"Refuse to be overwhelmed!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Are you feeling overwhelmed? If not, you are doing it all wrong! Everyone is overwhelmed! If there is one constant comment in my discussions with people it's that they feel absolutely floored by the constant rate of change!
And that’s where so-called “soft skills" come in.
That’s why I found the results of a survey undertaken by the Association of Graduate Recruiters in the UK way back in 1978 to be so compelling! I
Take a look at the list of the suggested skills that we should emphasize.
It’s a good list and although it's 45 years old, its worthy of serious reflection.
And if it does anything, it will help shift you from feeling overwhelmed by the speed of change to having more of a sense of control - which will help you to better control your destiny!
Daily Inspiration: "'Three Monkey Organizations' - They don't listen to the trends, refuse to see what's next, and won't talk about what to do about tomorrow!!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
I've met a lot of organizations with teams that have been led by three monkeys.
Why is this? It has been said there are three types of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, “What happened?” And in fact, I’ve encountered many organizations through the years that have sat back after some sort of dramatic, earth-shaking change and asked, “What happened?” In other cases, they have been affected by slow and gradual change, yet have failed to adapt to the new circumstances which surround them.
All of them seem to share what I call the Three Monkeys’ Approach to Leadership: it is best if the organization sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil. It’s best if they are kept in the dark, focusing on today and not worrying about tomorrow. It's best if they don't listen to the drumbeat of change around them, watching for signs of disruption and upheaval. And it is critical that they dare not speak of any business model uncertainty, as that might rock the boat!
There's a lot of interest in whether Apple will do some sort of VR/AR headset next week.
You might want to read this post in advance of the announcement. In my '23 Trends for 2023' series, I took apart where the real strategic business benefits of this strange new world are emerging. It will provide you with some valuable context to understand what might be coming.
Daily Inspiration: "In the future, everything is hyper-connected. Will you be?" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Do you remember the Maytag repairman?
Going on 40+ years, the advertising theme captured the idea that a Maytag repairman was the loneliest man in the world because "Maytags never break down."
And then, appliances connected, and everything changed.
Well, guess what, they do break down!
We had a Maytag washer, it broke down a number of years ago. The Maytag repair man showed up at our front door. You would think that he would have had a box of tools. He had a laptop.
When everything connects and everything gets get smart - the world changes.
Everything is connecting. Everything is becoming smart. Hyperconneicvity rules our future.
If you aren't thinking through the implications in terms of the product you develop, you aren't developing. You are stagnating.
And as your product begins to lose relevance, you'll find fewer customers and will become the loneliest business in the world. In the future, everything is hyper-connected.
Daily Inspiration: "You'll never get to the future if you never attempt the future!"
If you are into that type of thing you might have tuned into Apple's WWDC event yesterday to get a first look at their new VR/AR headset - or, what they are calling their new spatial computing device. And if you are like me, you would have been pretty shocked by the price at $3,499 (or about $5,000 Canadian, my home country.) You would have been really disappointed in the tether wire necessary for longer-lasting battery power. And then you would have gone online to all the exciting but sometimes negative comments about the new device, but particularly the price.
As someone noted online, 'That's a lot of money to buy a bit of technology that lets you watch TV in a new way'.
But here's a reminder that there were scathing reviews on the original first versions of the Apple iPhone, TV, Watch, and iMac. Keep in mind that companies that build the future, such as Apple, aren't afraid to take on the big bold leaps of the imagination necessary to get to the future - because that's the only way to build the future.
The Justice Department is reported to be investigating an investigation of the investigation into the original investigation of Donald J. Trump.
Trump, long since dead, fights on through a codicil of his will that appointed a small cabal of close advisors, their descendants, and their descendants, who carry forth the mission to fight, deny and obstruct.
The Confederate States of Purity America honours the annual ritual of the Remembrance of the Burning of the Indictment in a nod to that historical moment of the past, by firing multiple rounds in the air in a nationwide AK47 salute. Several dozens are killed and dozens injured in crossfire.
The United Cooperative Nation of Canada, comprising the original nation of Canada, sans Alberta, but now including California, New York and Washington State, refuses to acknowledge or recognize the memorial day of the Remembrance of the Burning of the Indictment. Instead, they are focused on trying to reclaim the desert tundra around Baffin Bay in an attempt to grow some meager crops for distribution.
It is the year 2073, Donald J. Trump is long since dead, but the legal story goes on. Forever.
"Follow the strategy, not the crowd!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Let's start here. The wildfires in Canada, and the environmental impact on Eastern North America, are certainly top of mind. The sudden flaring of the fires early in the season, the weather pattern that is bringing the smoke on a freight train of air directly south, and the potential health risks, seem to be coming way too soon this year. And already, the inevitable societal polarization is occurring, as those who point out that this is a direct consequence of the acceleration of global warming are being attacked by those of the deny-everything class.
