Jim Carroll
Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert and Author
Jim Carroll is one of the world’s leading international futurists, trends and innovation experts, providing strategic guidance and insight to some of most prestigious organizations in the world for over twenty years. 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.
He has a track record of inspiring organizations to reframe the opportunity for innovation in the context of significant, transformative change. The PGA — Professional Golf Association of America — selected Carroll to open their 94th Annual General Meeting for his message on future trends and innovation, the first time in their history that they have ever featured an external speaker for their AGM. When the Walt Disney Corporation needed to inspire senior staff on the topics of innovation and creativity, they brought in Carroll. The US National Recreation and Parks Association had Carroll open a conference for 4,000 recreation professionals to inspire them to reframe the context of recreation in the 21st century. The Swiss Innovation Forum featured Carroll as their closing keynote speaker, delivering a message of the hope and opportunity that can come from being relentlessly focused on innovation.
Carroll’s global client base is extensive. It includes organizations such as: the National Australian Bank • Diners Club • HJ Heinz • PPG • the Minnesota HealthCare Association CEO Summit • Toshiba Australia • Blue Cross Blue Shield • Northrop Grumman • Missouri Governor Economic Development Congress • Johnson & Johnson • Signature Travel • Microsoft • Ernst & Young • US National Recreation and Parks Association • Burger King • Rockwell Collins • Oracle • Illinois Governors Tourism Conference • US Navy, Marine, Air Force Child Youth Programs • Nestle • the Swiss Innovation Forum • Readers Digest Food & Entertainment Group • Motorola • KPMG and Stockholm.
Carroll is an author, columnist, media commentator and consultant, with a focus on linking future trends to innovation and creativity. He has a 20 year track record in providing direct, independent guidance to a huge, diverse global client base, combined with a previous professional financial background, including 12 years with the world’s largest professional services firm. Carroll provides high energy keynotes for audiences of 5,000, or intimate, detailed customized strategic planning sessions for CEO / board / senior management meetings. He has researched key innovation success factors for dozens of associations, professions, companies, individuals and industries including life sciences, health care, insurance, automotive, manufacturing, agriculture, technology, education, government, consumer products, retail, banking and countless others.
His insight has been recently covered in the UK Telegraph, Dubai’s Capital Magazine and South Africa’s The Starnewspaper. BusinessWeek named Carroll as one of four leading sources for insight on innovation and creativity; he was a feature expert on the prime time CNBC series, The Business of Innovation, hosted by Maria Bartiromo. Credit Suisse profiled Carroll in their global customer publication Bulletin, noting that he provides “unique insight on growth.”
Carroll is also an author, with books including The Future Belongs To Those Who Are Fast, Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast and What I Learned From Frogs in Texas: Saving Your Skin with Forward Thinking Innovation. He has participated in over 3,000 interviews on radio, television and in print, including media exposure and interviews with ABC News, BusinessWeek, INC, Fast Company, CNBC, Texas Meetings and Events, The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), American Way, The Age (Sydney, Australia), CAPITAL magazine (Dubai/United Arab Emirates) CEO Magazine Hungary, Association LEADERSHIP, The National Post and PROFIT, to name but a few.
THE LESSONS OF POWERFUL OPTIMISM: RETHINKING THE FUTURE RIGHT NOW
We have seen more change in the last 5 years than we have seen in the last 100. With economic, political, career and business model volatility all around us, it’s all too easy to fall prey to a swirl of negative thinking — with the result that you lose sight of the fascinating opportunities from what comes next.
The best antidote? An uplifting, hopeful and motivational view into the future with futurist Jim Carroll. In this engaging, humorous and yet powerfully refreshing keynote, he takes you on a tour of the trends which are reshaping our world in a great way. A renaissance in manufacturing enabled by 3D printing, advanced robotics and massive digitization, self-driving cars, space tourism, asteroid mining, vertical farming, and other fascinating fast paced trends. Opportunities for the transformation of entire industries such as healthcare, sports and transportation through unprecedented levels of hyper-connectivity. The acceleration of ideas with science that are allowing us to solve some of the biggest challenges of our time in the world of education, healthcare, the environment and education. A generation of millennials who know that it is a great time to think big ideas and do great things with their boundless enthusiasm and global awareness.
It’s time to turn your mind to the future once again, restore a sense of hope and optimism, and link yourself to the fast paced trends which energize your outlook on opportunity!
WHAT DO WORLD CLASS INNOVATORS DO THAT OTHERS DON’T DO?
Jim Carroll has been the featured trends & innovation speaker at a wide variety of corporate leadership meetings for Fortune 1000 organizations. These meetings, often sponsored by the CEO or other senior members of management, have been focused on successful, forward oriented innovation strategies.
