The argument
Innovation is not a department and creativity is not decoration. Across the Daily Inspiration archive, Jim repeatedly treats them as organizational capabilities: ways of seeing, experimenting, learning, collaborating and moving.
This collection isolates one recurring dimension of that argument: Ideas Networks And Collaboration.
What keeps recurring
The posts below repeatedly return to several practical themes: ideas need permission and pathways; experiments should create learning; culture can either accelerate or suffocate possibility; outside knowledge matters; and speed without curiosity simply produces faster execution of old assumptions.
Archive evidence
2023-01-11 — Daily Inspiration: “It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!”
“It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!” - Futurist Jim Carroll Next month will mark 3 years since individuals and organizations began to go through the largest disruption they will ever know. With lockdowns, a staggering loss of human life, work-from-home, and the rapid emergence of a digital lifestyle and e-commerce infrastructure - we all had to learn to adapt quickly. As I close out this series of 23 Trends for 2023, I’ve been thinking long and hard as to what the final, all-encompassing trend should be; to be honest, I’ve had several.
2023-06-06 — Daily Inspiration: “You’ll never get to the future if you never attempt the future!”
“You’ll never get to the future if you never attempt the future! ”- Futurist Jim Carroll 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.
2023-12-18 — Daily Inspiration: 24 Strategies for 2024 #16 - “Fail at fewer first impression failures”
“Fail at fewer first impression failures” - Futurist Jim Carroll Futurist Jim Carroll is running a series that began November 27, 2023, and will end on January 1, 2024 - ‘24 Strategies for 2024.’ Rather than running a trend series for the upcoming year as he has previously, this series will examine a number of his personal beliefs on how to best align yourself with the future. There will be a post each weekday, excluding weekends and holidays, until the series runs its course. You will find it on his blog at https://blog.jimcarroll.com, or on the website https://2024.jimcarroll.com The people you meet are often not who you think - we all suff
2023-12-19 — Daily Inspiration: 24 Strategies for 2024 #17 - “Invest in kindness”
“Invest in kindness” - Futurist Jim Carroll Futurist Jim Carroll is running a series that began November 27, 2023, and will end on January 1, 2024 - ‘24 Strategies for 2024.’ Rather than running a trend series for the upcoming year as he has previously, this series will examine a number of his personal beliefs on how to best align yourself with the future. There will be a post each weekday, excluding weekends and holidays, until the series runs its course. You will find it on his blog at https://blog.jimcarroll.com, or on the website https://2024.jimcarroll.com If you follow me, you might get a sense that I tend to have a rather compassionate
2024-01-15 — Daily Inspiration: Healthcare and the Future - “You can always look forward by looking back!”
“You can always look forward by looking back!” - Futurist Jim Carroll “16 years ago, Futurist Jim Carroll spoke in Washington DC on the future of healthcare. He challenged the audience to think about what the world of healthcare would look like one day in the future - picking an arbitrary, random date of January 15, 2020. Now, 16 years later, take a look at how he did with his predictions!
2024-12-31 — Daily Inspiration: 25 Things for 2025 – #24: “Be spectacularly misfocused and gloriously distracted!”
“Be spectacularly misfocused and gloriously distracted!” - Futurist Jim Carroll Futurist Jim Carroll is writing a series, “25 Things I’ve Learned That Will Carry Me Into 2025.” He is putting this together based on his 30-year career as a futurist, trends, and innovation expert, advising leaders of some of the world’s most prestigious organizations on how to align to a faster future. He intends for the series to provide valuable guidance to others eager to learn how to move through a year that promises to be volatile, unpredictable, and full of uncertainty. Each day, the post goes out on multiple mailing lists, social media networks, and to th
2025-01-03 — Daily Inspiration: (Grading My 2014 Predictions About 2025) - “Sometimes you need not be right you just need to be bold!”
“Sometimes you need not be right you just need to be bold!” - Futurist Jim Carroll Welcome to 2025! Back in 2014, I wrote a series of predictions about 2025 - in a document titled, of all things, ‘25 Trends for 2025’. (Intuitive!) At the time I wrote it, most of the news media were busy, as they are every year, contacting futurists, trend forecasters, and guys like me to bang together their year-end articles about “what comes next?