That's why, as I've been busy doing a deep dive into the role of AI in the energy and utility sector, an article about the use of AI-based cameras for wildfire detection caught my interest.
Daily Inspiration: "Don't just 'be' in the moment. Own the moment!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
How 3 minutes on a stage in 2003 changed my ife....
AKA : "You'll always have the opportunity to reinvent! What I really learned from frogs in Texas!"
It's 2003. The dot.com collapse has happened. Business is in a funk. Nobody is making decisions about anything. Aggressive indecision is settling in. Speaking gigs have dried up since no one wants to talk about the Internet, technology, and the future anymore.
It was a pretty dismal time.
Up to that point, I'd been online since 1982. In the 90s, I'd built a remarkable career riding the wave of the emerging Internet and technology acceleration, providing audiences worldwide insight into the disruptive impact it would have on business, and the remarkable business opportunities it was presenting. I'd been in the media all the time; had several successful radio shows; had put out 34 books; I had media crews coming to my house to interview me for the national news. Life was pretty amazing!
And then it all came crashing down. The dot.com collapse had the potential to kill my career. Things looked pretty bleak.
Daily Inspiration: "Blame is the coward's way of trying to avoid responsibility for their own failure!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
There's a bit of a mess over on Reddit today.
t's a popular social networking site that today has 'gone dark' - i.e. millions of its users are protesting - and much of the current problem is the fault of the CEO - and his inability to take responsibility for his unforced errors. At least, that's my read.
Daily Inspiration: "There are two types of people in the world. Those who create the future they desire. And those who deny the future they can't create!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
There are people who do, and people who don't.
People who can, and people who won't.
People who change, and people who don't.
People who accept, and people who won't.
People who go forward, and people who don't.
Those who study the future, and those who won't.
People who are prepared to move fast, and those who won't.
Those with open minds, willing and able to adapt - and those who simply won't.
There are people who accept that tomorrow will be different than today - and those who want today to go back to yesterday.
People who understand that nothing can be taken for granted - and those who want to take everything without putting in the effort.
There are those who are prepared to innovate, change and adapt - and those who refuse to do so.
People who believe in reality, and people who don't.
Daily Inspiration: "If you are the one who should know better, do better!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
People are often the authors of their misfortune, the engine of their own misfires, and the initiator of their own missteps.
They create our own mistakes and engineer their own failure - even when they know they shouldn't. Sometimes it goes so wrong that they end up manufacturing their own downward spirals.
It's by recognizing this and accepting this that we can do better - understanding how to carefully think through any decision, analyze any option, and interpret any turning point, for insight on the right thing to do. If we know something is the right thing to do but we do something else regardless, we aren't doing the right thing, are we?
Think about it though - how many people do you know who have brought trouble upon themselves through their own actions or decisions? It could be a legal situation where someone is responsible for their own unforced legal issues. It might be a personal situation where someone has dishonest or misrepresented themselves². Or it could be someone who has made poor choices that have led to negative personal consequences.
We're witnessing one such situation play out in real-time right now, aren't we?
Daily Inspiration: "Tomorrow is already all around you! (You just aren't looking in the right place!)" - Futurist Jim Carroll
One of the most important things you can do if you are trying to assess your business, industry, carer, or profession, is to make sure you keep a close eye on ALL the trends that impact your future - not just the current 'hot' new ones. That's become a key issue for me as the AI topic juggernaut continues to drive the trends-agenda for so many people around me.
And my own trends analysis tools tell me that while so many are focused on AI, there are many others who continue to look at all the other trends around us that matter.
And so while I continue to undertake a lot of up-to-the-moment research on AI to supplement my already deep well of insight, I continue to relentlessly chase the so-many other trends which are shaping our world - because that's where my clients continue to take me. The future is out there! Just make sure you keep looking in all the right places, beyond AI, and don't get caught in the trap of 'all-AI-all-the-time!"
Because there continues to be more to the future than you think!
Daily Inspiration: "Chasing innovation without knowing what comes next is like running a race without knowing where the finish line is!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
I always have a lot of interesting calls with people exploring potential speaking topics.
Some of the most fascinating are the ones where I'm told that 'we've adopted innovation as a theme for our event this year,' or that 'we've decided to do innovation.' In other cases, I'll get a call from a corporate group with someone stating that 'it's time we focus on innovation.'
I'm always mystified by these situations. How is that innovative thinking isn't a core of their mission, a focus of their everyday actions, something that is infused within their organizational soul?
How is it that you just decide to 'do' innovation?
Father’s Day Match Play. Played against my almost scratch 28-year-old son. I get 13 strokes.
