Collaborative Agency Group

The high tech expo followed my keynote to the customers of a large technology company. The expo booth guards around the giant ballroom created a cacophony reminiscent of an old fashioned small town fair. “Step right up and win the little lady a teddy bear!” The teddy bears were replaced with a chance to win an IPad. But, the sound and spirit were eerily similar.

The center attraction was the latest whiz bang customer relationship management system. It could slice and dice faster than a butcher on a cold January morning. The system’s pitchman made wild projections laced with time saving stats and cost reducing examples. People were memorized by his glitzy slide show and sound effects all run remotely from his hand held magic machine.

Thinking he was singling out a potential buyer, he shot a question point blank at me. “And, what CRM system do you use, sir?” He cocked his head back as if he was ready to outdraw whatever brand I mentioned. I bluntly (and honestly) responded: “A Rolodex®!” The crowd around the booth laughed. He returned to his super-duper demonstration without comment. As I wandered to another side show, I overheard one person comment, “I bet our customers would like it better if we used a Rolodex®!”

I actually do use a Rolodex®–chocked full of handwritten notes about a client’s particulars—assistant’s name, number of kids, interests—all useful rapport building facts plus contact information. On the back of each card is information such as the last time we talked, future key events, most worrisome competitor, etc. It’s not very efficient. And, if I had millions of clients, it would not be practical. But, it helps me keep “relationship” in the middle of CRM.

Now, don’t get me wrong! I am not down on customer relationship management. We live in a time of razor thin margins when cost-saving efficiency is crucial to survival. Operationalizing customer management can bring reduced prices to customers and free up customer contact people to both tailor their responses and spend time on issues requiring their ingenuity and expertise. But, the Rolodex approach is code for what customers want most in their experience—acknowledgement they are uniquely valued through the manner they are treated. Keep the “R” in CRM.

Click here to learn more about Chip Bell / Keynote Speakers

Peter’s latest book is Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, has been recognized by The Wall Street Journal among The Best Advice Around and by Inc. Magazine as one of the Best 2011 Books for Entrepreneurs, and he was the coauthor with Bill George of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, which was a Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best-seller.

Speech Topics Include:

Little Bets (innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity, and design)

What do Thomas Edison, Chris Rock, and Jeff Bezos all have in common?

Answer: An understanding that the biggest ideas spring forth from a series of small discoveries, reworked to achieve a great result.

Based on extensive research, including over 200 interviews with successful creators and innovators, Sims demonstrates that the kind of linear problem-solving and fear of failure we were conditioned to embrace actively thwarts creativity. Whether it’s Steve Jobs or architect Frank Gehry or the ‘braintrust’ at Pixar, there is no complete plan or vision at the outset. Rather, through a process of trying and failing in incremental ways, they gain critical information as they go from one small, experimental step to the next — which eventually lead to extraordinary breakthroughs. These so-called “little bets” helped spark the ideas that led to companies like Twitter and blockbuster movies like the Toy Story franchise. We can learn to think and work like those we think of as geniuses — failing fast to learn quickly, trying imperfect ideas, focusing on finding problems rather than solving them, and practicing highly immersed observation—to turn our own little bets into big successes.

Authentic leadership (leadership and entrepreneurship)

Based on the lessons learned from 125 of the world’s most-respected entrepreneurs and leaders profiled for TRUE NORTH: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, including Charles Schwab, Starbuck’s founder Howard Schultz, CEO of Palm Inc. Donna Dubinsky, Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, Andrea Jung CEO of Avon Products, and Narayana Murthy of Infosys. Themes include: overcoming life crucibles and setbacks, clarifying personal values and motivations, developing effective support structures, using your life story to motivate and inspire others, approaches for staying grounded, and personal leadership development plans.

Click here to learn more about Peter Sims / keynote speaker

Barbara Corcoran:

Barbara Corcoran’s credentials include straight D’s in high school and college and twenty jobs by the time she turned twenty-three. It was her next job, however, that would make her one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country, when she borrowed $1,000 from her boyfriend and quit her job as a waitress to start a tiny real estate company in New York City. Over the next twenty-five years, she’d parlay that $1,000 loan into a five-billion-dollar real estate business as she graces podiums world-wide as an inspiring keynote speaker.

