Jim Carroll- Futurist, Trends & Innovation Keynote Speaker

I’m honoured to be the opening keynote speaker  for the 2012 Ontario Tourism Summit, the most significant tourism event in the province of Ontario, Canada.

They recently featured a short profile that provides a little bit of insight into my talk.

Global futurist Jim Carroll to speak at 2012 Ontario Tourism Summit

“The future belongs to those who are fast!” declares Jim Carroll, leading global futurist, trends and innovation expert and the kick-off speaker at the 2012 Ontario Tourism Summit. Carroll believes that fast response is a theme that fits well with the tourism industry in Ontario.

Carroll muses that 10 years ago there was no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. Cell phones were used just for talking, until mobile devices were invented that allowed text messages. Apps and GPS based phones wouldn’t really make an appearance until about 2010.

“What a difference a decade makes. Yet, we’ve barely scratched the surface of how accelerating change will provide for opportunity to tourism organizations in the future,” says Carroll. He predicts that success will increasingly come from an organization’s ability to take advantage of rapid, dramatic shifts in the tourism promotions landscape.

From the process of branding tourism properties to evolving marketing methodologies, Carroll sees change in the future happening at lightening speed. “The nature of the interaction with the travel consumer will come to resemble a roller coaster ride,” he concludes. Carroll challenges tourism organizations to jump on board, full steam ahead, and take aggressive control of the future.

“The key is putting yourself in a frame of mind in which you want to embrace a fast changing future, rather than shying away from it,”he advises. “Some people see a trend and see a threat — real innovators see the same trend, and see massive opportunity,” says Carroll.

“There is so much that is right about tourism in Ontario,” emphasizes Carroll. “What we need to ensure we have is a tourism industry that continues to build upon what we have, and evolves at the speed of the future to ensure that we can continue to position to the world why Ontario is the best tourism destination in the world.”

I’m honoured that next month, I’ll be the opening keynote speaking for the 100th Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Texas Municipal League, which represents the interests of civic officials throughout the great state of Texas.

Jim Carroll opens their 100th annual conference on November 14, 2012, in Grapevine, Texas!

The Texas Government Insider publication ran a small note about the conference and my keynote:

Texas Municipal League 100th Annual Conference, Exhibition set

A century in the making, the Texas Municipal League will hold its 100th Annual Conference and Exhibition on Nov. 13-16 in Grapevine. Hear from the experts, such as the Opening General Session keynote speaker Jim Carroll, a futurist who will discuss trends affecting public service and how to turn challenge into opportunity. Dive into concurrent sessions on leadership, smartphone apps, health care, youth, retail development, parliamentary procedure, legislation, water management and community meetings…just to name a few. And not to be missed is a walk through the exhibit hall, where delegates will find more than 300 vendors equipped with services and products to help public servants serve better. With an agenda so full, we also carved some time to celebrate 100 years of municipal excellence – join us on Nov. 14 for the TML Centennial Gala. A conference like this only comes around once every 100 years. So what are you waiting for? Register now at www.tmlconference.org.

What will I focus on? The fact is, citizens expectations and needs are changing rapidly, and they are are more demanding. This is happening in a time of an increasing challenge in terms of skills resourcing (matching less relevant skills to new emerging knowledge requirements), ever increasing funding issues (related to the economic correction), and some pretty stark trends that further increase those challenges (i.e the baby boomer pension funding issue!). All this is happening at the same time that the rate of change continues to speed up, particularly due to technology, and as political volatility continues to rage….

It’s a great time to work for a municipality, right? Of course it is — that’s why the opportunity for innovation is so critical.

I often explain that when we rethink the concept of innovation, we should keep it simple: It’s about “running the business better, growing the business, and transforming the business.” Of course, that’s for business organizations.

From a government perspective, the concept can be reframed – innovation is about continually transforming service delivery (grow the business), citizen engagement (transform the business), and internal effectiveness (common business processes / infrastructure) (build the business). These are a few of their key issues, and my keynote will spend some time exploring these concepts. The fact is, the future of municipalities in Texas will come from their ability to to respond to rapidly changing circumstances, a faster page of the ingestion of new infrastructure, managing more complex skills issues, and relentless seeking and adopting best-practices in government.

From that perspective, innovation moves from more than just “products” to process, methodology, structure, capabilities, scalability, collaborative ability and productivity.

It should be a fun time!

I haven’t done of these posts in a while — it’s a semi-regular summary of 10 of the most recent search phrases that resulted in people discovering information in my blog through the last week.

It’s a useful way to see what people around the world might be thinking about, or some of the issues that are top of mind. It’s also a great way to discover some of the unique blog posts throughout my site — with well over 1,000, there’s a lot of useful content in here that you might not find.

You might consider buying a copy of my book, The Future Belongs To Those Who are Fast — it’s a great compendium of the best of these posts from over 10 years of blogging!

You can see some other What’s Hot entries here.

