in terms of freshness of brand image: today, with the impact of the Net and social networks, a brand isn’t what you say it it — it’s what “they” say it is
• new influencers: consumers are influenced in terms of choice in ways that go beyond traditional advertising. For example, consider the Celebrity Baby Blog (yes, there is such a thing), and how it has come to influence fashion trends for infant wear
• new forms of brand interaction: the concept of the “location intelligence professional” — corporations are deploying strategies that integrate location into the virtual web, interacting with above mentioned cell phones that provide for in-store product uplift
• rapid emergence of store architecture issues: intelligent infrastructures – McDonald’s has a $100 million energy saving plan that is based on IP based management of in store energy We’re also seeing the rapid emergence of green / eco design principles that provide more opportunities for savings
• faster evolution of consumer taste preference : new food trends go from upscale restaurant to broad deployment in as little as 18 months now, compared to 5 years ago; consumer choice changes faster, requiring faster innovation!
• faster idea cycles. New concepts, ideas, business strategies, advertising concepts happen faster because of greater global collaboration ; brands have to keep up with the idea cycle

Next, my keynote would touch on how the client could be more innovative in dealing with fast paced trends? Some potential methods include:

• the concept of upside / down innovation – customer oriented innovation
• generational collaboration – how to unleash the creativity of Gen-Connect
• concept of business agility: how do we structure ourselves to act faster
• theme of experiential capital : how can we take on more risk oriented projects simply to build our expertise in new areas such as social networking
• fast, global, scalable project oriented teams : how do we learn to collaborate better internally
• innovation “factories”: how can we scale successful internal projects faster to achieve greater benefits
• partnership oriented innovation: how do collaborate on innovation with our suppliers and others in the supply chain?

Some of the conclusions that came from the global discussions in the lead up to the event? These were responses draw from the audience through the use of online text message polling:

• we need to learn how to innovate more locally but globally scale
• a better “innovation factory” to rollout is critical
• can’t compromise speed to market with structure/bureaucracy
• spread R&D out
• collaborate to a greater degree on an international basis
• innovation should be part of reward and structure
• more brand clarity, particularly given muddiness of impact of social networking
• need a more forceful commitment ($, structure, rewards, goals) to innovation

From this, I built my keynote so that it had a structure of “what are the issues,” “what do we need to about them in terms of potential responses”, and “what are some of the organizational changes we need to make to deal with them.”

It turned out to be a great talk!

Here’s a clip from my keynote for the Human Capital Institute Summit in Tucson, Arizona.

In the clip, I speak about the issue of innovation in the context of increasing business velocity – with examples from the automotive, food and retail, and travel industries.

A key question that every innovative organization must address is how do we prepare, position and organize ourselves to deal with increasingly fast rates of change.

Yesterday I spoke to several thousand people as the closing keynote speaker for the 2010 Fresh Summit for the Produce Marketing Association in Orlando. I focused on several issues, including the rapid changes occurring in the world of retail and consumer change.

But in addition, my message included insight into how innovative people focus on opportunity, not threat; on growth, not fear. It’s an important message right now, given the continued economic volatility.

Coincident with my keynote, the Produce Marketing Association published an article in Fresh magazine.

Are you guilty of aggressive indecision?

Fresh Magazine, Fall 2010

Acknowledged as a leading global futurist, Jim Carroll is also an author and motivator with a massive global blue chip client list. He helps transform growth-oriented organizations into high-velocity innovation heroes.

How many times in the past two years have you heard this sentiment: We’re not going to pursue that opportunity right now due to the current business climate? Jim Carroll calls this mindset aggressive indecision, and believes it is a trap that all too regularly blocks progress and ensnares opportunity.

Jim Carroll considers this most recent recession the fifth downturn he’s experienced, a sentiment that suggests he is a seasoned Boomer who has been around long enough to pos- sess a decent perspective on the cyclical nature of markets. And, while he acknowledges that every downturn has had its challenges, he reminds us that each has also been followed by a recovery.