Even by 15. I almost made a sand save on 16 but lost the hole. Then lost on 17 out of the rough. Played extremely well; 37 on the front, 44 on the back. He shot 68 so he wasn’t giving it to me.
And this happened on 12, and I thought he should play it where it ended up, so it's a disputed, asterisk win.
The context might be helpful. It's Father's Day, and I'm playing a match play against my youngest son.
28 years old, he is close to being a scratch golfer - that means he is among the very few who can go out and shoot a round close to par. I'm not - I currently have a 14 handicap, meaning that of my last 20 games, 10 had me coming in at 14 strokes on average over par. That's not bad for a guy my age. It means on average, I have a decent chance of posting a score of 85.
Match play allows two golfers to compete against each other based on their current rating. It's a fun way to test your abilities and focus a bit. It works like this - in a match with my son, we take the difference in our handicaps - he's a 0.5, I'm a 14. And so in a match, I get 'strokes' - that is, on 13 of the holes, I get an extra stroke.
Daily Inspiration: "You'll never know where the edge of opportunity exists if you don't make an attempt to go there!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Banish excuses.
Think about it - all of us are really good at coming up with excuses to justify the decisions we make for not doing something we should try to be doing. The result is that we become stuck, immobile, frozen in place - missing out on what comes next.
@Walrus 1 of 3/ Jeepers, you're in a pissy mood, so let me take this on with a few posts. Maybe I can make you smile.
Here's what I wrote in my post a few weeks back about 51 things I learned in 6 months here. Note point #32 - "I am trying to remember to always post ALT image descriptions for the vision-impaired but don't always do so, and for that I apologize."
You'd do better encouraging people with a butterfly than trying to hit them with a hammer.
@Walrus 2 of 3/ I'm in Canada. Most of us here, and most folks around the world, saw Brexit as a huge mistake. It has been. Countries do stupd things at times.
But I'm having a hard time seeing how my little inspirational post of the day had anything to do with Brexit. I suspect you are bitter. It's best to try to channel that in different ways. Attacks don't work well here.
I think I'd federate with Meta here at futurist.info
Of course, it's only me on this server. Maybe I should have a meeting of the tech (me) with the policy arm (me) and the user base (me) in order to figure out my plan and commit to it.
i lost my closest sister 4 years ago to pancreatic cancer. it was very fast. only 4% survive after an initial diagnosis because it is so hard to discover. thank you for sharing
Daily Inspiration: "It's only a stranded asset if you decide to leave it stranded!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
I did a virtual talk for a global investment firm yesterday on the 'future of infrastructure.'
It was actually within their annual general meeting, which is always a structured, formal affair that involves many specific legal issues and detailed requirements. But the team there wanted to shake things up a little with a view to the future, and so found me through one of my agents in the UK.
My talk took a look at the future of several major sectors of 'infrastructure' investment, including energy, telecom, construction, and healthcare.
Daily Inspiration: "Strategic clarity: It's the compass that will guide you through the uncertainty of tomorrow." - Futurist Jim Carroll
Last year, I figured that AI was going to be THE forthcoming topic that would dominate the corporate and association agenda and that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) was beginning to run to the end of its run. Every year seems to have a 'theme,' a 'hot topic,' and an in-demand focus. AI was going to be it.
On this point, I proved to be absolutely, 100% correct in my prediction.
I guess I'm pretty good at this trend stuff.
And so I began to double down, writing, researching, enhancing my background - and above all, investing in the jimcarroll.ai domain name and building out a Web site that would carry my message to the world
Today?
It's beginning o pay off. In buckets - because executives worldwide are demanding the strategic clarity that is required to help them through the complex fog of uncertainty that AI is bringing them tomorrow - today.
While working on a very serious project today of pulling together my talk for a group of insurance companies next week on the impact of AI, I also kept busy successfully moving a Home Assistant setup running on a Raspberry PI 3 to an old 2009 iMac running El Capitan into a Debian Virtual Box container to run it there.
Daily Inspiration: "How do you identify a truly great idea? As soon as someone says 'That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!'" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Every great idea was once the dumbest thing you ever heard! I've said many times in the past, and I repeated it again during the Q&A portion of a virtual talk I gave the other day:
Q. "What early indicators should we look out for that would give us an indication that a once unproven technology, what is a big, bold idea that you referred to, is about to become widely adopted."
A. "My answer to that would be when a lot of people are saying "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."
To be a futurist is to be someone who is laughed at a lot. Mostly because people refuse to believe the accuracy of what we are telling them.