Daymond John:

The Founder of FUBU, a young entrepreneur, an industry pioneer, a highly regarded marketing expert, and a man who has surpassed new heights of commercial and financial success are just a few ways people have described Daymond John. Over the last 20 years, Daymond has evolved from one of the most successful fashion icons of his generation to one of the most sought after branding experts, business, and motivational speakers in the country.

Click here to learn more about Barbara Corcoran & Daymond John from The Shark Tank as keynote speakers

As the co-creator of Second Life, Cory Ondrejka is the world’s preeminent authority on the economic and technological impact of virtual worlds. Ondrejka is an expert on the complex interrelation between innovation and learning, as well as the technological and social requirements of product development across entangled, geographically dispersed teams.

A skilled and exciting speaker, Ondrejka regularly addresses corporate, academic and government organizations on how virtual worlds change our understanding of communities, geography and entrepreneurship. These talks have led to the creation of hundreds of new ventures at Fortune 500 corporations like IBM and Cisco, experimental class structures at Harvard Law School and other top universities and government use of virtual worlds from the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet to the Singaporean Ministry of Education.

Ondrejka is the former executive vice president of Digital Strategy for EMI Recorded Music. In this role, Ondrejka is advancing the company’s digital marketing capabilities, developing new consumer and market insight resources and leading EMI’s experimentation with new digital marketing and product models in order to provide the best service to its artists and their fans.

Speech Topics include:

Building Innovative Organizations

Cory Ondrejka is an expert on the complex challenges of building innovation in distributed organizations that allows technology-savvy workers to thrive in a more connected workplace. As companies fully engage global opportunities, they face new hurdles and opportunities to integrate and collaborate with employees dispersed throughout the world, so understanding the deep connection between innovation and learning is critical.

Business Transformation, Change and Revolution

Web 2.0, video games, and virtual worlds are initiating the most disruptive information technology transition since the World Wide Web. Corporate and government leaders once again face complex questions around technology, innovation and competition. Non-technology companies face particular challenges as technological change radically impacts costs and opportuniteis. Cory Ondrejka brings unique insight to the business challenges and opportunities inherent to adapting and using these new technologies.

Connection, Communication and Learning

Real-time collaboration technologies appearing in virtual worlds and on the web enable new modes of communication, both within organizations and between corporations and customers. User-generated content gives customers new methods for connecting with brands and sharing their opinions online. Cory Ondrejka discusses how interactions in games and virtual worlds provide a quantitatively different opportunity compared to the lightweight connections of a web impression, and offers strategies to take advantage of these opportunities to connect.

Entrepreneurship in the Experience Economy

Online communities create opportunities for entrepreneurs to explore the zero-marginal cost experience economy. Whether in Second Life or Facebook, new entrepreneurs are building multinational teams to rapidly explore design space and business plans. Cory Ondrejka explains how organizations are able to take advantage of this entrepreneurial energy.

Virtual Worlds and National Security

The US State Department, Defense Department and Intelligence Agencies have all recognized the need to understand how virtual worlds impact national power. Cory Ondrejka’s unique background allows him to bridge diverse worlds to bring critical insights to analysts and policy makers, focusing on the threats and opportunities created by games and virtual worlds.

Click here to learn more about Cory Ondrejka as a keynote speaker

Dr. Gary Bradt is a change and leadership speaker and author who helps organizations turn change and tough times into opportunity. His wide ranging experience includes helping companies adapt to new technologies and government regulations; inspiring innovative thinking as industries consolidate; helping employees quickly adapt to major shifts driven by mergers, acquisitions or reorganizations; and getting customers and employees alike to embrace a new product or service line.