I use some fabulous Web site tracking software — notably Woopra and OpenTracker — both of which give me *real time* insight into what people are discovering on my site, so it’s pretty easy to pull this information together. Here we go:

• a search for “what trends are driving today’s consumer” led to the Consumer & food category of my blog; it leads to a whole series of blog posts that focus on these issues
• someone in India looking for “innovations in retail” was led to the post “Creativity, trends and innovation in retail, packaging and consumer goods“, a post from 2005 that still bears powerful relevance to what is happening in these sectors today
• from South Africa, a search for “futuristic trends in agriculture” led to “10 Big Trends for Agriculture” — a post I wrote many years ago but which continues to be one of the most popular pages on my Web site. And even though it was written in 2005, it still remains powerfully relevant today. I do a LOT of keynotes in the agricultural sector
• over in Belgium, someone was looking at Google for “new trends in fitness and wellness.” They hit a relatively new post I did earlier this year, “Trend Report: The Future of Health, Fitness and Wellness“
• from Cincinatti, a search for “latest trends in the property and casualty insurance industry” led to “The insurance industry in 2015” , a concise overview of how this industry is undergoing dramatic and fast paced change
• in Indiana, someone searching for “10 ways to kill innovation (or what not to do)” found the blog post “10 Surefire Ways to Destroy Innovative Thinking,” one of the most favourite blog posts I’ve ever written
• a search for “fast food industry trends” from someone in Louisiana led to my blog post, “The BIG food industry trend for 2012: Bold Goals, Big Bets“
• If only I had a dollar for each search done where people from the US end up on my site for information on future healthcare trends. A search from a major US pharma company for “key trends business us healthcare market led to “10 major health care / pharmaceutical trends“, a really concise summary of the scientific, technological and other trends that are transforming the sector
• Just moments after this search, someone from Florida was looking for “future healthcare trends“ , and they were led to a more comprehensive detailed post that gets a lot of traffic, Healthcare 2020: The Transformative Trends That Will REALLY Define Our Future
• and from the Philippines, a search for the phrase “Leaders are innovative and future – oriented. They focus on getting the job done” led to my blog post, “How future ready is your organization?” It provides some good insight on whether your organization is clearly aligned for what comes next — or is simply stuck in the here and now.

That’s 10 search phrases — and a simple summary of some great insight. Stayed tuned — more “What’s Hot” posts to come!

If you want to track analytics on your own Web site, I highly recommend both Woopra and OpenTracker. Fascinating insight!

I’m off to Dallas this morning. I’m honoured to be the opening keynote speaker for the 5th Annual Partnership Summit. A few other folks are there to offer up their opinion as well!

(Incidentally, my keynote has been moved back a half hour to start earlier — apparently the Secret Service need to kick me out earlier to do a security sweep for the special guest appearing later in the day!)

It’s a pretty significant event, and a pretty important organization. As noted on their Web site, “People with chronic diseases share a common experience – bad days and good days. Good days come from breakthrough medicines that are amazingly effective but often cost thousands of dollars a month – even with the best insurance. That’s where Good Days™ comes in.” The significant sums of money raised by the foundation go to assisting patients with the tremendous cost of care — prescription drugs and other funding — that is associated with their chronic condition.

I’ll open the topic with a keynote on the topic that has kept me extremely busy through the last year, with clients such as CIGNA, Stryker Technologies, the North Carolina Hospital Association, the American Association of Preferred Provider Organizations, Physician Hospitals of America, the Mercy Health Care Group — and quite a few more:

Healthcare 2020: The Transformative Trends That Will REALLY Define Our Future
By 2020, we will have successfully transitioned the system from one which “fixes people after they’re sick” to one of preventative, diagnostic genomic-based medicine that treats patients for the conditions we know they are likely to develop. In this seminar, Jim Carroll puts into perspective why innovation is no longer just a fashionable phrase —with the coming changes, innovation is the critical new leadership focus for executives in the health care sector.

Being selected to keynote so many conferences on this theme shows me that one very significant trend has long been underway in the US

• while much of the political debate over health care reform still goes on, a good deal of f it has nothing to do with reality
• major health care groups, professional associations, companies, insurers are well underway in pursuing the real, significant opportunities that exist for innovation in the health care sector
• there are many groups that are working hard right now to get involved in the most significant change coming to health care in the last 100 years — a trend that clearly has the system go upside down
• it’s being driven at a senior leadership level by people who understand that there are many opportunities to pursue right now — which is why “innovation is the critical new leadership focus for executives in the health care sector”

If you’d like to understand this in a little bit more depth, try out a few of the related posts below, or work your way through the health care section of my blog.

And if you are looking for someone who can open up the eyes of your clients, staff, Board of Directors or other to the transformative trends driving health care today, feel free to give me a call!

Next Monday morning, I’ll deliver the opening address for WEFTEC 2012  New Orleans, LA; it will be the kickoff for the  Water Environment Federation’s (WEF) 85th annual technical exhibition and conference, a five-day event that is expected to draw thousands of water quality professionals and exhibitors to the New Orleans Convention Center.