But rather than simply saying to look on the bright side, Jim points to what he calls Long-term Transformative Trends. “These are the big issues that will impact our lives 15 years down the road,” he outlines. He invites us to calm our fears, to step back from the precipice, and take a look at what these big changes mean and the opportunities they present.

“I can’t be a futurist and be a pessimist,” states Carroll. “When I look ahead, I see nothing but opportunity. We are constantly witnessing the birth of new industries, new jobs, new careers. These transformative trends represent huge potential.”

So just what are some of these transformative trends? Carroll covers five here:

Healthcare: With an increased focus on healthy lifestyles, a greater emphasis will be placed on managing diet by in- creasing the use of fruits and vegetables. This represents enormous opportunities for the produce industry to create innovative ways to differentiate and market existing products and come up with new varieties and packaging solutions.

Demographics: Ethnicities will represent a larger percentage of the population, which will result in different demands. Carroll tells the story of two farmers, one of whom continued to plant the same crops year after year, even though he was losing money. The other one saw that there were more ethnic groups demanding more egg- plant, so he switched his crops to eggplant, resulting in his unprecedented prosperity.

Ethical Packaging: There will continue to be a push to create more efficient packaging that has less impact on the environment. Wal-Mart has set a goal date of 2015 to be completely envi- ronmentally friendly in its packaging. Other companies are following suit.

Retailer/Consumer Relationships: Citing companies such as Apple and Trader Joe’s, Carroll notes that the retail landscape is changing in terms of brand loyalty and customer relationship. As social media infiltrates our culture, mobile technologies with apps that generate electronic coupons will influence pur- chasing decisions, as will greater in-store promotions.

Smaller Niche Markets: With more single consumers living in large cities, an opportunity will be created for portion size, consumer relationship. It doesn’t take a social scientist to see that large department stores are losing market share to smaller niche stores.

“Twenty years from now, we [Boomers] will have less of an impact on what happens in the world,” admits Carroll. “If we can acknowledge that the world is changing, step away from the fear, and make the decision to adapt,” he believes that the opportunities are virtually limitless

I just came from giving a keynote for the annual conference of a major customer loyalty organization, with the talk focused on some of key trends impacting the world of retail today.

There’s certainly a lot going on and a lot to think about. Extremely rapid business model change, the emergence of new competitors, ongoing consumer confidence volatility, rapid product turnover and faster product life-cycles.

So what are they really, really worried about? Let’s put in context the people I had in the room — senior VP’s and managers in major retailers representing several billions in revenue in a wide variety of markets, including pharmaceutical, grocery, consumer goods and electronics. Not to mention quite a few bankers, responsible for credit card portfolio’s, loyalty programs and other customer oriented programs and infrastructure.

Given all that, the top of mind issue is — new methods of customer interaction.

Look at the poll results below. The issue stands out far and away as the most important concern of the day!

Hence, my keynote was bang-on. I didn’t touch too much on the social networking phenomena, as this type of crowd has been drowning in social-networking Powerpoints.

My focus was on interactivity, location, and intelligence,, and the extremely rapid emergence of new forms of in-store interaction and product sales uplift. Things like digital signage, in-store electronic promotional displays, iPod based coups. A flood of new stuff and new ideas that promote new ways of

Listen folks, I know I’ve said it here before, but I’ll say it again.

2010 is the year of location, combined with mobility, and it’s happening faster than you think.