His twenty-four years of experience in the leadership field makes him uniquely qualified to deliver his inspiring message on change that is packed with practical tools for leaders at all levels. He has spoken all over the globe for clients like American Express, eBay, FedEx, Proctor & Gamble, Honeywell, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity Investments, VISA and NASA to name just a few. Dr. Bradt is a clinical psychologist, business owner, leadership consultant and a C-Suite executive coach. He is also a husband and father who has learned to cope with one of the toughest challenges of all, a child’s chronic, life-threatening illness. All of this experience helps drive his penetrating insights and practical suggestions for winning whenever things change.

Speech Topics Include:

The Ring in the Rubble: Dig Through Change and Find Your Next Golden Opportunity

The ring represents the golden opportunity every change creates. The rubble represents the disruption, fear and uncertainty that change often stirs up. Your job as a leader is to find that ring, and lead others to it. In this speech you’ll learn how. Specifically, you’ll be given ten tools, or strategies and tactics for finding opportunity within every change. You will hear inspiring stories and examples of how other leaders have used these tools to turn change and tough times into amazing opportunities. You’ll learn that leadership is an honor and a responsibility to be assumed by each and every member of an organization. You will leave this presentation challenged, inspired and armed with practical ideas and actions to better yourself, your organization, and all those you have the opportunity to serve and influence.

Leave a Golden Legacy
(This speech can be delivered as a follow on to The Ring in the Rubble or as a stand alone presentation).

Everyone leaves a legacy. The question is what will your legacy be? In this presentation you will get to actively create your answer to this question. You will be provided specific tools for building your legacy one person, one relationship, and one interaction at a time. You will be challenged and inspired to dream big, to take risks and to reach beyond yourself. You will learn that a leader’s greatest joy comes not from personal triumph, but from inspiring others and leaving them better off for having known you, worked with you or worked for you. A golden legacy is not defined by how many rings of opportunity you find. It’s defined by how many rings you lead others to. In this presentation you’ll learn how.

Click here to learn more about Gary Bradt keynote speaker

Jack Uldrich is an accomplished business speaker, addressing hundreds of businesses and organizations, including General Electric, General Mills, Pfizer, St. Jude Medical, and more. His books include the best-selling, The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and the award-winning books, Into the Unknown : Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward Expedition, and Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Emerging Technologies. His most recent book is Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future.

Mr. Uldrich’s other written works have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Futurist, Future Quarterly Research, The Wall Street Reporter, Leader to Leader, Management Quarterly, and hundreds of other newspapers and publications around the country. He is also a frequent guest of the media worldwide—having appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and National Public Radio on numerous occasions.

In addition to speaking on future trends, emerging technologies, innovation, change management and leadership, Uldrich is a leading expert on assisting businesses adapt. He has served as an advisor to Fortune 1000 companies and is noted for his ability to deliver provocative, new perspectives on competitive advantage, organizational change and transformational leadership.

Speech Topics Include:

Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Companies Deal with Emerging Technologies.

Based on Jack’s book by the same name released in 2008 by Adams Media, Jack explores how exponential trends in information technology, biotechnology, robotics, manufacturing, material science and nanotechnology, are all converging at this unique moment in history. Uldrich’s presentation lays out ten specific strategies that executives, businesses and industries can use to navigate and survive in this era of unparalleled change.

The Exponential Executive:

The topic of Jack Uldrich’s forthcoming book of the same name; this fast-paced, entertaining and enlightening presentation (which is also available as either a full or half-day seminar) introduces his audience to the reality of exponential technological change and then provides 11 tangible leadership characteristics designed to help executives and managers navigate and lead their organizations through this era of accelerating change.

Future Trends in Healthcare, Energy, Technology, Retail and other industries

Jack Uldrich also speaks frequently on future trends for specific industries. In 2010, he has addressed numerous medical associations on “The Future of Health Care,” as well as a handful of other business associations on the future of manufacturing.

The Future Requires Unlearning

The pace of technological change is accelerating. Today’s organizations are living in a world where “constant change is the only constant.” New advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology are bringing forth exciting and unexpected discoveries every day, while the expansive and growing power of the Internet, social networking and the open-source movement are fueling the fires which threaten to consume much of today’s existing business landscape.

