Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

Some months back, the folks at DeVry University interviewed me as part of a series of articles they were doing to focus on the new careers of tomorrow.

The future of long-distance trucking might look more like these “road trains,” as Carroll calls them. These are autonomous vehicles that can navigate long distances without direct operation, with a team of skilled technicians operating them from afar

Their article arrived online today; you can read the original article here, or below.

Fueling America’s Future: New Energy Solutions, New Careers

As U.S. energy independence looms on the horizon, Americans need to start rethinking and transitioning our own energy usage.

Big changes are afoot for U.S. energy. And when energy changes, we all change with it.

American manufacturing, transportation, and technological infrastructures are all deeply affected by, and entangled with, how smartly we produce and consume energy.

According to the International Energy Association, we’re entering an energy renaissance: Its 2012 World Energy Report concludes that the United States will become self-sustaining, in terms of net energy produced, by 2035.[1] Part of that will mean an emergence of new career opportunities for people in the energy sector.

When we try to imagine what U.S. energy may look like in 2035, Jim Carroll, a futurist and energy expert, points to a few clues from very real energy trends emerging right now, changes which include new ways of transporting goods around the country, and new ways in which we think about energy infrastructure and workforces.

Whether we’re talking about renewable or natural energy, efficiency of use is approaching faster because of the acceleration of science, says Carroll, whose many books on innovation include “The Future Belongs to Those Who Are Fast.”

“Scientific knowledge happens and emerges faster than ever before because all of these scientists are plugged together,” he says. “Which means the new scientific discoveries in all these fields are faster, which again leads to higher levels of production in renewables, natural gas and oils.”

On the Road

The American long haul trucking industry has been dependent on traditional and diesel gasoline for decades. But not for much longer, according to Carroll.

“Energy companies are working to retrofit long-distance trucks for natural gas,” Carroll says. But that might be just an interim step toward a brand new paradigm for this industry. Carroll says that technologists are already asking questions like: “How do we use robotics, radar and GPS to link together seven or 10 trucks in a unit that can self drive down the road in a way that is energy efficient?”

The future of long-distance trucking might look more like these “road trains,” as Carroll calls them. These are autonomous vehicles that can navigate long distances without direct operation, with a team of skilled technicians operating them from afar.

A change like this requires us to think about reskilling the American workforce. Truck-driving jobs could potentially disappear, but the need for skilled technicians is growing considerably.

These emerging jobs will be in the management of what Jim Carroll calls “highly sophisticated highway control infrastructure systems,” which will arise from the need to redesign highways for smarter fueled vehicles with better efficiency.

And with smarter infrastructure for highways, there will be greater opportunities for innovating how personal cars are fueled. Many analysts have decried that the electric car is dead, but perhaps it just needs to be rethought. According to Carroll, the renewable battery model, which could take up to eight hours to charge, is outdated.

“Instead, let’s build a battery station that you drive your car into,” Carroll says. “A hydraulic arm reaches in and opens the underneath of your car, takes your battery and places in a brand new fresh one. Thirty seconds and you’re completely refueled and ready to go.”

Reshaping American Infrastructure

The same development is already occurring in many American industries: Think about how manufacturing jobs have shifted from assembly lines to technologically advanced robotics. Or how advanced oil drilling methodologies—hydraulic fracturing or horizontal drilling—have increased domestic oil production due to the efficiency of the processes. These process shifts require rethinking whole infrastructures, and with that, a need for a workforce with new skills.

These are major shifts, but small changes in energy consumption can also showcase how Americans are rethinking their energy consumption. Carroll mentions the Nest Learning Thermostat—a smart thermostat that adjusts the temperature in your house depending on whether you’re home, the time of day, and the outside weather.

A smart thermostat would just be part of the future of smart and energy-efficient homes, where frozen smoke—an expensive but very efficient form of matter—could be used in home insulation. Or, in a concept by the New York architects Cook + Fox, the walls of the home may be biomorphic—practically lizard-like—and able to better absorb sunlight and retain energy depending on the weather.

But, again, the future of energy depends as much on such refinements as bigger innovations that are already being conceived. Some analysts predict that homes will be equipped with hydrogen fuel cells that will create low-emission electricity via a chemical process that combines hydrogen and oxygen.

While there are many different views on when the United States may achieve energy independence, the prevailing opinion is that it will happen—and soon. But independence depends not only from producing more and consuming less energy: The next round of American energy innovation is also linked to scientific and technological advances as well as perhaps the most important feature—a highly skilled workforce.

In May, I was the opening keynote speaker for Manufacturing Innovation 2012, held in Orlando, California. In the room were a thousand or so folks from throughout the manufacturing sector throughout the US. This is one of MANY manufacturing conferences that I’ve opened — I’ve developed a reputation in the sector for what is really going on, without any political spin.

Here I am speaking about the next generation -today’s uber-connected generation –  and how their attitudes towards careers and new business models — are coming to reshape the world of business startups and manufacturing.

This kid is soon be the next lawyer in your legal practice - or the lawyer you hire to support your legal issues. Are you ready to deal with him? He's wired, uber-connected, collaborative, fast, and is unlike any lawyer you have ever known!

I’ve been remiss in blogging – 20+ keynotes since January, so I’ve been on the road. I’ve got lots to report on what I’ve been focused on in a huge range of different industries.

Back at the start of this travel odyssey, I found myself in Palm Springs, California, as the opening speaker for the 2012 California Community Associations Institute annual conference. In the room were several hundred lawyers and legal professionals supporting condominium and other community developments.

My focus? The key trends that would impact their role, both as lawyers and as individuals involved with complex real estate, construction and building design issues. So I did my homework, and put together what I thought was a great keynote. Certainly the instant Twitter feedback emphasized that I likely hit a home run.

I addressed numerous issues — including what will happen to the legal profession when the next generation of kids — who have grown up never knowing a world without an iPhone — enter the legal profession. Everything changes….

And here’s the fun part of my job — its’ always fascinating to find, after the keynote, the impact that I might have made on some people in the room. Which leads me to a post I found at the blog for Goodman, Shapiro and Lombardi LLC, a firm specializing in this industry, but based in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

After a brief intro, the post, headlined “Embracing Technology: Insights from the CAI’s Law Seminar,” gets right to the point:

I was somewhat skeptical about what I’d glean from the keynote speaker, Jim Carroll, a corporate consultant who describes himself as a “futurist.”