I’m pumped about this topic and the reaction, so I’ve rolled this into a new keynote description:

Location is the New Intelligence: Customer Interaction in the Era of Pervasive Mobile

We’re at the leading edge of the merger of three perfect trends: the rapid and massive emergence of a massive mobile infrastructure with increasingly intelligent devices. Pervasive location awareness as a results of GPS and location intelligence/mapping trends in those very same tools. And a consumer mindset that is increasingly open to new forms of interaction. The result is massive business model disruption, absolutely transformative market change, and complete obliteration of old assumptions as to the nature of the customer relationship. Smart, innovative super-heroes know that this is an unprecedented time to jump on the emergence of location as the new intelligence, in order to provide for new ways of product uplift in the retail space, changing the very nature of customer loyalty through new forms of interaction, and enhancing existing one-to-0ne conversations through a more direct, distinct and fascinating new form of location based relationships. Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert Jim Carroll is setting the retail, marketing and advertising world on fire with his fast paced insight into one of the most important trends to shape the customer-business relationship in the last few decades. Move over social networking — location is the new intelligence!

Read more: Location is the new intelligence

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:

More information

• 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!
• Costs increase: all this is happening in a world in which producers and retailers are faced with a rapid increase in uncontrollable costs…energy, plastics, you name it! Margins are being squeezed and pressured as a result. Operational excellence is no longer optional!
• Focus on collaborative relationships: The key to innovation in retail today can be found in collaborative relationships and partnerships between packaging companies, consumer products and brands, and retailers. ! Noted Paul Moss, British Bakeries Divisional Marketing Director, “We have more to talk about than price.” No one wants to fight in a brand sector that is involved in a race to the bottom, but that’s what happens when everyone focuses on price. Shift the equation with your partners, and you’ll find a way out.
• Remember — the package is the brand: Heinz, StarKist and other industry leaders have learned that packaging innovation, driven by new methodologies, ideas and technologies, has become the secret to brand image in many sectors, because it permits a shift of value and customer perception in ways that haven’t previously been seen. Think upside-down-Ketchup. If you aren’t innovating with packaging, you aren’t in the game
• Hyper-innovation is key: Throughout the consumer products world, we are witnessing faster time to market in every single sector. The concept of a product lifecycle is disappearing as products come to market and thrive for but short micro-bursts of time. Make sure you’ve got the agility on your team you need to cope with this reality, and you might survive
• Get used to rapid change. Consumer desires, needs and demands will continue change at an ever more furious pace, often in ways that won’t make sense, particularly with the impact of social networks. Don’t despair from it: learn from it. Take the recent race to value-oriented products as a result of the recession. Did you act fast enough? What organizations sclerosis blocked your ability for quick change? And what should you do to fix it?
• Capture the insight of creatively new competitors – constantly: Admit this: there are likely going to be a lot of folks out there who are a lot more creative than you are. They’ll beat the pants off you all the time with quick short bursts of tactical success, while you are still busy marshalling your forces. Rather than losing sleep over their success, study them! Learn from them! And then capitalize by doing what they do – and do it better. Rapid creativity in a time of constant change is the name of the game, and you’d do best to work to obtain the same skills and insight that your best competitors have developed.
• Ride the wave of continuous business model innovation: If someone is reinventing your business model, reinvent it faster! In retail, we are seeing constant experimentation with store formats, brand partnering, in-store displays, logistics and tracking studies, and countless other new ways of doing things. Get on board the tornado of change in retail and ride it for all it is worth. You should develop a team that has a finely-tuned radar for unique trends, experiments, success stories and innovations. They’re swirling around you continuously, they are constantly reinventing the world of retail on a minute by minute basis – and you’ve got to understand them and capitalize upon them.

I’ve got quite a few keynotes coming up with the consumer, food, packaged goods and retail sectors in the next several months, one of them being the Professional Retail Store Maintenance Association in Orlando, Florida next month.

The topic for that keynote will be: Where Do We Go From Here? Why Innovators Will Rule in the Post-Recession Economy – And How You Can Join Them.

Here’s an extract from the keynote description:

Jim Carroll has carefully studied what it is that organizations are doing to position themselves for post-recession growth.

One thing they are certainly doing is positioning themselves for innovative solutions to complex problems. When it comes to retail store maintenance there is no doubt that we are in the era of fast-paced solutions, whether its related to intelligent building management solutions, the rapid evolution of in-store layout and design principles; innovative environmental and green technology solutions; or new in-store
customer engagement methodologies, all of which impact in-store maintenance professionals in new and dramatic ways.