Life-long learning will obviously be more essential than ever in this chaotic and churning environment; but often lost in this new emerging reality of exponential change is the fact that before an organization can seize tomorrow’s opportunities it must first unlearn old, obsolete knowledge as well as unlearn the old ways of doing business.

In this fascinating, informative, entertaining, interactive and enlightening presentation, noted global futurist and best-selling author, Jack Uldrich—who has been hailed by BusinessWeek as “America’s Chief Unlearning Officer”—will not only explain why unlearning is a critical skill for your company or an organization’s employees, he will also demonstrate how unlearning can help:

–Successfully navigate a future where the pace of scientific and technological knowledge is doubling every seven years;
–Prepare for competition that doesn’t yet exist; and Seize opportunities which are, today, only on the periphery of their imagination.

The presentations draw heavily on Uldrich’s two new books on unlearning:Unlearning 101: 50 lessons for Thinking Inside-Out the Box and Higher Unlearning: 39 Post Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future.

Innovating Out of the Recession and Into a More Successful Future

The economy has slowed to a crawl but the development of new emerging technologies has not. Smart companies and organizations understand the best way to confront the slowdown is to speed up. Noted futurist and best-selling author Jack Uldrich outlines eight concrete strategies that will kick start innovation and help your organization create a new and profitable future.

Click here to learn more about Jack Uldrich, keynote speaker and business author

A native Houstonian, Dan Dunn has a background in painting, illustration, design and caricature.

He received worldwide attention when his teenage daughter posted a video of his performance art “Paintjam” on youtube. She spread the word on social networking sites and it took off like a rocket.

The video of Dan painting Ray Charles has received over 13 million hits and propelled Dan into a full time career performing all over the globe, proving that the three fastest forms of communication are: telephone, television and tell a teenager!

Dan studied painting at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. He specialized in oil painting and watercolor and also enjoyed sculpture and life drawing.

Click here to read more about Dan Dunn from Painjam

One of the most successful senior business communication executives and angel investors of our time, Mark C. Thompson has been a board member and advisor to Global 1000 companies and is Charles Schwab’s former ChiefCustomer Experience Officer, Chief Communications Officer and Chief of Staff. During his tenure, the company’s customer assets grew ten-fold to more than $800 billion dollars in over five million client accounts and continue to grow during the greatest economic storms in history. Thompson created the Schwab Leadership Series and worked face-to-face with many of the world’s best global leaders and entrepreneurs – from Richard Branson and Steve Jobs to Warren Buffett, AG Lafley, Herb Kelleher, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Zappos founder Tony Hsieh.

Thompson did research for Jim Collins and Jerry Porras on Built to Last and Good to Great; during his presentations, he shows how to implement the principles discussed in Good to Great. Along with Jerry Porras and Stewart Emery, he co-authored the bestseller Success Built to Last. By focusing on Collins’ five levels of leadership, Thompson coaches leaders to get things done fast!

Speech Topics Include:

Now, Build A Great Business! Customer Service Built to Last

Based on the business classic Built to Last that sold over one million copies, Thompson reveals the tools of the world’s most successful leaders for the sequel, Success Built to Last. This inspiring and fun keynote provides the secrets from hundreds of high producers whom Thompson has studied and met face-to-face.

• How world-class teams generate unstoppable growth
• Five Customer Service strategies that are Built to Last
• Seven ways to boost profits in any market
• How to actually grow leaders from Good to Great – Level 1 to 5 – what are the three steps necessary for developing the best teams?
• What are the best practices from managers and entrepreneurs with track records of more than two decades of success?
• What are the three critical drivers of influence for every high achiever?

Make Sales Happen – Practical Ways to Boost Business

This keynote will bring you Level 5 Sales Growth and Good to Great Performance.