 I’m often greeted by such a reaction. But that’s my job — I spend a huge amount of time thinking about future trends, undertaking research in dozens of industries, meet hundreds of executives at the events that I speak at and prepare for — and synthesize all of this into a concise 45 minute to 1 hour overview of what the folks in the room should be thinking about. In this case, my keynote focused on two big issues: the future of the legal profession, and the key trends that would impact the construction/condominium industry and communities going forward into the future.

After that introduction, the blog post goes on:

“Turns out he is recognized worldwide as a “thought leader” on global trends and has helped many companies, including NASA and the PGA, transform their businesses through creativity and innovation.”

This is true — you can read about my keynote for NASA in this post, and a simple search for PGA on my Web site reveals all kinds of posts on my keynote for the “largest working sports organization in the world.” You don’t get to to do my type of job if you aren’t on your “A-Game” all the time!

So what did he think? This makes for a good read:

Part of my keynote in Palm Springs focused on my "10 Big Trends for the Legal Profession" - read the PDF by clicking on the image.

“Among the intriguing facts he imparted was a study citing that 65% of today’s preschoolers will work in jobs and careers that do not even exist yet.  He piqued our interest with other obvious-yet-provocative statements… our kids have never known TV without a remote and have never heard the phrase, “Please get up and change the channel.”

It bears emphasizing that he was talking to a roomful of lawyers – people who, by definition, practice in a conservative profession averse to change or novelty. Indeed, much of the law is based on precedent and the notion that if it hasn’t been done before, it probably can’t be done now.

Yet our challenge, at this particular moment in history, is to get ahead of the curve, to dare to be groundbreaking.  This may seem threatening, but it’s a message that should resonate within our industry as we think about what this means in concrete terms. On the horizon, I see more green buildings; eco-design; solar panels; and electric cars, among other innovations.  There will certainly be legal implications for all this, and we need to be ready.  In short, we need to think creatively and to embrace change.

And there’s my home run from the keynote – right there: “In short, we need to think creatively and to embrace change” and “Dare to be groundbreaking.” My job is to get people thinking about the future, and challenging them to think and act differently to deal with an ever faster rate of complex change.

It’s always a thrill to look back to see that I’ve pulled it off!

Read more in another post I wrote: “What Goes Into Building a Great Keynote?”  

If knowledge is doubling every eight years, no single person can keep up with it. That fosters greater fragmentation of skills, and thus greater competition in the marketplace for niche-oriented skills.

I’m working away at preparing for a keynote for an ice-cream and dairy company today. Not that this has anything to do with the topic of the “future of knowledge.”

But going through some old slide decks while preparing, I came across a list I used a year ago for a keynote that summarized my thoughts about the “future of knowledge.”

I’ve written extensively about all of these topics online or speak to them at various keynotes, particularly in the education sector. In essence, we’re living in a period of time that is witnessing these trends unfold at blinding speed, all related to the evolution of knowledge.

1. Rapid knowledge obsolescence
2. Rapid knowledge emergence
3. Disappearance of existing careers due to 1)
4. Rapid emergence of new careers due to 2)
5. An ongoing need for continuous knowledge replenishment because of 1-4
6. The migration of knowledge generation further away from academia (i.e. community colleges, high end manufacturing skills) because of the need for faster new knowledge deployment
7. A massively increased challenge from overseas knowledge generation
8. The fast emergence of new micro-careers because of specialized knowledge
9. An economy that succeeds through knowledge deployment
10. A fundamental transformation in knowledge delivery

The folks at PollEverywhere — the service that I use to conduct live text message polling while on stage — have just run an interview with me over on their blog as to how I utilize the tool.

I’m reposting it here since it does provide a good overview of just how wonderful and interactive their service is.

Jim Carroll is recognized one of the world’s leading international futurist, trends & innovation experts — and he’s got the client list to prove it, having provided his insight to such organizations as NASA; Lockheed Martin; National Australian Bank; Pfizer; Diners Club; HJ Heinz; and PPG.

And he’s a raving fan of Poll Everywhere – using the service in a huge range of global Fortune 1000 and other organizations as well as countless association events, such as being the opening keynote speaker for 4,000 people at the annual National Recreation and Parks Association annual conference in Salt Lake City.

“I’ve been using [Poll Everywhere] on stage as part of my keynote for at least two years, and the service has truly helped in building a live, rich interactive experience with my audience. I’ve used it in small CEO level sessions with just 20 people, and in large scale Las Vegas events where you’ve got to be a top-notch performer to keep a crowd engaged – particularly if they are in rough shape after a night out on the town!”

One of Jim’s most thrilling moments came when he found himself on stage in front of 500 golf pros for the 94th Annual General Meeting of the Professional Golfers Association of America. “The management team at PGA invited me in to speak to their members on the need for innovative thinking. They never had an outside speaker in before, in their entire history. And so starting out by having them pull out their cell phones in order to gauge some of their opinions about change, the future and challenges facing the game — it certainly made them think! The reaction was powerful and pretty astounding, because I was able to quickly shape my talk to respond to their concerns.”

While Jim can speak to audiences of 7,000 in Las Vegas or Orlando, he recently found himself on stage in front of 250 kids at his son’s high school. “My son knows that I’ve had a strange job for the last 20 years – flying around all over the world to speak at events — and his teachers thought it would be great if I could come in and talk about the future of their careers.”

Jim’s opening comments, as found in his blog post “What happens when high school students are told to text” (www.jimcarroll.com/2011/04/what-happens-when-high-school-students-are-told-to-text) captures the fascinating dynamics that occur on the big screen when PollEverywhere grabs the minds and attention of the ultimately wired generation. “That was a pretty cool moment,” says Jim. “And it really should get anyone thinking about the future of education, corporate and association meetings, and conferences.”