It’s going to be an interesting talk – there’s a tremendous amount of potential for innovation the sector, and I’ll be speaking to the theme of a “new direction.”

Last week, I ran a blog post  for the WEF ; it’s on their site via that link, and also reprinted below!

Water’s Worth It – and So Is Initiative!
by Jim Carroll 

To many, it could seem that the phrase “Water is the oil of the 21st century” is one of the most common phrases in use today. After all, there does seem to be a widespread recognition both in industrialized countries and emerging economies that going forward into the future, water is certainly going to be one of our most important resources.

That’s why, when I walk up on stage to keynote the 2012 Water Environment Federation’s annual conference, I’m hoping to see a sea of faces, each bearing a look of confidence that echoes a bright future for abundant and sustainable water resources worldwide!

After all, if water IS the new oil, then it’s the folks in the room at WEFTEC 2012 who have the potential to take us to a world in which water REALLY is worth it. It is those folks in the room who will play a huge role in pursuing the opportunity for deep transformative change that is possible in the industry. It is the folks in the room who will be able to undertake the big ideas, the big strategies, the big initiatives — and the big risks — to ensure that society can best preserve, protect, recycle, and reuse water.

Should they choose to!

Even with my limited exposure to the industry so far, it is clear that with accelerating science, the rapid emergence of a new slew of water treatment methodologies, potential for chemical and metallurgical extraction and more– that there are all kinds of new opportunities for innovative thinking in the industry of water. That’s what I encounter in many industries today — the world is full of opportunities – if we choose to pursue them.

Yet it can be difficult to do so. An environment of municipal, state and federal government cutbacks makes the pursuit of big ideas ever more difficult. Many days it is simply important to get through with what you have in terms of resources, funding and ideas, rather than taking big, bold steps into the future. Ever increasing complexity of the technology and science around water makes it more difficult to source and access the right skills often necessary to pursue bold new initiatives

It’s easy to fall into a state of inertia when it comes to pursuing the future. Yet water’s worth it now and even more for the future. It’s the folks at WEFTEC 2012 who can and I hope will use the conference as a spark to turn their innovation engines on, and align themselves to the opportunities of the future rather than the challenges of the past.

From my keynote earlier this year at the International Dairy, Deli and Bakery Association, a clip that outlines faster change — in consumer taste trends, societal change, technology — drives the need for speed being the new success factor in the food industry in terms of retail.

Here’s an exciting option for those who are looking to book for a keynote, and want to provide something special to their attendees.

Scott Blanchard wrote a custom Foreword for my book, The Future Belongs To Those Who Are Fast, and provided all 180 attendees with a copy. I can easily prepare a similar custom edition for your next conference, meeting or event.

I can now offer a custom print run of my book The Future Belongs to Those Who Are Fast. You get:

• prominent mention on the cover
• four custom pages bound inside the book which you can use as your own custom Foreword for the book

We can do this for print runs of as small as 100 books, at a very attractive cost. Contact me for details.

Here’s an example of how it works: I recently keynoted the 2012 Blanchard Summit, hosted by Ken Blanchard, author of the One Minute Manager.

In this case, his son and business partner Scott, wrote the Foreword for the book. As you can see on the cover, this fact is prominently mentioned.

Then, right after the introductory page and table of contents, Scott provided a four page Foreword that spoke about the key theme of the 2012 conference, and how this book and my keynote would provide the necessary content and direction to that theme. (In this case, their theme was “Fast Forward: Lead, Innovate and Cultivate.”)

You might find this to be an interesting option if you would like an additional way to hammer home your key agenda and points from your conference, event or meeting.

Or, you might find this to be a powerful tool to draw in sponsorship dollars — your sponsor has the opportunity to have a custom book with a key message that is provided in hard form to every single attendee.

If you are interested in exploring this option, please contact me. I can send to you a sample copy of the book so that you can see what it looks like.

Essentially, all we need to make it work is advance notice, and receiving the text for the custom 4 pages from you at least 8 weeks in advance.

We’re very excited as we think this provides event organizers with an additional new method of emphasizing a key conference theme.

Contact me for a quote and for a sample copy!

I was thrilled to be invited to keynote Blanchard Summit 2012, hosted by Ken Blanchard, well known author of The One Minute Manager, one of the top 5 bestselling business books of all time.

The author of “The Future Belongs to Those Who are Fast” (Jim Carroll) meets the “One Minute Manager” (Ken Blanchard). It’s all about the high velocity economy — understand how to anticipate and innovate with rapid change — and develop the leadership capabilities to do that in real time!

What did my keynote focus on? Certainly my key theme of “What Do World Class Innovators Do That Others Don’t Do?”

But I then spun this into the issue of how do you align talent and skills to world class innovation capabilities.

Certainly there’s been a lot of talk about the skills crisis lately. Most of it is focused on the wrong thing — people seem most worried by the fact that a lot of baby boomers are set to retire, and are taking their skills out of the economy. Or, an ongoing focus on how unique Gen-whatever is….

Those are big issues, but that’s not the big issue. I touched on that during my keynote at the Blanchard summit.