Through his participation, Jim has seen firsthand what these organizations are doing to position themselves for post-recession opportunity. One thing they are certainly doing is finding innovative solutions to complex problems. In this motivational keynote, Jim outlines what he’s seen global innovation leaders concentrating on to ensure market success.
World class innovators possess a relentless focus on growth; continually transition their revenue source; and solve customers’ problems – before the customer knows it’s a problem. They focus on upside down innovation by sourcing innovation ideas through their customers. They concentrate on ingesting fast ideas; check their speed and focus on corporate agility; and focus on long term wins through constant incremental improvements. They know that skills partnerships are a key success factor.
And most important: world class innovators aren’t afraid to back away from big ideas: they know that right now it’s a great time to make bold decisions, and take decisive advantage to forge aggressive new paths against their competitors.
While everyone else wallows in aggressive indecision and organizational sclerosis, world class innovators know that it is a great time to do great things!
How do we seize transformative opportunities?
WHEN DO WE GET TO NORMAL? WHY THINKING BIG WILL HELP YOU SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE 21ST CENTURY
The “new normal” is that nothing will ever be normal again. Instead, transformative, deep substantive change now drives nations, markets, industries, professions and knowledge.
We live in a period of time in which opportunities abound, particularly as society works to solve the big problems related to health care, the environment and energy. There are also huge opportunities related to business model disruption; the emergence of a new global infrastructure involving wireless and location intelligence technologies; the rapid emergence of new markets and products and countless other opportunities.
The future belongs to those who are bold, and who are willing to think about the BIG BETS that need to be made to seize the future. In this keynote, you’ll be impassioned to think about how the real opportunities of the future will unfold.
THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION: RETHINKING OPPORTUNITY IN THE ERA OF KNOWLEDGE VELOCITY
Sixty five percent of the children who are in pre-school today will work in a job or career that doesn’t yet exist. Half of what students learn in their first year at college is obsolete or revised—by the time they graduate. Fifty percent of the U.S. gross domestic product will be taken up by training and knowledge activities within the decade. With all of these changes at hand, futurist, trends & innovation expert Jim Carroll helps some of the world’s leading educational organizations and institutions make sense of this rapidly evolving future.
In his keynote presentations, Carroll provides concise insight that links a wide variety of global social, demographic, scientific, technological, business and other trends to the impact on education. He provides an understanding on the velocity of change impacting the industry, and why we need to rethink the context of “how we teach” in light of the realities that has knowledge growing exponentially, the foundation of knowledge generation forever changed and global social networks challenging traditional education delivery models. The reality is that the exponential growth of knowledge leads to massive career specialization—we are in the midst of a fundamental structural organizational and career change, and by 2020 or sooner, it will be all about “just-in-time knowledge.”
Carroll challenges audiences to think about innovation in the education sector that takes on bold goals to deal with a reality that has rapid knowledge obsolescence and emergence, the disappearance of existing careers and the emergence of new careers, an ongoing need for continuous knowledge replenishment and the migration of knowledge generation further away from academia. There’s a massively increased challenge from overseas knowledge generation, the fast emergence of new micro-careers, an economy that succeeds through knowledge deployment and a fundamental transformation in the role of educational institutions
In other words: much of the education structure that we have in place today doesn’t match the reality of what we really need to do, given the rapid change occurring in the fundamentals of knowledge—which is why innovative thinking in the field of education today is more important than ever before.
LOCATION IS THE NEW INTELLIGENCE: CUSTOMER INTERACTION IN THE ERA OF PERVASIVE MOBILE
We’re at the leading edge of the merger of three perfect trends: the rapid and massive emergence of a massive mobile infrastructure with increasingly intelligent devices. Pervasive location awareness as a result of GPS and location intelligence/mapping trends. And a consumer mindset that is increasingly open to new forms of interaction.
The result is massive business model disruption, absolutely transformative market change, and complete obliteration of old assumptions as the nature of the customer relationship. Smart, innovative super-heroes know that this is an unprecedented time to jump on the emergence of location as the new intelligence, in order to provide for new ways of product uplift in the retail space, changing the very nature of customer loyalty through new forms of interaction, and enhancing existing one-to-0ne conversations through a more direct, distinct and fascinating new form of location based relationships.
Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert Jim Carroll is setting the retail, marketing and advertising world on fire with his fast paced insight into one of the most important trends to shape the customer-business relationship in the last few decades. Move over social networking — location is the new intelligence!
MOVING BEYOND THE MELTDOWN: ALIGNING YOURSELF FOR GROWTH THROUGH INNOVATION
In the face of widespread economic volatility, organizations have three essential choices: they can panic, making rash decisions on structure, markets, investments; they can freeze and do nothing; or they can respond to rapid change through innovation, particularly with respect to strategies, structure, capabilities, markets, products, and activities.