Jim’s method of audience interaction has proven to be a big selling point with his client base —  so much so that he devotes a Web page to what he does. www.jimcarroll.com/keynotes-workshops/interaction-from-the-stage

Not only that, but his blog offers a sometimes fascinating look into his client base – consider the opinions offered up by a group of manufacturers from Ohio: “Report from the heartland: Is there life in manufacturing in Ohio? You bet!” http://jimcarroll.com/2011/02/report-from-the-heartland-is-there-life-in-…

“People want to interact and be engaged with a speaker. This tool lets me reach out to their minds and hearts, and make them immediately part of the talk. And it has certainly provided me with a very unique tool in getting across some of the key trends which are impacting the future and opportunity for innovation.”

“Daddy, is that from the olden days?” That’s a question I would often get from my sons when they were small — around 3 or 5 or 7 years old. (They’re 16 and 18 now…)

"Is that a thing from the olden days, daddy?"

Way back in 2003 or so, I wrote an article around their unique view on the world.

I called it “10 Things from the Olden Days.”

Today, August 2011, I’m getting a lot of media calls around the theme of innovation and the pace of change in the world; I think it is all part of the story angle having to do with Steve Job’s retirement, and the blistering pace of innovation that has existed at Apple.

I mentioned this article in one talk moments ago with a reporter, and realized that it might be a good thing to repost the article in full.

So in that spirit, I’ll repost the article.

With a lot of university graduations and commencements, it might be a good moment and pause to think about a degree that colleges and universities should be offering their students. That’s why I opined a number of years ago that we needed to prepare people for a fast paced future by letting them enroll in a Masters of Business Imagination Degree.

Grab the PDF to the right, and share it around. Here’s how it reads.

“In a time of rapid, disruptive change can be a death sentence – not only for organizations, but for the careers and skills of those who work there! It’s time to abandon the thinking that has had you anchored firmly to the past – and to shift your focus to the future, with enthusiasm, motivation and imagination.

You can do this by abandoning any pretense that the skills of yesterday will be important tomorrow. Figuratively and literally, it is time to move beyond the thinking that has led us to a world of MBA’s – Masters of Business Administration – and focus upon the critical skill that will take you into tomorrow. The world doesn’t need more administrators. It needs more MBI’s – Masters of Business Imagination!

What are the attributes? MBI’s:

• see things differently
• spur creativity in other people
• focus on opportunity, not threat
• refuse to accept the status quo
• bring ideas to life
• learn and unlearn
• refuse to say the word can’t
• accept challenges with passion and enthusiasm
• thrive on diversity
• challenge assumptions
• are solutions oriented

Grab the Masters of Business Imagination PDF

This is a long post.

Way back in 1997, I wrote a book called “Surviving the Information Age.” It’s now out of print, but a few copies are still at Amazon.

The book took a long look at the trends that would impact our future. I dug it out again today when CNN ran an article, “Say goodbye to full time jobs without benefits“, decrying the fact that with the recession coming to an end, we were seeing more jobs that were contract oriented rather than full time. Reading the article, it seems they see this as a shocking new trend.

D’uh! What planet are these people on. Countless people have been talking and writing about the significant structural change occurring in hiring practices. I’ve been speaking about it since 1987 when the New York Times wrote an editorial entitled “Tomorrow’s company won’t have walls.”

So in the spirit of going back in time, I offer up an extract from my Surviving the Information Age book, in which I wrote at length about the trend.

I think I’ll re-release the book as an e-Book. It’s uncanny how right it was.

Chapter 5 : From Surviving the Information Age, Jim Carroll, 1997

The world of business is going to be changed by computer technology, not only as a result of the interlinking of business computer systems – but through the emergence of brand new forms of corporate organization that are fuelled by the connections that computers permit between companies and people.

My own career experiences are similar to what many people went through with the recession and business upheaval of the 1980s and 1990s. A lot of people found themselves in circumstances that forced them to re-examine their lives and make some decisions with regard to their careers. Some responded marvelously and others did not.

In my case, I’ve discovered a new flexibility in my attitude towards work: I find that my attitude now is that I have to continually change myself and skills in order to keep one step ahead in the game. Since I don’t have a job, I have to constantly invent one – and make myself available as a temporary worker to any business on the planet.

* * * *

By understanding in general terms what is going to happen in the future in terms of new forms of business organization, you can prepare yourself to maintain your career — and hence your income — through a period of unprecedented change.

One of the most significant changes that is occurring is that the emergence of the wired world will result in a significant change in the relationship between a business organization and its employees.

In the good old days, there was a simple rule that the world of business operated by: people lived close to the place where they worked. Having a job meant that you got up every morning, went to work, put in your seven or eight hours and went back home.

With the wired world, of course, this is no longer true: the matter of location is quickly becoming irrelevant. With the explosion of telecommunication networks, fax machines, voice mail, e-mail and other methods of communication, the fact is that the work that people do is increasingly becoming accessible to the world of business from anywhere. You can expect this trend to continue. For all the hype and hyperbole, business is truly going global and will come to rely on the skills of people wherever they might be on the planet.

* * * *

Back in June of 1989, I read an article in the New York Times entitled “Tomorrow’s Company Won’t Have Walls.” The author did a wonderful job of putting into perspective the fact that traditional forms of business were coming to an end, primarily because of the expansion of global communication capabilities. The author foresaw that the world was already becoming one in which companies were more likely to hire expertise on a part-time, as-needed basis.

His prediction? In the future, because of increasing complexity in the business world, companies would find that they would need a lot of specialized expertise. And with ever-increasing sophistication in communication capabilities, they would find that they would be able to obtain this expertise not by hiring more employees, but by accessing that expertise from contract workers or consultants who happened to make their skills available through sophisticated telecommunications technologies wherever they might be.

Two years after I read that article, which caused me to begin to think about what was happening around me with the recession of 1990–1991, Fortune magazine ran a cover story called “The End of the Job.” The article predicted that we were entering an economy in which “jobs” are disappearing and in which people would make themselves available to companies for short-term assignments.

And by 1996, The End of Work, a book that focuses on the dramatic change occurring in our economy, rocketed to the top of the international best-seller lists. One of the key premises of the book? The economy of the temporary workforce is upon us.

In his book Job Shift, William Bridges (1994) coined the phrase “dejobbing” to describe this trend to non-standard employment. He says that workers are going to be more like independent business people (or one-person businesses) than conventional employees. They are likely to work for more than one client at a time and to move back and forth across organizational boundaries — being employed full-time for a period of time, then hired to do contract work, then hired to consult, and then brought back in-house (perhaps part-time this time) on a long-term assignment. He concludes that, although there will always be enormous amounts of work to do in our economy, the work will not be contained in that old familiar employment form of standard full-time, full-year jobs.