If an organization is to survive the high-velocity economy and achieve world class innovation capabilities, it needs to be doing a lot of innovation with the 10 Unique Characteristics of 21st Century Skills:

• skills are more specialized. Rapid knowledge growth means that it is increasingly difficult for people to keep on top of what they need to know. That means people need to specialize; knowledge niches are the reality for most professions and careers. As they specialize, simple supply/demand reduces skills availability, leading to skills inflation. It’s going to cost more to get the right specialized skills — that’s a big problem.
• skills are disloyal. A recent survey out of Belfast indicated that 36% of people indicated that on their very first day on a new job, they were already thinking about looking for another job! I don’t think that’s unique to the Irish — (and I am of Irish descent….) — I believe that it confirms that a massive philosophical shift towards a “job” and “career” is underway. The death of corporate loyalty means an increasing difficulty to get the right skills.
• skills are degradable. The half life of knowledge is decreasing at a furious rate. Most organizations are discovering that the skills they do have are becoming increasingly useless as knowledge obsolesence takes hold. Skills are ready to walk out the door as soon as they arrive — and if they hang around, their value decreases rather quickly!
• skills are renewable: Fortunately, out of date skills can be given new life. if people and companies can develop the ability to generate just-in-time-knowledge — a phrase I coined over a decade ago — they’ll learn how to adapt and evolve.
• some skills have no urgency: The challenge is that a lot of skills don’t really worry about the points above. Some professions, and many staff in organizations, simply don’t think about the reality of skills extinction as a real trend. They have no desire to upgrade, enhance, or change their capabilities. The lack of urgency leads to a sclerosis that impacts the overall ability of the organization to change, innovate and create.
• skills are disposable: The unique thing about skills today is that companies clearly don’t need staff anymore — they simply need the right skills at the right time for the right purpose. After that need has gone, they will need different skills for a different purpose. In the high-velocity economy, the idea of a permanent skills base is a quaint concept from the 20th century.
• skills are increasingly portable. That’s the good thing we’ve learned with globalization: with the depth of the emerging skills crisis, it doesn’t really matter anymore where the skills are — as long as you can get them, that’s all that counts!
• skills can be transferable: the boomer retirement issue is real. Smart organizations are spending big money to ensure that important knowledge is captured, retained and archived.
• skills should be experiential. This goes back to my ’21st century capital’ post: I think that one of the most important assets a company requires is the depth of it’s experiential capital — that is, the knowledge is has learned through innovation, risk, failure and success. Boost that skills capability and you’ve done something that flows onto the bottom line.
• skills are generational: We’re going to have a lot of active 80 year olds in the economy as the end of the concept of retirement draws near, at the same time that companies seek skills from bright, knowledge aggressive 15 year olds. We are going to have the longest life-span economy that has ever existed. If we prepare for that culturally and organizationally, we’ve got a good strong plan for dealing with the skills challenges of the future.

Some months back, in an entry I wrote a blog entry on the concept of “21st century capital”. One item I included was the concept of capital including a “strong skills accessibility capability”, noting that “talent, not money, will be the new corporate battlefront …. “

That’s an important battle, and it’s going to require a lot of innovation and creativity in terms of solutions.

Years ago, I wrote a little PDF that focused on these capabilities of 21st century capital. You can grab a copy by clicking on the image below.

What so unique about skills requirements in the 21st century? Click on the picture to grab the PDF!

Earlier this year, I was invited to open the Southern Gas Association in Austin, Texas. In the room, I had about 800 of the most senior executives in the natural gas industry in the US, including utilities, distributors, exploration companies, producers and suppliers. It was a pretty heavy duty crowd. This was one of several high profile events I led off in the energy sector — I was the opening keynote, for example, for the 2012 Accenture International Utilities and Energy Conference.

At the close of my talk, I reframed the concept of innovation for the group:

It’s a great little synopsis of how you can rethink the concept of innovation – run, grow and transform the business!

Well, summer’s over, and it’s back to work. Here’s a few of the events that I’ll be keynoting in the weeks to come!

• 
  Chronic Disease Fund – Dallas, Texas
• 
  Texas Municipal Leagure 100th Anniversary Conference
• 
  Ontario Tourism Summit
• 
  Physician Association of America – Austin, Texas
• 
  HR Southwest Conference – Dallas,Texas
• 
  Institute of Credentialling Excellence – Palm Springs, California
• 
  Ken Blanchard Summit – La Jolla, California
• 
  Water Environment Foundation – New Orleans, Louisiana

I only took on 3 events in the summer – by choice! – with a keynote for the North Carolina Hospital Association and the US Farm Credit Cooperative. Not to mention a small, intimate get together with a leadership team at the GAP in San Francisco.

