Futurist Jim Carroll will speak at the Align UKI Live Forum
Leading futurist Jim Carroll will be the keynote speaker at the Align UKI Live Forum on 24 September 2022, at Savoy Place, London. He talks to Dental Review about his world view, what a futurist is, and how he became one.
To establish his credentials, Toronto-based Jim is considered to be the world’s leading global expert in innovation and business transformation, and is recognised worldwide for both his wit and his compelling motivational style of speaking, which he has honed for some 30 years in presentations to more than two million people around the globe.
Jim is represented by the same agencies that book such global icons as Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. Bush, Richard Branson, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Michael Douglas and Jay Leno, and his clients include blue chip companies including Disney, the World Bank, Mercedes Benz, the PGA, Blackrock, the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer, Microsoft, Cisco, and over 1,500 more.
NASA thought so much of Jim’s presentation that it has invited him back twice, and because he is on such great terms with the CEOs of such a broad portfolio of world leading clients, people who share their observations and concerns with him, he is able to bring his insightful eye to bear on burgeoning trends before they enter the public arena.
He has published over 30 business-oriented books which have sold in their millions, including: Now What? The role of optimism in finding your new future, and Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast, both of which encapsulate his world view for achieving business success – which is about embracing change instead of fearing it.
He advises: “You have to be prepared to change your future before your future changes you, but what do I mean by ‘future’? Some futurists gaze into a crystal ball and offer their long-term views, predicting changes that might happen over the next 50-100 years. Dentists I talk to today are not interested in hearing about possible changes in the 22nd and 23rd centuries, they want to know what might happen in the next five, 10, or 15 years, what disruptive technological innovations might impact their business?
“Those innovations and trends are around us now, what we once predicted would happen in future decades is happening today. When I talk to an audience, I often cite a TV programme from the early 1960s with new episodes also created in the 1980s, The Jetsons.”
Jim Continued “The Jetsons were meant to be based in a high-tech future, in 2062. Fact is that many of the inventions that eased their family life are already in place, and strangely enough the father figure, George Jetson, he would be amongst us now, as a baby.
“It might seem silly but I bring this kind of subject matter into my presentations on purpose, I have to find things to talk about that wake my audience up. Very often I’m trying to grab the attention of hungover delegates who spent a long evening networking in the hotel bar and would rather be hunched over a strong coffee than listening to me. Others I have to entice away from their smartphones.
“Actually, I invite my audience to interact with my presentation by asking them to use those very same smartphones to respond to questions I post on the stage. We then have real-time polls of opinions and attitudes that I can use to involve my audience with the show, and I have to do that because I estimate that 30% of my audience will hate my message – they don’t like the idea of change – and that was something I used to obsess over. Not anymore.
“We have to accept that people are what they are. Perhaps 10% will feel that I’ve opened their eyes to new possibilities, fresh opportunities, and changed their lives, while others think about the future and see it as a threat. They feel that progress is great but it goes on far too long. They want things to remain the same – then something like COVID happens
“As long ago as 2017 I wrote a blog about the emerging medical situation in the USA, and looking back I see that even then I had predicted a pushback against vaccines and scientific health pathways [1]. The anti-science, anti-logical attitude that exists regarding COVID vaccines today was in existance five years ago, founded on social trends that were already well underway.
“As for the pandemic itself – despite the loss of life and economic impact of the virus – there is a positive side to the situation. A decade of medical innovation has been compressed into just a few months. Remote diagnosis was already a rising trend, but it is now a part of the new normal and we won’t be going back. This is now, it’s here.”
And yet Jim never set out to have a career as one of the world’s leading speakers and authors, he never planned to be speaking on national TV and radio. Back in the early 1980s he was a chartered accountant who was fascinated by the internet, to the point that he was already online by 1982.
He started talking about internet development, sold a million internet focused books, and brought his business and technology background to bear on the subject. Those early shoots grew to become the redwood giant that is his career to date. Technology drives his shows whether he is on-stage in front of a live audience or working in his personal studio, where he can change his background to better reflect his presentations.
Intense research is at the heart of his theorising and interpretations of future potential. He says: “I can focus on any subject and find thousands of papers and articles, then I can drill deeper and look at, say, bionic implants or 3D printing, CAD/CAM and AI in the dental surgery and laboratory, and I can see that the dental world is speeding up, it is accelerating to a fantastic degree.
“So are the patients, their expectations are changing. They want to see an investment in the latest technology in order to feel they are getting the best level of care. They want to see CBCT scanners, intraoral scanners, CAD software, all of the things that make them feel safer in the surgery. Clinicians who can’t or won't embrace change will be left behind.”
Jim adds: “I don’t mean that you have to invest in the complete digital dental workflow overnight, I say do it right. That’s what I mean by Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast, it’s about making time to explore what’s possible with innovation. Traditional dentistry incurs higher cost and lower interest from the patients. Embracing technology has a great return, failing to do so is failing to recognise both the world we live in today, and the one we will find ourselves in tomorrow.”
To book you place to hear Jim speak at the Align UKI Live Forum on 24 September 2022, click HERE
1] https://jimcarroll.com/2017/02/trend-the-emerging-healthcare-reality-crisis/
Images are from Jim Carroll's presentations at Nasa.
The Jetsons graffiti from Shutterstock.