All these articles and books centre on two themes: the ever-increasing reliance on the temporary “workforce for hire” and a reduction in the duplication of skills throughout an organization.

Over time, companies will become leaner and meaner than they are today. They will be built around a small, core group of staff responsible for keeping the business running and will obtain the rest of their needed expertise through an ongoing and ever-growing reliance on contract workers. And specialized expertise need not be duplicated. In the old days, companies may have had a human resource expert for every division and every office location. Today, they can rely on one expert, or perhaps two or three, and make that talent available to the rest of the organization through e-mail and other methods.

These changes are real and aren’t science fiction. Take a look around your world, and I’m sure you can see the signs that it is beginning to happen. Fortune 500 organizations continue to shed staff at alarming rates, as the era of downsizing and rationalization continues unabated. You’ve either been directly affected or will be in the future.

* * * *

If you think about it, the wired world is the grease that is fueling this new type of corporate organization. The reason? With the explosion of communication capabilities, organizations can go out and access the expertise and talent of any number of people around the planet. Why hire staff when you can hire a temp? If you spend a bit of time thinking about the implications of this change, you will see that through the next decade some rather remarkable changes are in store.

• The Number of Full-time Jobs Will Begin to Shrink Dramatically

The era of the job for life has clearly come to an end, and the concept of the job is becoming irrelevant as well. A new way of thinking is emerging in the corporate world, built upon a reluctance to increase staff levels, with the result that we are becoming an economy of consultants who sell their skills and talents to business on an as-needed basis.

It used to be that companies entered into an employer–employee relationship in order to obtain access to some type of specialized skill or knowledge. If the company needed a new marketing specialist, it went out and hired a marketing specialist. Then came the recession of the early 1990s. With the onslaught of restructuring that occurred, companies came to appreciate that it cost a heck of a lot of money to fire people, since severance packages had become quite expensive.

A new way of thinking began to occur in the corporate world, built on this logic: if we hire staff, we might have to fire them some day, particularly if we have another recession. It costs a lot of money to fire people. So why not hire people, not as staff, but on contract or as temporary workers? The role of the wired world? Guess what. A lot of those contract and temporary workers are found on the end of a telecommunications line.

• Companies Will Hire the Best Talent They Can, Regardless of Where That Person Might Be

In the wired world, the only thing that counts is knowledge. If the knowledge is accessible from anywhere in the world, then companies will find themselves in the position of being able to choose the best talent and expertise they need to do a particular job from a group of global, skilled consultants.

The impact? A new era of career competitiveness is about to unfold as a number of highly skilled workers sell their capabilities and talents to a global audience of business organizations. The result? Marginal performance is no longer going to be good enough: in the new dog-eat-dog world of networked business, the old rule that those with the best skills and capabilities will be in the greatest demand will be even more true than it is today.

• Lifestyle Choice Will Come to Dominate Career Decisions

Because they can supply their skills from anywhere through the tools of the wired world, this elite group of individuals will call the shots. They will make lifestyle decisions that will let them service their national and global client base from a rural electronic cottage, thus enjoying the fruits of the wired economy, at the same time watching their children grow up. A new era of career decisions based upon lifestyle choices is upon us. As we enter an economy in which location doesn’t matter, the natural result is that more people will choose to work from the places they want to, rather than where they have to.

• Our Actual Work Location Won’t Matter

You can enhance your future career and job opportunities by adapting your skills so that they are marketable and accessible via the wired world. That simple rule, people lived close to the place where they worked, that I mentioned earlier is clearly and unequivocally changing as a result of the wired world, since you don’t need to be near your job in order to do the work!

On the other hand, we might consider that the rule hasn’t changed: people who have mastered the technology that lets them provide their skills to others, wherever they might be, live close to the place where they work — online!

The matter of location is quickly becoming irrelevant, with the explosion of telecommunication networks, fax machines, voice mail, e-mail and other methods of communication. The office of the future will look like your bedroom — because it will be.

As companies begin to rely more and more on outside expertise, the number of core employees required will continue to decrease. The impact on downtown urban areas will be dramatic. There will be fewer people working in office towers. The real estate industry has a phrase for this: “see through buildings.” That’s because they will be.

Guess what — the work force of the twenty-first century wears sweatpants, not suits, since they shop at WalMart, not Hugo Boss, for their day-to-day work attire. And while downtown real estate will suffer, the home improvements industry will expand, as people build a more comfortable home office environment.

If you really want to know what is happening in the world around us, talk to your letter carrier. She will tell you that her pack is getting heavier, year after year, because of the number of people working at home. Visit a local photocopy or office supply store at 10 in the morning, and you’ll find a variety of semi-scruffy professionals loading up on supplies or getting some copies made.

Today, 41% of Canadians have home computers, according to Statistics Canada. Not all of them are used solely for games and homework; an increasing number sit in the home office, tools with which the new home-based workforce is meeting the challenge of the changing business world.

You can ensure you are a survivor by understanding what it takes to build, manage and work in a home office and by getting into the wired state of mind.

• A Generational Battle For Economic Control and Survival Is Upon Us

It won’t be easy. Our economic systems are increasingly characterized by baby boomers and the older generation, comfortable in their unchanging ways and who are now faced with a new, wired and technically sophisticated Generation-X. Increasingly, economic survival is dependent upon mastery of technology, and it should be obvious who has the upper hand in this game!

Here’s my June CAMagazine column, about a new initiative that I have underway in my life.

Learning for a living
by Jim Carroll, CAMagazine, June 2010

So what does a CA who has evolved into a global futurist do for his next gig? Go back to school, of course.

It’s truly become an unusual job I’ve taken on over the past decade. At this point, I travel about 100,000 miles a year, speaking at 50 to 60 conferences or leadership meetings all over the world.

It’s a very odd feeling, standing backstage at the Theatre for the Performing Arts at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, about to go out and speak to 4,000 people. I can’t help but wonder, as an accountant, how did I ever get here?