So what’s coming up? Here’s a good summary:

• next week, I keynote the 2012 Blanchard Summit in La Jolla, California, with Ken Blanchard, the author of The One Minute Manager, one of the bestselling business books of all time
• an opening keynote for the Physician Association of America in Austin Texas, on theme of “Healthcare 2020: The Transformative Trends that will REALLY define our future” [ PDF conference link ]
• an opening keynote for the Chronic Disease Fund in Dallas – ; George W. Bush will be the closing speaker! [ conference link ]
• an opening keynote for 3,000 in New Orleans for the Water Environment Foundation [ conference link ]
• a small, intimate session for YPO Chicago with some very senior executives, in a wide ranging discussion of future trends
• an opening for the annual HR Southwest Conference, again in Dallas! Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia from Star Wars) is the other keynote speaker at this conference [ conference link ]
• an opening keynote for the 2012 Ontario Tourism Summit in London, Ontario [ conference link ]
• a look at future banking and payment trends for First BankCard in Nashville
• the opening keynote slot for the 100th Texas Municipal League Annual Conference in Dallas!  [ conference link ]
• in Palm Springs, an opening keynote for the Institute for Credentialing Excellence [ conference link ]
• opening the annual KOA (Kamgrounds of America) conference in Orlando, Florida [ news article ]
• and last but not least, speaking at the 2012 Toronto Agile Community Conference [ conference link ]

This likely isn’t the end of the list for the autumn. I can tell you I’m turning away an absolute ridiculous number of events due to scheduling conflicts, or in other cases where I choose not to take on 3 events in one week. There are still some holes in the schedule for the fall, but it looks to be a fun one!

From my keynote for the Manufacturing Innovation 2012 conference held in Orlando, Florida. I’m speaking about how manufacturing companies can add value to their product through intelligence and connectivity – one of the leading trends which will define products through the next ten years.

It’s summertime, and I’m laying pretty low; I’ve only taken on 3 events, and have turned down many others! That’s by choice. It’s summertime!

But there’s lots coming up in the fall – here’s two recent announcements that have come out. I’m sharing some time with some fascinating people!

Click for a larger image –> Jim will be keynoting this September at the Blanchard Summit 2012, one of the most prestigious training and leadership development programs in the world!

Click for a full image —> Jim will keynote the HR Southwest conference this fall in Texas – theme: the future of human resources!

I’m thrilled to be selected to be the opening keynote speaker for WEFTEC 2012, which is recognized as the largest annual water quality conference and exhibition in the world. It will be held in New Orleans this fall; it will be the 5th major conference that I have headlined in New Orleans this year.

You can read the press release here from the Water Environment Federation. 

This is an extremely important event, dealing with one of the most significant challenges of our time. The issue of water is critically important as we go into the future, and there are huge opportunities for innovation with regard to water safety, quality, sourcing, recycling and treating. Consider just a few critical facts:

• demand for water is expected to rise 50% in developing countries between now and 2025
• 85% of US water utilities, desperately working to upgrade dated infrastructure, indicated in a  survey that said that the average water consumer has no idea as to the size of the gap between what they pay for water / wastewater services, and the actual cost of delivery
• around 30% of the food produced worldwide is never eaten, and the water used to produce it a real loss

Balance such stark trends — and there are many of them — against the innovative thinking that is occurring within the industry. Consider the “Seawater Greenhouse”, which can, according to an article in The Independent Newspaper, which can “make the desert bloom with seawater, corrugated cardboard and wind.”

Wow! This is going to a fascinatingly innovative industry to get involved with. I look forward to the research on this one, and inspiring the world of water to more aggressively innovative with the future.

Some extracts from the press release:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Jim Carroll, a respected author, columnist, media commentator and consultant who links future trends to innovation and creativity, will deliver the keynote address during the Opening General Session of WEFTEC 2012 this fall in New Orleans, LA. The opening session will kick off the Water Environment Federation’s (WEF) 85th annual technical exhibition and conference, a five-day event that is expected to draw thousands of water quality professionals and exhibitors to the New Orleans Convention Center from September 29 to October 3, 2012.

As one of the world’s leading international futurists, trends and innovation experts, Carroll has provided strategic guidance and insight to some of the most prestigious organizations in the world. He 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.

“We live and work in a period of unprecedented change”, said Carroll. “Intelligent infrastructure concepts continue to emerge from the hypothetical to the real while new design methodologies and concepts challenge water professionals to keep ahead of these fast paced developments. I’ll cover the key trends that will provide challenge in the future and outline how to turn them into opportunity.”

The theme of this year’s Opening General Session will focus on “A New Direction for WEF” and tie into the organization’s new Strategic Direction that was announced earlier this year. Carroll’s presentation on innovation and transformation strategy is expected to frame the larger program theme and provide some tools and tips for how to achieve a higher level of success through significant, transformative change.

Two days, 215km (145 miles), pounding rain and sweltering heat - but I did it -- my bike and I at the base of Niagara Falls! There is still time to make a donation to this important fundraising cause!

I just successfully finished the 2012 200KM Ride to Conquer Cancer, from Toronto to Niagara Falls. It turned out to be a 109K first day, and 106k on the second day. (For my American friends, that’s about 145 miles … two wheels, two legs, and lots of enthusiasm!)