In his keynote, Jim will share his insight into the key trends impacting the retail sector, and how maintenance professionals can take a seat at the “strategy table,” providing unique solutions and guidance to the management team by adapting to fast paced trends.

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.

My January / February CA Magazine article is out; entitled “Stranger than Science Fiction,” it examines a major theme that has been part of many of my keynotes throughout 2009: what happens to your industry when the pace of innovation is no longer set within the industry itself, but rather, is set by the blistering rate of change as set by Silicon Valley?

Stranger than Science Fiction

by Jim Carroll, CAMagazine, January 2010

Is your industry in the midst of a transition at Silicon Valley speed? If it isn’t, it could be very soon, because I’m seeing it happen wherever I go. Take the global credit card industry. For a long time, the pace of innovation has been relatively slow and deliberate; aside from the chip found in your new credit card, it’s still been about the same old piece of plastic.

All that is about to change, because as I observed at a recent global financial conference, it is quite likely that our cellphones, BlackBerrys and iPhones will become the credit card of the not-too distant future. When you enter a store, you’ll punch a code into your iPhone to confirm the transaction, and you’ll get an instant receipt. As this transition occurs, the financial payment industry will find it has suddenly lost control of its innovation agenda. Rather than having the future figured out in boardrooms of bank towers, control will have been wrested away by someone in Silicon Valley who innovates at hyper-speed.

The trend is happening everywhere I look, even in the world of sports. I spoke to 4,000 professionals at the National Recreation and Parks Association’s annual conference in Salt Lake City. I challenged the audience – most of them responsible for civic or state recreational activities and park infrastructure – to think about the baseball bat of 2015 or 2020. From my vantage point, it’s going to look the same, but it’s likely to have a variety of sensors built into it that will provide players with instant feedback regarding the strength and accuracy of their swing; the same sensors will trigger their nearby cellphone to automatically capture a video of their time at the plate.

Retail will change at the same fast and furious pace. I’ll walk into a store, and behind the scenes, the store will recognize me through an interaction with my mobile device. That will cause a plasma TV in the corner to start displaying a customized advertisement for me based on prior shopping history, at the same time I’m zapped a coupon for a 20% discount for a few items over on aisle 12.

Farfetched? I don’t think so. Creepy? To us maybe, but perhaps not to the next generation. When we think of the strangeness of the future and our likely negative reaction to some of what might come next, we have to remember this: it’s not bad, it’s just different.

The key point is that entire industries will be swept along at a raging rate of innovation. All of a sudden, those people who have managed in-store design, layout and promotions will find their old skills don’t transfer as easily to this strange new world as the digital denizens reshape the customer experience.

Even the slow, staid senior citizen housing industry is being impacted. Five to 10 years out, we’ll have a lot of baby boomers living out their golden years in regular homes as opposed to retirement homes (simply because society won’t be able to afford it). Medical professionals will manage their care from afar using a vast array of bio-0connectivity medical devices; sensors embedded throughout the home will detect if their behaviour patterns are out of the norm and will trigger an alert. Science fiction? Research into this type of sensor-application is well underway at the University of Missouri.

Here’s a good way to think about innovating at Silicon Valley speed: in my home office, I have an MP3 player from somewhere around 1999. It can hold about three or four songs. It seemed cool at the time. Today, it’s positively a joke compared with the modern iPod.

Could the fundamentals of your industry as quickly become something like a joke?

———

Think about this article, and then ask yourself:

• what are the big transformations that are going to occur in my industry as Silicon Valley Velocity takes over?
• where will there be business disruption as result?
• how can I be a disruptor, and establish opportunity?
• how will my target customers change – how can I reach new customers — how can I build new customer revenue that hasn’t existed before?

