"I'm a futurist. You don't have to like me. But you do have to listen to me." - Futurist Jim Carroll
The interesting thing is that, being a speaker for 30+ years, you often find yourself speaking in the same conference and event centres where you've spoken before.
Such is the case with Tucson today, where I will speak at an energy and utility conference.
A few yards ago, I spoke to a few hundred cattle ranchers about the future of their industry in the same room. One of my core messages back then included details on the massive new markets that would come with globalization. My message was that they should evolve from a national focus to a global focus, and not become complacent with the effort it takes to build global market share in a vastly competitive world. Oops! If you catch the news these days, they aren't really having a very good time with things! Anyways, here's a photo pre-keynote.
But what is really interesting is that way back in January 1996, I spoke in the same facility for Nortel. Remember them - at one time, they were the world's largest telecom hardware and software provider, with a valuation in the billions. They brought me down for a business session they were running parallel to the Nortel Open, an event on the PGA tour circuit that they were sponsoring. (Mickelson won.)
My message back then was very much focused on the Internet; I found myself in an extensive number of corporate and association events, putting into perspective the impact it would have on business models, technological foundations, customer interaction, and more.
At this particular event, I put into perspective that the Internet was going to cause massive disruption for the telecom industry - the idea of long-distance would disappear, the cost for communications hardware would plummet as a result of voice-over-Internet technologies, and their business model and product line would get hammered if they didn't evolve. I pretty much suggested that the telecom industry, as they knew it, was disappearing, and they needed to adapt or die.
Word came back to me years later, the CEO, flying home on the corporate jet, fumed to his team - who invited this guy in? Didn't anyone vet the reality of his message? His predictions were too far off base, he told his team. What happened subsequently was that for a time, Nortel rode the telecom boom, selling vast amounts of hardware and software related to old infrastructure that was going out of date. And then, it died in 2002, a victim of the dot.com collapse and shrinking markets due to a massive telecom overbuild.
They didn't like my message, but boy, was I right in how things would evolve! They might not have liked my message, but they should have listened to me.
Today, we are seeing a massive overbuild of AI data centers, just as we saw a huge buildup of telecom capacity. For Nortel, once overcapacity happened, market share disappeared. All of this will be one of my topics in my keynote later this morning. Some think we are in an AI bubble - others do not. Is there overcapacity and overbuilding?
So what is the point of all this? I'm constantly reminded that I often share a message that can be distressing, disruptive, and not necessarily the one that people want to hear. But I call the balls and strikes as I see them - and just like the batter at the plate, people need to listen, even if they don't like the message.
Never shoot the messenger!
Futurist Jim Carroll covers industry trends, both good and bad.