Yesterday over 4,800 people rode in this groundbreaking fundraiser – through buckets of rain. The first leg took me an unimpressive 5 hours. But today started at 7am, with sweltering heat — but I managed to pull in a pretty impressive 4 hours and 4 minute ride!

Not bad for a 53 year old guy who used to smoke — but quit over 25 years ago at the urging of his wife, Christa. At one poignant moment early in the relationship, she stated: “It’s either me or the cigarettes.” I quit cold turkey. The smartest this I ever did – quitting and choosing her! Otherwise I might just be another grim cancer statistic.

This is a fascinating event in just so many ways. I take tremendous pride in being able to do a ride like this at the age of 53. It is a life-changing experience to ride next to folks — denoted by the yellow flags attached to their bikes – who have survived a bout with cancer.

And it’s timely. Right now, I’m right in the middle of doing a number of keynotes around the theme of ‘the future of wellness, health and fitness.” I’ll be blogging on that this week — but let’s just say, what a way to link what I talk about with what I do! I’ve been on a BIG personal fitness kick through the last year, and I can tell you the ride was a heck of a lot easier this year.

The funds from the Ride to Conquer Cancer go directly to the Princess Margaret Hospital cancer foundation, one of the top 5 cancerresearch centres in the world. There couldn’t’ be a more worthy cause.

My sponsors!

These are the awesome people who  sponsored my ride through a donation to the Princess Margaret Hospital. They are the heroes of the ride. (Presented in order of donation, newest donations first.)

I am still short of my goal, so if you would like to make a donation, visit http://ride.jimcarroll.com.

• Steve Potocny, a neighbor and great golf buddy!
• Max Kazman, my very unique brother in law
• Mark Davis, a ski friend
• Colin Thompson, another ski friend
• Keith Croucher — a pal from University over 30 years ago.
• the good folks at Goodman Speakers Bureau – who had booked me into the series of keynotes on health, wellness and fitness
• Kevin Campbell, a ski friend
• John Langhorne and his family – another ski friend
• Laura Boland and family — yup, ski friends
• Peter Smith – you guessed it a ski friend
• Rob Sykes, a friend of 25+ years
• John Gardner – he visited my Web site, looking for some info. I found it for him, and he made a donation!
• Mark Jeftovice, CEO of easyDNS and long time friend
• Greg McKenzie — golf buddy – he put up with my golfing at Troon in Arizona
• Scott Kress, Mt. Everest climber and very good friend
• Peter Berczi – another ski buddy, who put up with my skiing while out in Aspen this year
• Mary Joy Aitken – a donation from a Twitter follower! (who wrote that it was a very important cause.

Thank you to all!

Tomorrow I head to New Orleans, where I will keynote the International Dairy, Deli and Bakery Association. One of the key themes — fitness, health, and wellness!

Paula Dean and Sarah Palin are also speaking at the conference — I think my message will be different from theirs! And here’s lot’s of fun – I’m followed on stage by Terry Bradshaw….

A press release has gone out about an event I’ll be doing in Chicago later this month.

The essence of the issue is the extremely rapid change coming to the retail sector. I spoke about this years ago, in a video clip called “Cardboard People, Plasma People.” And indeed, this very theme became the opening chapter in my book, Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast.

See below to watch the video and read the blog post — and read the chapter from the book!

Gilbarco announces Jim Carroll as Keynote at Upcoming Digital Forecourt Marketing Summit, Thu, 2012-05-31
World-leading futurist will help c-store retailers compete and win in rapidly evolving retail landscape

GREENSBORO, N.C. – May 31, 2012 – The world-leading international futurist, Jim Carroll, will deliver the keynote address at Gilbarco Veeder-Root’s Digital Forecourt Marketing Summit in Chicago, IL on June 26-27th, 2012. As a trends and innovation expert, Jim Carroll helps growth-oriented organizations transform into high-velocity innovation heroes. His clients range from Northrop Grumman to Johnson & Johnson, the Swiss Innovation Forum to the National Australia Bank; the Walt Disney Organization to NASA. Some of his recent speaking engagements include the 2012 Southwest Gas Association Conference, the 2011 Consumer Goods Technology Business & Technology Leadership Conference, and the 2011 Multi-Unit Franchise Conference Las Vegas.

Hosted by Gilbarco Veeder-Root and Outcast, this exclusive, invitation-only technology event will focus on the emergence of Digital Media and its implications on consumer marketing and behaviors. Industry expert led sessions will cover digital media outlook and trends, best practices from retailers, loyalty program integration and more.

“We are thrilled to announce Jim Carroll as keynote speaker for our Digital Forecourt Marketing Summit,” said Mike Schulte, President of Gilbarco Veeder-Root North America. “With his unique storytelling approach Jim will challenge our retailers to think about their business and industry in an unconventional way and help them link future trends to innovation.”

“I’m excited to participate in the Digital Forecourt Marketing Summit,” said Jim Carroll. “It’s a changing time for the convenience store industry and for retail more broadly. There is so much opportunity to innovate — be it in operations, partnership structures, forecourt merchandising or taking advantage of the rapid evolution of mobile payment technologies. 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.”