Daily Inspiration: "Pursue ideas. Chase dreams. Be bold. Enjoy the ride!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
"Pursue ideas. Chase dreams. Be bold. Enjoy the ride!" - Futurist Jim Carroll I'm on stage early this morning, so I don't have a lot of time to write this post. As a result, I thought I would just come up with a list of 2-word phrases that can inspire, challenge, motivate, and encourage you. I've always liked short, sharp shocks of insight (a tribute to Pink Floyd there!) since I find that it can help us to think big and be bold about the future. I guess I've done this for a long time; I even used the three phrases that start this list in the title of one of my books! I've always also liked the idea of lists that have a type of 'number branding,' so how about 101? With that in mind, here goes! Think big Start small Scale fast Pursue ideas Chase dreams Implement solutions Find opportunity Dig deep Seek success Chase optimism Focus faster Learn more Do good Do better Do more Argue less Balance life Find solace Be scared Be encouraged Be real Seek strength Develop fortitude Enjoy youth Respect wisdom Get started Never stop Be bold Banish timidity Be daring Take risks Think smart Be curious Explore ideas Enjoy discovery Avoid grudges Never shout Calm down Listen more Challenge people Challenge yourself Change minds Change perspectives Accept change Change faster Change yourself Dream big Act now Believe more Create value Fail forward
Daily Inspiration: "A Futurist's Framework: Follow your failures. Find your flaws. Fix your future!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Find the things that are wrong in order to make things right!
Huh?
Let's say that "innovation" has become a keyword for your organization and your team. If that's the case, where do you start? Maybe it isn't with chasing the latest, greatest hot new idea, or by chasing the shiny new toy. Often, it can come from addressing your internal failures, finding your flaws, probing your problems, negotiating your weak points, and managing your challenges. You might get more bang for the buck if you think about innovation as the “fixing of problems.”
That's why a mindset shift is critical - innovation need not be strictly the development of new products or services; there’s plenty of opportunity to be had by focusing on existing business methods, processes, structure, and methodologies. One of the easiest ways to find opportunities for innovation is by looking for the things that are “broken,” and figuring out how to fix them! For example:
Daily Inspiration: "Don't just talk about the future. BE the future!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
I was the opening keynote speaker Monday for the annual conference of North American Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), held in Quebec City. It's always a blast to get back on stage, and for the day, I had a fantastic one.
Events like this are always booked months in advance, and so while the brochure copy promised a keynote that would look at the opportunities for reinventing and growth despite economic uncertainty, it rapidly skewed to include heavy coverage of - what else - AI and its impact on insurance companies.
With that in mind, I thought to myself - what better way to emphasize the acceleration of AI technology than to bring an AI avatar onto the stage with me, for a bit of a discussion and for some leading questions? With that in mind, I give you 'Briana,' someone I generated through the weekend using an AI text-to-video generator, Reals. AI.
After all, you can't talk about the future if you can't BE the future
Daily Inspiration: "Know your niche: Your expertise will only matter to those who have a mindset for expertise that matters!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
At any moment in time, every organization or individual might find themself in a world in which they are having to find strategies to keep up to date with disruptive changes within their industry, profession, or the product or service they sell to their customers. They must align to new forms of competition, new business models, and the emergence of new competitors; they must fulfill a need to continually develop new products or services; or must deal with volatility in pricing, salaries, and fees. It's a natural part of ongoing business evolution.
Prior to the arrival of large language models (LLMs) as seen with technologies like ChatGPT, the use of AI within the world of energy, particularly energy utilities and the electrical grid was defined by the massive data sets derived from the connectivity of the grid; the acceleration of renewables and grid technology that required the use of AI for management of variable power generation; and other similar trends.
Google ‘big data and energy‘ and you can get a sense of what was happening.
The phrase ‘smart grid’ was with us for years – and much of the ‘smart’ within the grid already involved AI.
Today? There is a lot more yet to come.
And it has little to do with ChatGPT.
It's another one in my series of AI Megatrends - and if you don't know what's going on, you should.
Daily Inspiration: "Big trends bring big opportunities! But only bold action brings big results!" - Futurist Jim Carroll
Along the way, I've managed to predict a LOT of significant trends - the eventual dominance of the technology of the Internet as the protocol for global connectivity; the emergence of IP telephony; the Internet of Things; the collapse of the dot.com economy; the emergence of LinkedIn style professional networking; the emergence of Tesla and its business model. In many cases, I have not been wise enough to convert my insight into investable action, and so while I've enjoyed a wonderful career, my ability to pinpoint specific investments has been lacking.
People hold themselves back from the pursuit of big opportunities because of inaction driven by lingering uncertainty. I was reminded of this yesterday when I released the latest in my series of AI Megatrends.
You can find AI Megatrends - AI In Energy: Connected, Intelligent Energy, and Energy SaaS. It's over at https://ai-energy.jimcarroll.com.
One of the biggest opportunities of our lifetime is unfolding within this trend.