• The Invisible Close – How to win clients who don’t want to be sold. What is Level 5 Sales Growth and how to take Business Performance from Good to Great?
• Create Your Irresistible Offer – Defining better outcomes and benefits
• How to Build Partnerships From the Start – Investing in client loyalty
• What Does Your Market Crave? Helping clients understand the cost of ignoring your offer. How to gain strategic advantage over every other offer
< • Five Mistakes That Repel Customers & Cut Sales in Half
• Five P’s That Double Sales: Positioning–Pain–Promise–Proof–Planning
• How to convert loyal clients into higher ticket up-sell opportunities
• The Two Personalities of the World’s Most Profitable Clients

Make Change Happen Fast - Success Built to Last

Some speakers talk about change and growth, but they’ve never done it before. Thompson has made it happen. He’s been an operating executive with a front-row seat on transformations at Charles Schwab, and a board member at Best Buy, and Apple’s top iPhone and iPad app companies. He’s worked in 12 industries directly with executive teams at Nokia, NIKE, Unilever, Baird, Bank of New York and 35 firms in the US, Europe, Asia and Brazil. Thompson bets his own wallet on change and innovation by investing in companies that are on the leading edge of change.

• How do you convince your team not only to embrace change, but actually lead the transformation now – with urgency?
• How have world-class firms taken the leap that you’re facing?
• The difference between top 3 market leaders & all others
• How to take advantage of turbulence in your markets in order to steal bases on competitors and build value for customers
• What are the three fundamental factors that galvanize change in every person?
• What are the seven steps to change in every organization?

Click here to learn more about Mark Thompson as a keynote speaker

Geoff Colvin is an award-winning thinker, author, broadcaster, and speaker on today’s most significant trends in business. As FORTUNE’s Senior Editor-at-Large, he has become one of America’s sharpest and most respected commentators on leadership, globalization, wealth creation, the infotech revolution, and related issues. As anchor of Wall Street Week with FORTUNE on PBS, he spoke each week to the largest audience reached by any business television program in America.

Colvin’s groundbreaking bestseller Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else received the Harold A. Longman Award for Best Business Book of the Year and has been published in a dozen languages. Charlie Rose says it is “spectacular” and “fascinating.” Daniel H. Pink calls it “profoundly important.” Donald Trump calls it “enlightening” and “inspiring.” Colvin’s book The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath was named the best management book of the year by Strategy + Business magazine.

Speech Topics Include:
Leading Ahead of What’s Next

The whole world of business is changing in deep ways – competition, technology, government’s role, and the balance of global economic power are shifting massively. These are historic and profound changes, and they’re happening fast! Successfully navigating the tumult is every leader’s great challenge today. Geoff Colvin helps leaders meet it by bringing a unique perspective based on long-standing relationships with the world’s top leaders in business and government. He knows what they’re seeing, thinking, and planning. In addition, his own work published in Fortune, the Harvard Business Review, and his bestselling books reveals what distinguishes the most successful leaders – how they lead organizations, make choices, and respond to today’s challenges in ways that others can learn from. Colvin’s presentation is as fresh as the day’s headlines and at the same time rich with specific, profound lessons. To organizations facing extraordinary challenges; to compete and win will require extraordinary leadership at every level, Colvin explains what’s important, what isn’t, and what’s next.

The Political Circus, a Complex Economy and the Future of Your Business

More than at any time in memory, Washington has become the center of the action for business and the economy. Taxes, spending, deficits, health care, inflation, interest rates, regulation, energy, education – all these critical issues and more are dramatically in play, affecting your organization in deep and lasting ways. One of America’s most respected business journalists, Geoff Colvin brings you the benefit of his insider access to top government and business leaders. He slashes through the bewildering spin, separating political fact from campaign fiction and explaining what’s really likely to happen in this election year and beyond. Always engaging and energetic, Colvin explains which policy decisions from the White House, Congress, and the Fed will matter most, how they will impact business and the economy, and how audiences can make sense of it all in guiding their lives and businesses.