More information:

• Read Cardboard People, Plasma People 

I’ve had the opportunity to be the opening keynote speaker at four major energy conferences in the last two months ; the 2012 Accenture Worldwide International Utilities and Energy Conference in San Francisco; the Southern Gas Association Annual Conference in Austin, Texas, and the 2012 Enercom Conference in Toronto. In addition, last week I opened a leadership meeting for about 200 executives with Noble Energy in Houston, Texas.

So I’ve been speaking on a  pretty extensive basis on trends impacting the global oil and gas industries, as well as utilities. Part of my job at a keynote at such events is to open up the minds of folks to the massive opportunities that are emerging all around us, particularly as we witness an absolutely fascinating acceleration of the science around energy – whether it be oil, gas or renewables.

Here’s a clip in which I’m talking about the fact that at MIT, they are learning how to print solar cells onto paper!

What happens when we can print solar cells onto paper? The world speeds up — and the future belongs to those who are fast!

In all likelihood, we are going to see the US enter a period near-complete energy independence within the next few years. Faster than people think!

The implications are pretty significant. I’ll write a blog in the next few weeks with some of the details that I’ve been covering off in these talks.

• Read the original post about “When Light Stops”  

Here’s the text for a keynote I’m doing in Calgary tomorrow at noon for a group of IT executives.

Lots to think about here – the future belongs to those who are fast!

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“The new business model for everyone will increasingly use speed as a metric, and fast-innovation is a core capability”

Certainly the last forty years have seen technology play a huge impact on business.

Name any industry – auto, health care, manufacturing, energy, banking — and it’s clear that we are witnessing a fundamental and distinct shift of the innovation agenda to one which is driven by the speed of Silicon Valley, and by a generation of people in the computing world who think fundamentally differently about the source of innovation in an industry.

As this occurs, we will see massive business model disruption as new, faster, more nimble competitors who understand technology based disruption, cast aside their slower, ingrained counterparts who are stuck with old, ingrained ideas.

The future belongs, in other words, to those who are fast. Tech companies and tech based innovators certainly understand that logic. Their entire DNA is bound up in the ability to move fast.

That’s why financial organizations are finding themselves plunged into a whirlwind of change as our mobile devices become our credit cards. As slow-to-change insurance companies find that driver-performance oriented insurance policies, linked to in-dash GPS monitoring technologies, wreak havoc on old-line insurance assumptions. As the world of health care adjusts to the reality of a less than $1,000 genomic sequence machine — something that would have cost over $1 million just ten years ago, leading us much quicker to a world of personalized medicine. And an oil and gas industry which is witnessing hyper-innovation in terms of extraction techniques, driven by deep data analysis and other capabilities, which are leading to year over year yield increases which were unmanageable years ago.

The new business model for everyone will increasingly use speed as a metric, and fast-innovation is a core capability.

That’s why you should join iON Secured Networks and Check Point Security Technologies, as we bring you the unique insight of Jim Carroll, who has emerged as one of the world’s leading international futurists, trends and innovation experts, with a client list that ranges from Northrop Grumman to Rockwell Collins; the SouthWest Gas Association to RGA Reinsurance; the Walt Disney Organization to NASA. Jim has had the opportunity to study what world-class innovators have been doing to keep up with a world in which the future belongs to the fast. He will share with us the new role of leading edge technologies involving cloud networks, agile computing, just-in-time development and other key strategies that will help organizations to deploy the right technologies at the right time for the right purpose — a strategy that will be increasingly important as all industries come to innovate at the speed of Silicon Valley.

I was the keynote speaker for the 14th Annual KIRA Technology Innovation Awards Show in New Brunswick, Canada last week.

I think it went well, based on this article.

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KIRA – Looking to the future
By Colin McPhail
The Daily Gleaner, Fredericton & Region, Friday, May 4, 2012

The spotlight was on Jim Carroll as he aggressively paced the stage at the Fredericton Convention Centre, gesturing emphatically while citing statistics and quotes in a dazzling manner. The renowned futurist, however, spun the metaphorical spotlight on the audience.

“You need to think bigger,” he said.

There was no rest for the weary in a night that celebrated innovators from New Brunswick’s information technology sector. The best minds in the industry were challenged to continue to build on their success in a world where the rapid pace of change can’t be overstated. There’s no stopping or you’ll be left behind.

Carroll spoke to a crowd of more than 300 Thursday night during a keynote address at the 14th annual KIRA awards. He offered three simple words to help demonstrate the current climate of innovation: speed, scope, opportunity.

Waiting for the right time to move forward could be fatal, he said, adding the market demands creativity at a level never seen before.

“The future belongs to those who are fast,” Carroll said.

“The time to be focused on innovation is right now.”

Emphasizing the need for speed, Carroll said that 60 per cent of Apple’s revenue comes from products that weren’t in production four years ago. Half of what is taught in the first year of any science degree will be obsolete when the student graduates, while 65 per cent of young children will grow up and get jobs that don’t exist today. The list goes on, and IT is at the forefront.