I got here, I suppose, by somehow combining the inherent skills that any CA possesses in quickly sizing up business strategy issues and the ability to cut through the clutter to provide concrete guidance on strategies that should be pursued. Albeit, in my case, in a very different way.

And even as I ask myself that question backstage, I find myself wondering, what do I do next? I certainly don’t see myself keeping up the same pace of travel, yet I can see a natural transition in my role.

Over the past several years, I’ve been engaged by an in-creasing number of global Fortune 1,000 organizations to help them understand the trends that are going to impact them in the future and the innovation strategies they need to adopt to ensure they can keep up with fast-paced change. In other words, providing high-level guidance on strategic issues. So why not do that as a board member?

That’s why I’m now a student in the Directors Education Program, jointly developed by the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and the Institute of Corporate Directors. I’m learning the intricacies of being an effective director, acquiring new knowledge and upgrading some older knowledge (for example, much of what I know about financial disclosure needs to be re-placed, since I wrote the UFE more than 25 years ago).

Going down this path fits into one of the key career trends I speak about onstage, that learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. Another trend I’ve been talking about for years is that most adults will have four or five different careers throughout their lifetime. I certainly don’t want my knowledge to stagnate, and hence, it was an easy decision to get back to the books.

Where will it lead me? I believe the process of corporate governance is going to undergo significant change in the next decade. I’m already in a role where I provide unique insight to a senior management team to help shape the strategic direction of the organization. As boards focus more on the future and less on the compliance issues of the past, there is a natural progression in terms of my role.

This line of thinking is borne out by an increasing number of discussions around the topic. For example, the folks at BoardSource, an organization actively involved in providing governance guidance to the nonprofit sector, noted in a recent article that “transformative governance means engaging in breakthrough thinking that embraces emerging trends and developments and asking the question, ‘What does this mean for governance?’” And the Harvard Business School touched on the issue in an article, challenging readers about the role of an audit committee with the question, “An organization’s books may be in order, but its performance may be going down the tubes. What’s to be done?”

What’s to be done is that corporate and not-for-profit boards take a more active role in linking future trends to the strategy pursued by the organization. Since I already seem to be doing that, I think this should be a fascinating next step in my truly odd career.

by Jim Carroll
From: The Boardroom, a publication for Association Executives

Every association executive is regularly inundated with information on the leadership skills they must need to properly guide their association into the future. As someone who spends a lot of time talking, writing and speaking about trends and innovation, and who is constantly taking a look at where we are going in the future, I have my own list that might be rather different from some of the others that you’ve heard.

Here’s what I think you should do to ensure you know the issues that will affect your association.

1. Listen to the grassroots

With the rapid rate of change within every industry, trade and profession, it can be extremely difficult to keep up with what’s important and what’s not, not to mention keeping on top of the trends, challenges and opportunities that should be guiding your activities and strategies. There might be plenty going on within your member organizations, as they wrestle with new business strategies, rapidly evolving business models, heightened market competition, ever growing volumes of research and knowledge, and countless other challenges.

To be effective at what you do, you must keep on top of these trends, and determine how to adjust your activities and strategies accordingly so you are continually meeting your members’ needs. That’s why 21st century association executives should focus on building a strong collaborative culture with their membership base, using both leading edge tools and technology as well as ensuring they have a heightened degree of informal, personal contact.

Take the time to engender and build an informal, “open-door” culture that promotes regular and ongoing contact by your membership base, whether that be by e-mail, telephone or in person. Encourage feedback, complaints and observations, as well as a culture that provides for sharing of leading edge trends, challenges and opportunities.

2. Listen beyond the grassroots

You can’t listen only to your membership to spot the trends that will affect your association — you have to go beyond them and listen to what others are saying as well.

That’s why figuring out the future is no longer restricted to listening to the “usual suspects” within your association membership base — 21st century leaders recognize that everything in their industry or professional association base is being affected by events, trends and developments far beyond the norm.

The problem for any association executive is that it is all too easy to become isolated and focused on the issues of the day – the management issues and all the fine details that come with running a major organization. There’s so much going on within your industry or profession that there can be precious little time to come up for air and simply see or “think” through what is going on elsewhere.”

And yet, taking the time to listen “outside of the box” can be one of the most important things you can do. That’s why you shouldn’t just “think” outside of the box – but you should on a regular basis “step” outside of it. One way of doing this is by ensuring that you take the time to place yourself in completely different circumstances. Pick 2 or 3 conferences each year – in completely unrelated, different industries or professional that are far beyond your membership base. Go and listen – and see what another industry is saying!

That’s but one example – you can also subscribe to professional publications from other associations. Grab your copy of the national association directory, and pick a few associations at random – and sign up for their magazines, publications or newsletters.

You might be surprised by how invigorating an experience it can be to open up your mind to what is going on elsewhere. You may find that it will help you discover the trends that will affect you in the future, long before your traditional trends radar might have picked them up.

3. Listen to the rebels

Often, the trends that will affect your association and members can be found in the offbeat chatter by those who are busy redeveloping the future right around them.

Those leading edge trendsetters are often at odds with the typical association member. They’re the rebels in the crowd, eager to cast off the past to develop a future that will be very, very different. They’re busy tearing apart the conventional business models that have guided your members for ages; they have different ideas as to the nature of the product or service that is delivered; they are all too eager to change everything around them to create the future as they see fit. They are often marginalized, simply because their aggressive attitude in changing the future can make them rather unlikable by many.

What should you do? Learn to learn from them! Seek out the rebels in your membership base – you might not like what they have to say, but often, they are probably right in what they will tell you. Great leaders recognize that while many people have an attitude, outlook, culture and approach to life and business that is completely at odds with their perspective – they are willing to listen to what they say because change often emanates from such people.

4. Maintain a willingness to do a right turn

There’s no doubt that things change very rapidly in our world today.

Need evidence? A year ago, the guilt trip that you have when eating a Big Mac isn’t quite what it is today. Within the space of but a year, we’ve had a major issue – our obese society – bubble up, come to the forefront and gain front-runner status as a key  trend and issue to be managed.