Talent Is Overrated – Real Truths of Great Performance

What if everything you know about raw talent, hard work, and great performance is wrong? Odds are that few if any of the people around you are truly great at what they do—awesomely, amazingly, world-class excellent. But why not? Why don’t they manage businesses like Jack Welch or Andy Grove, or play tennis like Rafael Nadal, or play the violin like Itzhak Perlman? Scientific research on great performance exposes what most of us wrongly believe. Geoff Colvin, author of the groundbreaking national bestseller Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else, explains the findings and relates them to real life in real organizations. He shows how most organizations value the wrong things – how passion, honesty, and learning are more valuable than hours, IQ, or “native ability.” In an engaging, entertaining way, he demonstrates that world-class performance doesn’t come from mysterious natural gifts but rather from very specific behaviors that every organization can adopt. People and organizations that learn from these principles gain a tremendous advantage, because most are still making costly errors. The same principles used by the greatest performers can be applied by all of us – and must be, if we’re to meet the challenge of rising standards in today’s global economy.

A Versatile Moderator/Host/Discussion Leader

In addition to delivering compelling and topical speeches, Geoff Colvin is brilliant at being the glue that keeps the program together. He’s played that role for years at FORTUNE magazine’s most important senior executive conferences all over the globe. He’s interviewed everyone from Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and Jack Welch to panels of high profile executives on the most challenging and sensitive of topics. Colvin’s gift is putting the focus of your program squarely where it belongs – on the person(s) he is talking to and building an understanding of the issues being discussed. He gets the most out of the participants by asking the right questions, keeping the discussion relevant and the energy high. His work is so successful that many top firms couldn’t imagine doing an important program without calling on his talents. As an attendee at a recent conference told the event organizer, “Geoff Colvin literally made this conference.”

In addition to delivering compelling and topical speeches, Geoff Colvin is brilliant at being the glue that keeps the program together. He’s played that role for years at FORTUNE magazine’s most important senior executive conferences all over the globe. He’s interviewed everyone from Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and Jack Welch to panels of high profile executives on the most challenging and sensitive of topics. Colvin’s gift is putting the focus of your program squarely where it belongs – on the person(s) he is talking to and building an understanding of the issues being discussed. He gets the most out of the participants by asking the right questions, keeping the discussion relevant and the energy high. His work is so successful that many top firms couldn’t imagine doing an important program without calling on his talents. As an attendee at a recent conference told the event organizer, “Geoff Colvin literally made this conference.”

Click here to learn more about Geoff Colvin as a keynote speaker

Here’s some of the key trends that I see unfolding through 2012 and beyond.

My unique job allows me the opportunity to see and hear what a lot of CEO’s and senior executives in a lot of organizations are thinking about. The  nature of my keynotes and small board / leadership meetings allows me to understand what folks are focused on. The research I do, whether for a major manufacturing conference in Las Vegas or a small corporate meeting with an ice cream company allows me to see the key trends that are unfolding right now.

And so given this unique perch, here’s some of the most important trends which will play out in the year to come.