“Silicon Valley controls the speed of innovation,” he said.

“The speed in which this is evolving is staggering.”

Seemingly timeless industries are already being revolutionized, he said, and the pace in which it occurs will only increase.

I was a keynote speaker in San Diego last week for the PSCU 2012 Senior Leadership & Member Forum. I was honoured to be following Captain Mark Kelly, NASA astronaut, onto the stage.

Need to think a bit more about opportunities from innovation? Read my “Masters in Business Imagination Manifesto!”

The conference is attended by senior executives of credit unions from throughout the US.

My keynote, built in close consultation with the client, focused on key three points related to the overall theme of innovation:

• it’s urgent that credit unions focus on innovation right now
• it’s important that as they do so, they re-evaluate the concept of what they believe innovation to be
• it’s critical that they take on a large number of experimental projects oriented towards innovative thinking, and that they do it now

Putting each of this issues into perspective explains my thinking:

Do it now: The world of financial services is faced with unprecedented change — the impact of mobile banking, the transfer of wealth to a new generation who thinks about financial management in entirely different ways, the emergence of new competitors. The list goes on and on. That’s why it important that credit unions establish a culture in which innovation is a priority, in order to keep up with and take advantage of the trends swirling around them

Reframe the concept:  Many organizations fail at innovation because they don’t really understand what it could be. For many people, they think innovation is for cool people who design cool products that change the world: call it the “Apple effect.” But for years, I’ve been reframing innovation from another perspective that helps to open up the minds of people as to its opportunity.

Innovation is a culture in which the leadership and the entire team continually challenges themselves with three questions: what can I do to run the business, grow the business, or transform the business?

There’s a good video clip that you can watch on that theme, “Rethinking Innovation”  

A few years back, I was interviewed at ProfitMagazine, and had this to say about the concept of innovation as I see it:

Profit: So Jim, one of the frustrating things that I find with the term innovation is that people often equate it with only product development.  So what’s your definition of innovation?

Jim Carroll: It’s absolutely true.  I Call it the Steve Jobs iphone innovation problem.  Everybody hears innovation, they think of the iphone, they think about iPod, they think about Apple and they think that’s all that innovation is, you know, coming up with cool products.  To me, it’s about much more.  It starts out with a fundamental presumption, it doesn’t matter what your business is or what industry you compete in, you’re going to be faced with more competition, more challenging customers, your business model is probably going to be subjected to greater changes.  You’ve got issues in terms of cost input, you probably finding your top line, your revenue line is being subject to the pressure.  You’ve got all kinds of challenges being thrown at you.  And from my perspective, innovation is coming up with a lot of unique ideas, whether it’s around your business model, whether it is around the manner by which you compete, whether it’s around your structure, whether it’s around, you know, the methods that you use to compete in your market place, whether, you know, nothing to do with your skills, I mean, it’s everything.  It’s simply, you know, taking the mindset that that my world is going to change on a continuous basis and I am going to make sure that I have a constant stream of ideas as to how I can keep up and how I can deal with those trends.

Experiment – a lot: There is so much changing the world of banking and credit unions. Technology, social networks, new competitors, the emergence of the digital wallet — you name it, and there is an absolute flood of ‘new stuff.’ World class innovators continually establish a regular series of projects by which they can build up their experience with the stuff that comes from the idea-flood. The more experience they build up, the more “experiential capital” they create. I’ve argued that going into the high velocity 21st century economy, “experiential capital” will become as critical if not more important than financial capital.

I actually spoke about the concept of “experiential capital” when I was the opening keynote speaker for the annual general meeting of the PGA of America – it’s worth a watch.  

Suffice it to say, if you rethink innovation in terms of these three basic concepts, it will help you deal with a world in which the future belongs to those who are fast!

The Canadian Society of Association Executives “Association Magazine” has just released their latest edition, which included my article with the title above.

"We will see massive business model disruption as new, faster, more nimble competitors who understand technology based disruption cast aside their slower, ingrained counterparts who are stuck with old, ingrained ideas."

You can grab the PDF of the article at the right on the image. Note that it is English and French.

The article is based on the blog post I wrote back in November last year, shortly after my keynote for the 2011 T. Rowe Price Investment Symposium, where I played into the theme in a big way.

You can read that post here, although the PDF of the article expands on the concepts in a bit more detail.

I’m finding a huge degree of interest in this theme as a speaking topic; actually, quite a few recent keynotes are being entirely built around the theme, since it is such a significant transformative trend.

Essentially, industries used to control their destiny. They could drive the pace of innovation.

That’s not true anymore, and as I have described on stage in the last few weeks to companies in the insurance, banking, credit union, agricultural and other industries — “What happens to you when the pace of innovation begins to occur at the same speed that Apple innovates. Because that is pretty well what is beginning to happen now.”

Read the article. Think about what is happening here.

The future belongs to those who are fast!