Think of many more questions like that, and you’ve found countless opportunities for innovation.

More information:

• Video: Pervasive connectivity
• Video: Location intelligence and the future of recreation
• Video The future of seniors care ” “BIG challenges, transformations, opportunities!
• Blog entry Reinventing the future with transformative technology</b>

A Key Trend for 2010! A huge number of global organiztions have me in to challenge their team to think about how to deal with the increasing speed of change in the world of business.

Here’s a clip from a Las Vegas keynote, in which I speak to the topic of business velocity. I believe that in 2010, a greater number of organizations will need to deal with ever increasing rates of change!

There are two types of organizations in the world today: those that have retrenched, shut down their idea machines, and are trying to coast through the recession. Then there are those who are making sure that they keep their team focused on the future, opportunities, and the need for innovative thinking.

I’ve been confirmed to be the opening keynote speaker for the next global leadership/franchise conference for Burger King, one of the largest QSR chains in the world.

This is really quite an honor, and I think is indicative that my theme that “organizations need to stay on the innovative edge despite the recession” resonates strongly.

Every industry is changing at a furious pace, and the quick service food industry is no exception. We’re seeing rapid change in terms of branding and marketing, particularly in terms of outreach and interaction with the new mobile consumer. There’s a lot of fast paced change in terms of consumer preferences. If we think about issues of restaurant design and construction, there are fast and furious developments in terms of energy usage and environmental footprint. The list goes on and on – there is no shortage of opportunity for new and innovative thinking.

I’ll set the stage by challenging the audience to focus on growth, focus on opportunities, and think about how innovation can become a core component of how they progress into the future.

I wrote about these trends in a previous blog post, High velocity change in the food/consumer products sector.

(p.s. I found the photo on iStockPhoto, and dreamed up the “hunting innovation” title. It seemed kind of fun!)

More information

• Read about High velocity change in the food/consumer products sector

I was thrilled to be the opening keynote speaker for Yum! Brands 2009 Global Leadership Meeting. It’s the world’s largest restaurant company.

The organization, the owner of such iconic brands such as KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, certainly finds itself in the midst of high-velocity change. There are fast paced trends in terms of new branding challenges and marketing methodologies (think Web 2.0), consumer behavior, and many other issues. Yet, there are tremendous opportunities for growth through innovation.

My keynote addressed a variety of trends which are impacting the QSR (quick service restaurant) industry today:

• opportunities for global growth. Chain restaurants account for but 1% of China’s commercial food service sales, and in Europe, it is but 2%. (Compare that to the US, which is at 50%.) Clearly, growth will come from continued expansion into global markets.

• rapid emergence of new methods of customer interaction. For example, in the next few years, we will likely see the emergence of contact-less payment technology, as our credit card infrastructure migrates to Blackberry, iPhone, and smart phones. This presents new opportunities in terms of customer contact.
• new methods of brand and product promotion. Organizations must be able to scale to meet the demands of new intelligent infrastructure, and that will require a tremendous amount of innovation. Consider text messaging: Subway is working with a “pRomo” program that provides for remote retrieval of mobile coupon offers. With 147 million people already interacting globally on social networks via their mobile phones, there are tremendous opportunities for new methods of achieving brand and product awareness.
• rapid change in consumer choice. Take the issue of health concerns and balanced diet. Fresh-cut snack foods grew from $6.8 billion in to $10.5 billion in a short time, according to the International Fresh-Cut Produce Association. Innovation comes from changing product mix to keep up with fast-changing consumers.
• rapidly emerging new menus and taste trends. It’s estimated that new flavors now move from upscale kitchens to chain restaurants in 12 months, compared to 36 months 5 years ago. This means that faster innovation is not a luxury – it’s a necessity. Change faster, and you’ve got new growth-based products.
• fast emerging industry issues. Consider the “greening of the industry.” The Grille Zone, a restaurant chain in Boston, generates about 15 pounds of waste per restaurant, compared to an industry average of 275 pounds. The Green Restaurant Association took 14 years to go to 90 restaurants; it’s now at close to 1,000, with thousands more going through the certification program. Growth can come from evolving a brand so that it matches the social desires of the customer base.

