Jim Carroll Global Futurist, Keynote Speaker and Innovation Expert

We will see more change in every industry in the next 10 years than we have seen in the last 100 as transformation and disruption sweeps the world.

Every company is faced with the rapid emergence of new competitors, significant new business models, more challenging consumers, the acceleration of science a race to the pricing bottom, and a transition to the speed of innovation that will define their future. How do you get ahead? By turning on your innovation engine, firing your creativity thrusters, and strapping in for a rocket ride into your faster future.

In this keynote, futurist and innovation expert Jim Carroll shares the insight that he has gained by spending the last 25 years with a relentless focus on what turns organizations into high-velocity innovation heroes. None other than NASA has invited Jim in – twice – to share his insight on innovation strategies.

Innovative organization accelerate their creativity by turning their innovation engines upside down, focusing on customer oriented innovation and other unique models. They excel at sourcing ideas from the outside, turning that unique insight into fuel for their internal innovation factories. They challenge themselves on speed by getting into an iterative process of constantly rethinking, adjusting and redoing in order to discover the next best thing. They challenge themselves on business cycles, time to market and more.

In accelerated organizations, partnership is a key focus, collaboration is critical, agility is oxygen and imagination is relentless.

Launch yourself into the faster future with this unique, high energy keynote for global futurist, trends & innovation expert 

Innovating at high velocity is vital to turning challenge into opportunity. Jim Carroll believes that organizations that focus on staying ahead of fast paced economic trends in an era of volatility are best positioned for long term success.

How? Innovative organizations succeed by mastering the pace of the new high velocity economy. In an era of economic challenge, they focus on discovering opportunity while moving through uncertainty!

In this keynote, Jim Carroll builds on insight captured during periods of economic uncertainty to provide a concrete foundation in which to move forward despite relentless economic volatility.

Is there a future out there? Definitely yes, but a constant drumbeat of negative news can cause people to lose sight of what will happen as we return to a period of economic growth. 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 that we live in transformative times — and in five or ten years, will look back at this time with awe at the new industries, products, careers, and opportunities that were developed.

Jim Carroll delivered an extensive number of global leadership keynotes to major organizations after 9/11, and again after the economic meltdown of 2008-09. He has a proven, battle-tested track record in providing compelling insight and time-tested strategies on aligning to the future despite uncertainty. In this leadership oriented talk, Jim covers the trends that will provide for major growth markets through the next five to ten years; where we will see the emergence of new careers, industries, business models and opportunities; and how a relentless focus on opportunity and growth is directly linked to future success. He will help you to make sense of what happened, where we are now, and what do we do next!

Jim Carroll will challenge you to focus on the opportunities of tomorrow, rather than the challenges of today.

Years from now, we will look back and realize that many industries, technologies, concepts and disruptive ideas accelerated throughout the crisis of 2020 - because they played a major role in the rebuilding of our dramatically different future. We will also know that by carefully analyzing the trends of yesterday in the context of fast moving events that we were best able to understand these new trends of tomorrow.

Futurist Jim Carroll examines your world and industry in the microscope of a new lens, providing critical insight to the trends that matter - and that redefine our future. The acceleration of trends like 3D printing and biomaterial science, robots & cobots, genetic medicine and virtualized community care, resiliency-oriented supply chains and last mile logistics technology, delivery drones and personal space heat tracking - all of which are playing a role in our eventual post-pandemic, recovery oriented world. In this new future, business models continue to evolve but at a faster pace; new revenue opportunities are emerging at hyper-speed as entirely new products are invented and new industries are born to deal with the crisis; entire industries are forever changed as the new era of "personal space" and "economic distancing" came to define all forms of human interaction going forward.

It's in this context that the big ideas are being explored, the bold are defining their future, and the fast are aligning to acceleration. Covid-19 and the economic downturn of 2020 have redefined our future - but it's by understanding this new future and aligning to the opportunities that it presents that breakthrough performers discover their opportunities!

History has taught us that only 10% of organizations become breakthrough performers during a period of economic challenge. Futurist Jim Carroll has carefully studied the strategies they pursue, the concepts that drive them, and the actions they take to become a success in this complex new world.

It's timely and critical insight! Recovery oriented CEO's and senior executives understand that in addition to managing existing challenges, right now is the time to focus on strategies that align to our complex new reality in order to achieve growth and pursue opportunity. They know that they need to act quickly to establish an innovative mindset with their team in oder to get there quickly.

In this interactive online virtual keynote, Jim provides his unique insight on staying ahead in volatile times. A culture that has everyone thinking about what can be done going forward rather than looking back. A solutions oriented mindset in which people are thinking less about the problems that have occurred, and more about the innovative strategies that could be pursued. A leadership style and mindset that takes on volatility as a form of innovation oxygen, complexity as a foundation for action, uncertainty as the platform for disruption and ambiguity as the clarity for stifling aggressive indecision.

We have seen more change in the last 5 years than we have seen in the last 100 – and yet there is so much more to come. But 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 thinking and imagination, enabled by 3D printing, advanced robotics and self-driving cars, space tourism, and concepts involving asteroid mining, vertical farming, and other fascinating trends. An era that provides opportunities for the transformation of entire industries such as healthcare, retail, agriculture, sports and transportation through big bold thinking. The acceleration of ideas with scientific advancements that are allowing us to solve some of the biggest challenges of our time having to do with education, the environment, energy and water. 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!

In this keynote, Jim takes you on a voyage to the future, and promises to leave you with a boundless sense of optimism and passion for what comes next!

We live in a time of massive challenge, and yet one of massive opportunity. We’re faced with deep and complex issues involving the environment, health care, water and food. At the same time, every industry is faced with upheaval and disruption. In this context, every industry is being redefined at blinding speed by technology, globalization, the rapid emergence of new competitors, new forms of collaborative global R&D, and countless other challenges! The speed with which these changes occur are now being increasingly driven by the arrival of a younger, more entrepreneurial generation; a group that seems determined to change the world to reflect their ideas and concept of opportunity. They’ve grown up networked, wired, and are collaborative in ways that no previous generation seems to be.

And therein lies the challenge.

Most organizations are bound up in tradition, process, certain defined ways of doing things — rules — that have helped them succeed in the past. Over time, they have developed a corporate culture which might have worked at the slower paced world of the past — but now has them on the sick-bed, suffering from an organizational sclerosis that clogs up their ability to try to do anything new. Those very things which worked for them in the past might be the anchors that could now hold them back as the future rushes at them with ever increasing speed. They are being challenged in a fundamental way by those who think big, and by some really big, transformative trends.

How to cope with accelerating change? In this keynote, Jim outlines his simple but transformative structure : Think big, start small and scale fast! The new model for going forward in the era of accelerating change involves aligning yourself to the big opportunities of today through bold, transformative thinking; the small scale steps that you can take today to align yourself to this future, and focusing on a culture of speed and agility that can help you to get there at the right time!

In this riveting keynote, Jim Carroll covers the major trends and opportunities that come from “thinking big, starting small, and scaling fast,” by addressing some of the fundamental changes that are underway. It’s based on his forthcoming book of the same name.