• Biz competes again. North American and Western European companies have lived with constant fear, with the rapid rise of China, the BRIC countries and the N11 on the world  stage. And yet, we’re now witnessing a scene from the movie 2010: “HAL-9000 – ‘What’s going to happen?’ DAVE – ‘Something wonderful.‘ My sense is that a wide variety of industries, from agriculture to manufacturing to industrial design have been going through a renaissance of thinking in the last few years, and have learned what they need to do to re-innovate, grow again, and aggressively return to local and global markets. Read my “Build-America” blog post for some of what I’m thinking here — and stayed tuned!
• The rise of the tinkering economy. The future is once again being built in the garage next door. But this time, it’s the hyper-connected, innovation oriented tinkering economy which is driving things forward. Get used to phrases like “micro factories,” “hobby designers” and”personal factories.”  The future of design, business and manufacturing is being reinvented at collaborative idea factories such as Ponoko, Etsy and  eMachineShop.com. There’s a revolution underway which is being driven by a globally connected, creatively driven new generation of hobbyists, and the impact is going to be massive!
• Relationships change. Everywhere around us, the relationship that we have in our lives with the things that surround is, well, changing. Our relationship with food is changing as mobile technologies come to influence what we buy, how we shop,  and how we track our food intake. Our relationship with our body is undergoing a change as we come to use those same mobile technologies to monitor our diet, track our blood pressure another vital signs. Our relationship with clothing is changing as embedded technology becomes a part of what we wear — think about GPS enabled shoes for Alzheimers patients and Zephyr’s smart-clothing — which can be used by athletes to track their performance. When relationships change, everything changes, and opportunities for growth and innovative thinking abound!
• Generational re-generation: everywhere we look, there’s a massive generational turnover underway, with a change in ownership of organizations from slow moving change adverse baby-boomers to a younger generation that inhales change as a form of innovation oxygen. As family farms and ranches are passed on from father to son and daughter, the rate of adoption of new farming and herd management ideas takes on a greater degree of speed.  As older doctors and nurses who were weaned on the paper-heavy patient file head into retirement, they being replaced by new medical residents who are arriving in the clinic, operating room and by the hospital bed with their iPads, ready to plug in! A shift from change-aversion to change-is-the-greatest-drug is a trend that speeds up our world even more!
• Revenue reinvention. Every company is coming to face the reality that they have to become just like Apple in order to survive. The fact that Apple generates over 60% of its revenue from products that didn’t exist 4 years ago might today be an aberration, but given the increasing velocity of business cycles, product innovation, the arrival of new business models, changing customer expectations, the impact of social networks and a series of other trends, and soon every organization will find itself in a reality in which constant, relentless reinvention of its product or service line will the crucial to future success.
• The Dominance of Design. We’re on the edge of a massive new era of creativity, with a trend that we might even call the ‘IPad-ization of Life.’ All one has to do is look at the new Nest thermostat to realize that a new generation of brilliant creativity is about to remake our world. We’re not doomed to a future in which everything around us in the future is going to look just like it did in the past – Apple’s design influence is quickly going to impact everything around us – from the cars we drive to the lamps we use to the fridges we open, to the buses we catch. Clean, simple, easy interfaces and crisp, cool lines, But it’s not just the looks — its the fact that with this new era of design comes intelligence. Our future is going to look great , intelligent and interactive!
• Chip-velocity! Moore’s law used to apply only to the computer industry. Yet the rule that the processing power of a computer chip doubles every year while its cost cuts in half is taking on new meaning, as your phone becomes a credit card, your car watches how well you drive on behalf of your insurance company, and your clothing talks to your doctor! All of a sudden, in the era of relentless, pervasive connectivity, innovation in every single industry speeds up when Silicon Valley takes over the innovation agenda!
• Life beyond politics. While the US Presidential election and political turmoil will dominate the headlines for 2012, a new generation of leaders are focused on BIG THINKING, BIG IDEAS, and BOLD MOVES. There’s a realization that political gridlock is the new normal, whether its the Democrats and Republications staring each other down, or France and Germany looking at Italy and Greece with a mystified sense of stunned confusion. So while politicians fail to get things done, innovative organizations are casting their mind to the future trends which will really provide opportunity in the future. It’s fascinating — the future is back in vogue again! And the thinking that is driving it is that we aren’t going to fix the problems of the future by doing what we’ve done in the past. And if we do things differently with those problems – that’s how we’ll discover the next big opportunity. This is the new mindset driving activities in the world of energy, the environment and healthcare!
• Leading locally. There’s something odd going on — as the world gets global, we’re all going local.  We’re seeing it with sustainability  and local foods; angst and anger at banks and moves to credit unions; and a new volunteerism – as unemployment grew to 7.6%, volunteer service grew by 16%! We’re seeing it with local business – a University of Pennsylvania study found that areas with small, locally owned business (<100 employees) had greater per capita income growth than those with the presence of larger, nonlocal firms! There’s a new focus on local co-ops — with more than 100 million people employed worldwide in some type of local co-op. Thats’ why its fitting that 2012 is the International Year of the Cooperatives, a business model that has stood the test of time for over 150 years. Where-ever you look, while we are thinking global, we’re acting local!
• Strategy re-dos. The impact of all these trends? Executives quickly coming to realize that what they’ve been doing in the past isn’t to hold them forward into the future. It’s time to throw out all the old assumptions and try things that are new!

Here’s to 2012!

Click here to learn more about JIM CARROLL