The result is that many associations within the food, health care, agricultural and other communities are now scrambling to deal with the new focus on “healthy living” and “healthy eating”. The issue has the potential to become a major topic within your events and conferences; and a topic within your publications. That’s but one example – many other such issues can quickly go super-nova (i.e. SARS), so you’ve must have the ability to suddenly refocus yourself, and your association, to deal with new realities as soon as they emerge.

5. Continually reinvent relevance

Most association members – regardless of what type of group you might represent – live in a state of relentless shell-shock.

If they are in the business world, they’re witnessing ongoing market disruption, regular business model change, consumer revolt and empowerment, heightened competition and constant new demands on their time. In the public sector, they are subject to decreasing budgets, increased public expectations, political turmoil, departmental and role transformation, and ever more challenging management issues.

The result is that on a daily basis, they’re in crisis mode, and are having to constantly reassess their plans, careers, goals and activities. With so much change going on, it’s critical that your association continues to provide services, value and activities that match their regular new realities.That’s why you should ensure that you are constantly and regularly assessing and reinventing the relevance of your association to the membership base. Are you delivering what they need, at the right time, in the right way? Are you on top of all the emerging issues affecting your members so you can change what you are doing to ensure you are helping them? Do you continually reassess your roles and your strategies so you are delivering value, not routine?

6. Redefine your membership

Part of the process of reinventing your relevance consists of making the effort to reach out to new members who exist within your association market, but in a completely unconventional way.

Many people in our economy today don’t work within the traditional corporate model that has defined your association base in the past. For example, many young workers continue to reject the traditional career path of long term careers with large organizations. Instead, they establish themselves in small, micro-organizations that provide needed skills to a corporate audience regardless of where they might be. Are you reaching them with your efforts?

Then there are nomadic workers – those white collar workers who were laid off in the last 10 years through a variety of recessions – and who have established small, home-based businesses from which they provide their skills to a global audience. They’re working within your community of interest, but are they a part of your strategic plan?

Step back and consider where all of your members might exist today, and ensure that you change your strategies, activities and capabilities so that you reaching out to all of them.

7. Adjust for hypercompetition

Many associations are responsible for setting educational, professional and membership standards, and spend considerable time ensuring the value of the service or skill provided by their members is properly recognized for the value provided.

Get ready for a new challenge – that which comes from “offshoring,” a trend that is picking up a speed that is simply stunning. In the first wave of offshoring, we saw simple manufacturing such as toys and shoes migrate to third world countries. Then, the second phase saw simple clerical and service work move away (such as the processing of credit card receipts). But now, we are seeing actual “knowledge work” move, a trend that will provide every association with significant challenge in the years to come.

The high-paying, highly professional jobs are now moving offshore. A recent Deloitte & Touche study suggested that upwards of $356 billion in American wages – or more than 2 million jobs – will move offshore in the next several years. What impact might this have on your members, as they see less demand for their skills as a result of competition from a highly knowledgeable offshore workforce?

That’s a loaded question – and it’s easy to realize the complexity of the challenge when you consider a one square block area in Bangalore, India, a hotbed of the offshore trend. Consider these 4 companies: GreenPoint Mortgage of Novato, CA has moved their home loans processing to one company located there; the Massachusetts General Hospital has engaged a number of radiologists to examine CT scans; Texas Instruments has a number of engineers working on chip design; the Bank of America has moved some of their software development to this location. Each of these situations would have an impact on the members of associations in a variety of industries and professions.

Those are the people who are going to have a major impact on your association members in the not-too-distant future. We are now seeing the emergence of a global skills marketplace, in which highly talented professional workers can provide services of almost any type. The result is that professionals – lawyers, accountants, consultants, medical technicians, will now find themselves faced with an increasing degree of skills competition.

Begin thinking and planning now as to the reality of this important business trend, and undertake a plan of action that will help your members to survive and thrive into the future as hypercompetition takes hold.

8. Seek offbeat solutions to difficult problems

hen a food manufacturer was trying to find out how to improve the changeover time of one of their assembly lines, they hit upon a novel solution: bring in an Indy race pit crew to show them how. Their thinking was, who has better mastered the talent of “quick- thinking, quick work” than a group of people who can instantly change several tires in a highly coordinated team effort that lasts only a few seconds? It was an offbeat solution, but it certainly did the trick.

That’s why you should keep an eye out for the quirky, innovative, unusual things occurring within your association and other associations.

9. Kill indecision

There is no doubt that every association has suffered from rather aggressive indecision through the last several years, brought on by war, terror, a challenged economy, and much uncertainty.

The impact has been dramatic – many associations just can’t seem to make decisions about many matters of the day. I certainly see this as a speaker – while I used to be regularly booked as far as a year in advance, now some organizations are booking me just a few weeks before their conference or event. Why? Because uncertainty has led to a degree of decision stagnation.

Pummel this trend to the ground before it goes any further. Make sure your association continues to run by timelines, deadlines and clear goals and objective. Carefully ensure that your culture provides for regular decision making, not deferral and discussion. There are quite a few issues you are probably wrestling with, and maybe some of them have been around for far too long.

What should you do? Encouraging risk taking is one method of ending complacency, as is rewarding failure. If your members or association board can’t make decisions, then a bit of a cultural change is probably necessary!

10. Restore your sense of passion and purpose

Last but not least, get excited about the future again!

There have been so many challenges through the last few years with recession, war, terrorism and other problems, that many people in the business community have lost their sense of purpose and their passion for the future.

The key message for you and your membership base is – get over it! We’re in for a bright and wonderful future, and it’s by getting excited about the future again that you can best prepare and plan for it.

Last fall, Microsoft invited me to speak at a series of events related to its Windows 7 launch; I’d be addressing C-level executives on the key business strategies organizations are adopting as we come out of the recession.

For the first stop on the tour, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke to the audience, so I went to hear what he had to say. He certainly stoked enthusiasm for the new Windows 7 product in the manner for which he is known, but he also spoke to the broader plans for Microsoft in the future. One comment about mobile devices stood out: that the reason why Apple is selling so many apps for the iPhone is because generally the browser on the phone isn’t very user friendly.

That’s quite true. I find when I access the Internet on my iPhone the screen resolution seems particularly challenging for these middle-aged eyes. My own website features fonts and a layout that look great on a big monitor but when accessed on an iPhone don’t work very well.