Jim Carroll, one of the world’s leading futurist, trends & innovation expert, shares his insight on the strategies that leading edge organizations are pursuing to stay ahead of the economy.
It’s timely and critical insight! Many CEO’s and senior executives understand that in addition to managing existing challenges, now is the time to focus on trends and the future, and that they need to act quickly to establish an innovative mindset to get there intact. Jim provides his unique insight on staying ahead in volatile times, through his signature keynote addresses, after-dinner talks, discussions at small intimate management/Board meetings, or by speaking and participating in large scale senior management and leadership meetings.
7 THINGS YOU NEED TO DO RIGHT NOW: ALIGNING THE FAST FUTURE TO YOUR CURRENT STRATEGY
While volatility rocks global markets, there continue to be fundamental truths: your industry, products, competition, skills requirements, organizational capabilities, and ability to respond to rapid change will define your future success. Innovative organizations succeed by mastering the pace of the new high velocity economy.
Product innovations occur today at such a pace that “time to market” is now measured in weeks rather than years. A furious pace of technological innovation continues unabated, with the rapid emergence of new technologies that change entire industries. Customer mindset has become increasingly difficult to capture as we become a society with massive attention deficits. Business models are subject to upheaval due to economic turmoil, commercialization of product, and the rapid emergence of new competitors.
It’s a fast paced world — and that’s why leading edge organizations are focused on key leadership strategies that provide for a fast paced future. In this inspirational keynote, Jim Carroll will challenge you to confront the “big trends” that you need to face head on and what you should be doing RIGHT NOW.
WHERE’S THE GROWTH? TRANSFORMATIVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRANSFORMATIVE TIMES
Where will we be in 2015? 2020 or 2025? What challenges and opportunities will we face? In a world of massive globalization, what will our markets, customers, industries and organizational structures look like?
These are truly transformative times, with an alignment of political leaders, business executives, consumers, researchers and industry groups all realizing that now is the time that we need to solve complex problems with bold thinking and “big ideas.” Some of the biggest organizations in the world – including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Toshiba, the Swiss Innovation Forum, the BBC, Motorola and Nestle – have sought just such insight from Jim Carroll. As someone who has assisted hundreds of organizations in thinking about and preparing for the future, Jim Carroll has become globally recognized as one of the world’s leading international futurists.
In a highly customized presentation, he outlines the major trends that will impact you, and what you need to start doing now in order to respond. He will open your mind up to the opportunities of this transformative time – a new era when big ideas and bold action are proving to be the foundation for significant transformation in how we approach global challenges, problems and opportunities. In doing so, he will ensure you are well positioned for the future!
We’re in a new fast paced world─already, 175 million people worldwide participate on social networks through mobile technology. Organizations are faced with tremendous new challenges and opportunities in building and sustaining a brand image in this era of hyperconnected consumers. And given the rate of change that is occurring as consumers increasingly begin to influence brand perception, the new reality is that it costs substantially more to maintain relevance of brand image today.
The biggest challenge for brands? We find ourselves in a period of time in which a brand is no longer what you say it is─it’s what the consumer says it is!
Join International futurist, trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll as he outlines the key challenges that an organization faces with the new world of socialnetworks; the strategies that must be pursued to keep a brand fresh; and the interactive strategies and innovative methods that organizations are adopting to adapt to this new consumer reality.
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH OUR WORKFORCE: MAKING GENERATIONS WORK!
Join international futurist, trends & innovation expert Jim Carroll as he explores some of the biggest challenges facing organizations today. With the coming “end of retirement,” most companies will come to realize they’ll need a lot of telephones with big buttons for members of the 70+ folk who are still a part of their workforce — and a lot of innovative workplace practices as well.
That’s but one challenge –the arrival of “Gen-Connect” (also known as “Gen-Y”) — the kids who have been wired with a mouse since birth — will lead to the question of whether “good luck” will be the only possible response to the question of “Managing Gen-Y.” This workplace weirdness will only be compounded by the ongoing rapid evolution of knowledge and skills, such that most organizations will find it impossible to find the highly specialized skills needed in the economy of the future. Are we really in an economy in which there is an emerging profession of folks known as “manure managers?” You bet — and it’s all part of the unique issues that companies must begin thinking about today.
Jim’s unique insight into emerging HR trends is in high demand – 3,000 members of the International Human Resource Information Management Association recently heard him put the issues in context on stage in Dallas, Texas. Join Jim as he shares his insight into the trends that you are already faced with, and the innovative and creative ways that you can come to grips with the depth of the challenges ahead.