2025-01-22 — Daily Inspiration: Global politics and trade - “A “blast from the past from 2009 - “Canada announces end of economic relationship with US, & a bold new strategy to 2020”
“Sometimes, satire can become all too real” - Futurist Jim Carroll There’s no doubt that there might not be a lot of logical, rational stuff going on in the next few years. That’s why I keep stressing that volatility is the new normal. With that in mind, I can’t help but reach back to a post I wrote in 2009, which I reshared in 2013.
2025-02-10 — Daily Inspiration: The Future of Insurance: “New risk demands new thinking. Uninsurable risk demands bold thinking”
“New risk demands new thinking. Uninsurable risk demands bold thinking.” - Futurist Jim Carroll In just about a month, I’ll head to California to headline a major insurance conference. The fact that I’m speaking in a region that is home to one of the largest insurance losses in US history is not lost on me, and in fact, will provide form for much of my talk.
2025-05-23 — Decoding Tomorrow: Your Daily Future Inspiration – “You can escape the mediocrity you once embraced, but will you ever fully eradicate it?”
“You can escape the mediocrity you once embraced, but will you ever fully eradicate it?” - Futurist Jim Carroll It’s been a wild voyage bringing these two books to print in just a few months, and I’m loving the feedback and comments from those who have picked up copies. (Are you in? You can grab copies at the Mediocrity website !) But while working on them, I’m always thinking.
2025-05-29 — Decoding Tomorrow: Your Daily Future Inspiration – “There is no shortage of big opportunities.. There is a shortage of bold leadership!”
“There is no shortage of big opportunities.. There is a shortage of bold leadership!” = Futurist Jim Carroll One of my fellow futurists recently included this line in a post I read - “We should be pulling more photons from the sun.” He wrote it as an observation when he was flying into an American city, and saw an absolute dearth of solar panels on the roofs of homes and buildings. Solar energy - the infrastructure at least - has become desperately cheap and tremendously productive, and we are missing such a big opportunity.
2025-08-08 — Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #27 America’s Retreat “By abandoning its R&D leadership, the US is ceding the future of global innovation and success to its competitors.”
“By abandoning its R&D leadership, the US is ceding the future of global innovation and success to its competitors.” - Futurist Jim Carroll (Futurist Jim Carroll is writing a series on 30 Megatrends, which he first outlined in his book Dancing in the Rain: How Bold Leaders Grow Stronger in Stormy Times. The trends were shared in the book as a way of demonstrating that, despite any period of economic volatility, there is always long-term opportunity to be found. The book is now in print - learn more at dancing.jimcarroll.com) This is a LONG post.
2025-09-24 — Decoding Tomorrow: The Way Forward: #2 Agriculture- The farmer of the future is part biologist, part data scientist, and part roboticist—but is still 100% an optimist who plants a seed and believes in tomorrow.”
“The farmer of the future is part biologist, part data scientist, and part roboticist—but is still 100% an optimist who plants a seed and believes in tomorrow.” - Futurist Jim Carroll In 2025, the headwinds are severe, and the path forward seems shrouded in fog. We’re living through one of the most volatile and unpredictable periods in recent memory. With that being the case, I am writing this new series, The Way Forward: A Trends and Transformation Series, taking a look at the trends redefining industries, and actionable strategies organizations must pursue to align to these realities.
2025-09-26 — Decoding Tomorrow: The Way Forward: #4 Healthcare: “Yesterday’s medical breakthrough was a new drug. Tomorrow’s breakthrough is the intelligent algorithm that designs the drug, the connected device that delivers it, and the data stream that confirms it worked.”
“Yesterday’s medical breakthrough was a new drug. Tomorrow’s breakthrough is the intelligent algorithm that designs the drug, the connected device that delivers it, and the data stream that confirms it worked.”- Futurist Jim Carroll In 2025, the headwinds are severe, and the path forward seems shrouded in fog. We’re living through one of the most volatile and unpredictable periods in recent memory.
2025-10-06 — Decoding Tomorrow: The Way Forward: #9 Auto & Transportation - “A decade from now, the automotive landscape will be dominated by companies that treated 2025’s reality check not as a crisis, but as the greatest competitive opportunity they ever witnessed!”