What I stress at events like this is that organizations need to realize that innovation isn’t just about “big innovation” — the launch of new products and services. There’s also the issue of “fast innovation” — in which success is defined by the ability of the organization to respond to rapidly changing products, markets, business models, economic trends, competitive moves, consumer trends and just about everything else. Innovation today is moving from more than just “products” to process, structure, capability, and speed.

Is the industry innovating? You bet: in October 2008, the US QSR market saw the biggest number of “Limited Time Offers,” a unique method of increasing sales, with 547 new menu items (up 40% from the prior year. Noted Obesity, Wellness, Fitness Week magazine in November 2008, “operators appear quite open to partnering with suppliers on new products with shorter lead times.”

Here’s the thing: in my keynotes, I focus on growth opportunities. There are enough people out there who are so focused on the doom and gloom of the economy, that they lose sight of the fact that if they focus on fast innovation — and keeping up with rapid trends — they can discover all kinds of new ways to grow the business.

Faster is the new fast. Think growth. Think innovation.

In the last week, Europe has suffered through a dreadful cold spell. A huge polar arctic air mass is coming into North America next week. It could very well snow in Washington on or around Inauguration day.

My family and I ski every weekend, and I love the cold.

There are many others who don’t. And this cold winter, combined with dark economic clouds, provides people with a degree of gloom.

That’s why innovation and thinking about future trends is important! And always after winter, there’s a springtime!

I’m thrilled that I’ve been confirmed to be the closing keynote speaker for the American Nursery and Landscape Association annual conference, aka as the 2009 Management Clinic.

The cool thing is that this is a repeat booking; this organization had me in for another event in 2006 in Vail. It’s always a thrill to know that you’ve had such an impact on people that they bring you back for more.

My focus for this closing keynote is how to go forward; innovate; adapt; find new opportunity; and get in the right frame of mind to succeed in tumultuous times.

As spring comes along, people will find solace in the warmth and comfort of the sun. They’ll visit their local garden store, and will gaze at their backyard and think about whether some work needs to be done. They might not spend as much as in prior years, and their purchasing patterns will be different. But they will be there, and the key to capitalizing upon this will be to understand the new emerging consumer mindset as it might exist this spring. I’m starting to do some detailed research on that trend now (as I do for every event I go into) and by early February should have a good handle on what comes next in this sector.

Think GROWTH!

More information:

• Read the 2009 ANLA Management Clinic
• 2006 posting Trends Shaping the Future of Commercial Horticulture

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.

A few weeks ago, I keynoted an event for the Readers Digest Food & Entertainment group (who publish Everyday with Rachel Ray, and own and manage the popular online social network recipe site, AllRecipes.com) in New York City. The audience consisted of executives and creative types from Madison Ave advertising agencies, food and packaging companies and other organizations.

They’ve released a summary of the overall day; in addition to my own insight, participants included Katie Lee Joel (pictured on the right), author of the Comfort Table; as well as “supermarket guru” Phil Lampert.

I spoke to a variety of trends that are impacting retail and food markets; for example, the trend in which in store display technology — a “new influencer” — will come to influence how shoppers shop, faster than we think:

This new shopper is not only more scattered and more connected, but also faster — scanning 12 feet of shelf space on average per second.

In-store influencers will now evolve at the pace of the iPhone and the Blackberry, challenging marketers to keep up with the pace. Faster is the new innovation and innovation isn’t just about new product design – it’s about responding to fast-paced consumer change.

Marketing Implication: Marketers must work harder than ever to capture the attention of the consumer and make a connection. Brands must keep up with the pace of consumer change in order to stay relevant.

 

More information:

Read the RDA Food & Entertainings Consumer Food Symposium summary (PDF)