So I decided I should have my own app that features a variety of information found on my regular site. Hence, my voyage into the world of iPhone app development. Apparently it’s a voyage many people are pursuing, with some 80,000 apps already available on the iTunes store.

As I began looking around, I found quite a few artists and entertainers (which I think my career is increasingly evolving into) were releasing iPhone apps. Heck, I even found an app for Pat Boone. That blew my mind.

It was a timely decision: I had already started down the path toward promoting compatibility with the new world of wireless devices by creating a special version of my website uniquely formatted for small screens. I did this in a matter of hours by setting up a WordPress blog; I added to it the iPhone/PDA “theme” that reformats pages to fit within the narrow screen size found on a BlackBerry or iPhone. I then added code to my website that figures out if someone is coming in via such a device: when someone does, it redirects him or her to the mobile version.

It was a bit challenging to get the blog section of my website into the iPhone version – until I found Mippin, that is. This nifty free service automatically formats a blog feed for wireless devices in a matter of seconds. If you have a blog and a PDA, try it out; it is quite a magical service.

Voila. I now had a version of my website that worked well for PDAs. But I thought I still should have an app that is available to people in the iTunes App store. Where to start? A friend put me in touch with iEveryware, an app developer based in California. From there, a phone call led to a cost estimate and within hours, I was on the way to having my own app. It was that fast. Until then, I had thought the process of app development would be some deep secret known to a chosen few. The reality is that there are already thousands of developers out there.

One key step in the process was setting myself up as an Apple iPhone Developer, for a fee of US$99. Once that was done, I was able to register the name Futurist for my app. I registered a few other app names for future use; right now, it seems a little bit like the early days of domain name registration. (Hint, hint.)

As I write this column, I’m actively involved in testing daily updates from the development team as they put together the application; it features a variety of videos within the app itself; access to video feeds from YouTube; direct access to my blog and Twitter feeds and some information resources about innovation and trends. We’re hoping to submit it to Apple shortly; by the time you read this, it should be out there. The cost to develop my app? Just US$995.

All this from hearing Ballmer suggest the experience of browsing the web on an iPhone sucked.

(This article was written in December 2009. The app was submitted December 21, and was approved for release 10 days later!)

More information:

• iEveryware
• Mippin
• Jim Carroll’s iPhone app
• Pat Boone’s app

I was the opening keynote speaker yesterday for Opportunities 2009, a conference in Ontario, Canada, that was focused on workplace trends to 2015.

The keynote description went like this:

What Comes Next: And What Should We Do About It?

Is there a future out there? Definitely yes, but a constant drumbeat of negative news can cause people and organizations to lose sight of what will happen with careers and jobs in the future. That’s where Jim Carroll comes in — this noted international futurist, trends & innovation expert spends his time with globally innovative leaders. He’s gained keen insight into some of the key trends which will impact industries, organizations and careers in the next few years to come, in a wide variety of industries from health care, to technology and manufacturing, to the skilled trades. Jim is a passionate believer in the reality that every career and profession is in the midst of a transition, and that additional, new careers are being born before our very eyes.

Jim Carroll will challenge you to focus on the opportunities of today and tomorrow, rather than the challenges of the past. Jim will provide an outline of how the economy will evolve from this point out — and how we should be planning and acting in order to innovate in career development ahead of fast-paced events. He’ll provide us a look at “what comes next, and what we should do about it.“

In the coming weeks and days, I’ve got a lot to blog about this keynote: I took a good hard look at emerging careers, transitioning careers, and how existing careers are changing as a result of ever-increasing velocity.

The talk was extremely well received — probably because I focused the 700+ people in the room on the opportunities of the future rather than the current economic muck of today.

WKSU, the PBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, has been running a series this week titled “Good Jobs in Bad Times.” It’s a serious look at current and future job and career trends. Topics include “high-paying tech jobs, careers that don’t need a four-year degree, the re-growth of agriculture as industry, working part-time full-time, career makeovers, the truth about healthcare, bridge jobs after graduation and the future of the NE Ohio employment outlook.”

I’m interviewed in the final segment, “What’s next:Jobs of the future will likely refine the jobs of today.”

Here’s an extract: you can visit the site and listen to the series at the links below. I’m on at 2:58 on the timeline.

Jim Carroll of Toronto is a futurist who studies trends and tries to predict what lies ahead. He believes the growing interest in alternative energy and “green” products will generate new jobs in coming years, but not just in obvious ways such as building wind turbines and solar panels.

For example, “there’s a lot of very unique research and development occurring out there having to do with packaging,” Carroll said. “And what that leads to is new products coming to market. It involves new companies, it involves new growth industries. …So, what you’re going to have is the emergence of new companies with a new mind set developing these new products to meet new societal demands. And when you look at that, that’s where some of the job growth is going to occur.”

Carroll said companies must closely watch for trends that can be turned into new jobs. But, not everyone has the resources of a big company to find and capitalize on the next big thing. For individuals planning to train for new careers, Carroll advises they pursue jobs that are evolving in areas like health care. “Patient navigators,” for example, are increasing in demand.

“It’s a doctor or a nurse or a medical professional or someone with specific training who simply steers the patient through the complexity of the increasingly complex health care system,” Carroll said. “It’s estimated there’s about 18,000 of these people in the US health care system today. It’s estimated that number will grow to about 180,000 by the year 2015. That’s the emergence of a new career.

“And if you’re thinking, ‘Where are the jobs going to be in the future?’ It’s in things like that.”

It’s a time series and interview, because on Monday I do a keynote for a group of HR professionals, community leaders, social innovators, career development and employment preparation practitioners, labour market experts and employers, on the theme of “Careers 2015.” It will be a real, practical look at what we can expect in terms of career transitions, new careers and job opportunities a half decade out.

Think growth!

More information:

• Go to the Good Jobs in Bad Times site
• Go to the What’s next:Jobs of the future will likely refine the jobs of today section

I’m thrilled to learn that I’ve been selected as the opening day speaker for the College Board — and specifically, a chance to speak with some of the leading minds in the university and college scene in the US on the issue of the future of education.

The audience for this invitation only event, to be held in January 2009, includes the Chancellors, Presidents, and senior admission officers for the largest colleges and universities in the US, including Duke, Cambridge, Harvard, Vanderbilt and the University of Texas, among others.