“A decade from now, the automotive landscape will be dominated by companies that treated 2025’s reality check not as a crisis, but as the greatest competitive opportunity they ever witnessed!” - Futurist Jim Carroll In 2025, the headwinds are severe, and the path forward seems shrouded in fog. We’re living through one of the most volatile and unpredictable periods in recent memory. With that being the case, I am writing this new series, The Way Forward: A Trends and Transformation Series, taking a look at the trends redefining industries, and actionable strategies organizations must pursue to align with these realities.
2025-12-02 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 – #9: “Know this: if your goals feel ‘realistic,’ you are thinking too small.”
“Know this: if your goals feel ‘realistic,’ you are thinking too small.” - Futurist Jim Carroll We are on Day 9. You’ve committed to the pivot (Day 7), and you are increasing your execution velocity (Day 8). You are moving faster.
2025-12-08 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 - #13 The Wisdom Inversion: “Know when to get your age out of the way.”
“Know when to get your age out of the way.” - Futurist Jim Carroll We are on Day 13. We just spent Day 12 dismantling your personal hubris - getting your ego out of the way. One of the most important aspects of that?
2025-12-09 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 – #14 Hype Immunity - “Leadership today isn’t about what you chase. It’s about what you ignore.”
“Leadership today isn’t about what you chase. It’s about what you ignore.” - Futurist Jim Carroll We are on Day 14 of my 26 Principles for 2026 - guidance to guide you through a world of exponential change. If you don’t remember why this is so critical, go back and read the intro!
2025-12-10 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 – #15 Escape Velocity “Scale immediately or fail slowly. There is no middle ground.”
“Scale immediately or fail slowly. There is no middle ground.”- Futurist Jim Carroll We are on Day 15! You’ve listened to the edge (Day 13) and filtered out the hype to find a real structural signal (Day 14).
2025-12-11 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 – #16 Scale-blindness: “Your brain is built for addition. The future is built on multiplication.”
“Your brain is built for addition. The future is built on multiplication.” - Futurist Jim Carroll When exponential change arrives, it never goes well. That’s because most people fail to understand what it means and don’t act, which is a problem.
2025-12-12 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 – #17 Unapologetic Uniqueness: “Always remember that conformity is where tomorrow’s greatness goes to die.”
“Always remember that conformity is where tomorrow’s greatness goes to die.” - Futurist Jim Carroll I’ve long suggested that one of the best ways to align with the future is through this thinking: when everybody is running one way, run the other way! Be the contrarian. The hole in the bucket, the square peg with a bunch of round holes, the one who says “why not?’ when everyone else is saying ‘why?’ We are on Day 17.
2025-12-17 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 – #20 Network Velocity: “If you are the fastest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.”
“If you are the fastest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.” - Futurist Jim Carroll The 1987 editorial “Tomorrow’s Company Won’t Have Walls” stands as one of the most accurate corporate prophecies of the modern era. And it had a profound impact on my life. It’s probably fair to say that if I hadn’t read it, I wouldn’t have stepped out on my own to start my own company, chase my own career, do my own thing - and become a global freelancer, a nomadic worker, a lone wolf, long before the trend became real and the idea fashionable.
2025-12-18 — Decoding Tomorrow: Mastering 2026 – #21 Signal Intelligence - “Your new challenge isn’t finding the insight-it’s filtering out the noise.”
“Your new challenge isn’t finding the insight - it’s filtering out the noise.” - Futurist Jim Carroll It used to be that the problem with the information age was that there was too much information. That’s changed. The new problem is now that not only is there too much information, but much of it is crap.
2026-07-01 — Daily Inspiration: ""A different direction means a louder voice. Get ready, world: you’re getting more Canadian cowbell.”
“A different direction means a louder voice. Get ready, world: you’re getting more Canadian cowbell.” - Futurist Jim Carroll Happy Canada Day! July 1 marks the 159th birthday of what most global surveys rank one of the best places in the world to live.
Leadership implication
The useful question is not whether an organization claims to value innovation. It is whether its structures make it easier to notice ideas, test them, learn from them and scale what works.
Strategic question
What in our current operating system makes a good idea more likely to survive? What makes it more likely to die?