The group gets together annually to examine the challenges and opportunities facing higher education. This year, they determined that it was a good time to take a good, hard look at the education trends that will impact them in the future.

That’s where I come in. My session description, recently written, addresses these issues:

The “velocity” of knowledge is leading us to a world of “just-in-time knowledge”; the result being the reality that the relationship between educational institutions and students is set to change; primarily, from a period of short term, concentrated knowledge delivery, to one more related to the lifelong, ongoing replenishment and rejuvenation of knowledge.

The challenge for institutions of higher learning is how to change their ingrained thinking, behavior, structure –and outcomes — to adapt to this reality.

What’s driving the future of education? At a fundamental level, ever more rapid scientific discovery; knowledge fragmentation due to rapid knowledge growth; massive skills specialization and ever more narrow career niches. Knowledge and careers are also being impacted by rapidly changing business models; increased volatility in industry; shortened careers (imagine 18-month micro careers); rapid emergence of new industries; more rapid knowledge obsolescence; and the rapid emergence of new careers.

In the last fifteen years, I’ve spoken to numerous groups on global education trends. Given that what we do in this area makes or breaks the future success of a nation, it’s a critically important issue — and I am honored that I will be able to share my thoughts with such a senior group of leaders.

I’m in Vancouver, about to deliver a keynote to a global professional services firm, with the working title, “Extreme Skills Specialization: What Comes Next with Global Talent, Global Organizations?”

The working description goes like this: “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.”

This is a major trend, and perhaps one of the defining trends of the next 10 years. Here’s how I’m presenting the challenges to my audience today:

• the ability to assist your clients with high-velocity change will be a key success factor

• because of this, the ability to find, attract utilize and retain ever more narrow niche skills will be critical, for both your clients, and yourself.
• the ability to scale up and scale down your resource base will define your clients success, and your own.
• our ability to access and deploy unique skills at high velocity, globally, forming project oriented teams that last but a short time, will be key.

Think about these challenges in the context of your own organization. Ask your this questions: “what’s the depth of your bench strength?”

Then ask this question: “what do you need to do, from a unique structural perspective, to increase and improve your bench strength, particularly as skills become more specialized, scarce and hard to access.” There’s probable room for lots of innovative thinking there!

Whether I’ve got an audience of 3,000 people in Vegas, or a small CEO-level meeting of 20 people, I always open with the same observation. It’s from an Australian study which concluded that 65% of the kids in pre-school today will work in jobs or careers that do not yet exist.

I then challenge people to think through the global trends at work which are making such a bold statement into a reality. And I often walk through the types of new careers that are emerging in every industry to emphasize the point.

So what are a few of these new professions? There are dozens: here’s five to start your day thinking about:

• knowledge farmers: exponential knowledge growth, in part driven by social networking, is leading to information overload everywhere. KF’s are the uber-editors who immerse themselves in global data-feeds, extracting relevant knowledge and insight from data-torrents. They’re the new editors, and its their ability to apply their insight to knowledge-rivers that will place them in high demand.
• location intelligence professionals: see my earlier post on this. I’ve been talking about this for years. These are the folks who are linking GoogleMap type data to existing business process and services, and who are building entire new global infrastructure on spatial information. This one is going to be huge!
• mash managers: as innovation moves from the core to the masses, creative insight is emerging from those who learn how to take multiple new ideas, and input them into the innovation process. These people synthesize ideas from multiple sources, study markets, interpret insight, and decide how to re-evolve a product, service, brand, marketing campaign, or just about anything else. Their focus in “constant innovation,” and it’s their idea-immersive environment that drives them forward.
• tactical controllers: in this wildly information-chaotic world, some people are busy searching for the next big thing. A new and very real profession emerges with those who step beyond the “minutiae-of-the-moment” and instead focus on providing tactical, strategic guidance on what-to-do-in-the-next-moments … they are the PR expert who knows how to steer the company through a global viral idea meltdown; the brand expert who knows how to re-energize a brand next week; the individual who studies what the global knowledge farmers are revealing, and who understands what to do next as a result.
• analytical architects: the world’s big problems are being solved by those who are learning to throw sophisticated solutions at complex problems. These are the folks who will architect the smart-highway infrastructure; load-balanced two-way energy grids; just-next-week manufacturing processes for the era of the customization of one. They’ve combined an education in combinatory theory with big server farms to generate the new smart-infrastructure that is set to envelop us.

That’s a starting point. See your own new careers emerging? Let me know!

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”

Career issues are hot! And one of my favorite ways to open a keynote or executive session is by quoting from an Australian study, which indicated that sixty-five percent of the kids who are in preschool today will work in jobs or careers that don’t yet exist.

I passionately believe this to be true: and I’ve seen the trend occurring in countless professions and industries.

This week, I keynoted a Career Day event at Capitol One in Richmond, Virginia ; the focus was on the rapid emergence of new careers, and the rapid evolution of existing skills. My message, in looking at the future career opportunities, was that there’s nothing but upside, as long as people keep reinventing their skill set.

The topic of the future of careers is a big one these days; I’m being called into many organizations and events to talk about the issue, particularly in the context of recent economic trends. Some of these events have been local economic development conferences. In one talk in January, I spoke to an audience of executives and educators in an auto-sector city ; a group of people caught up in the throes of economic restructuring and turmoil.

Talk about an audience in the midst of challenge! Yet when you are in that type of economic bubble, it can be hard to see the future career opportunities that do exist. That’s why I didn’t focus on the short term economic turmoil, but instead, on the real, practical trends that are defining the careers of tomorrow.

Many sectors of the global economy: and in particular, the manufacturing and financial sectors, are being hit hardest by the US recession, the sub-prime meltdown, and global competition.

The auto-town event got covered in the local paper: and the story ended up being reprinted throughout the Canadian press, including in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal. One of the key observations I made in the article: “We have to figure out how we can continue to move up the knowledge ladder because there’s going to be a massive shortfall in specialized skills because of the rapid growth of knowledge.”

That’s an important issue to think about, and the article is well worth a read.

More information:

• Read Knowledge Explosion Key to the Future
• Read Global Economic Trends: An Interview with Jim Carroll
• The reality of future trends: grab the What Comes Next trends overview