Original 2021 statement: Someone will figure out how you can spend an actual hour inside the very mind of your pet, thinking and seeing the world exactly as they do
What Jim has written about this
From “Daily Inspiration: “It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!”” (January 2023)
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. But they’ve all had a common theme - all of us finally have the chance to look forward to what’s next , rather than just concentrating right now on what we need to do to get through. In a conference call with a client the other day, I was given a gift when he mentioned that in his mind, they weres finally able to move away from triage - fast, quick steps to simply survive - to thinking about their future again. That’s it!
My last 3 events before Covid were firmly linked to the opportunities of the future. The American Truck Dealers Association brought me in for a keynote that took at the electrification of their industry, the arrival of hyper-connected trucking technology, and the potential for autonomous technology. Syngenta, the global agricultural company, had me in for a talk to key dealers on how farmers were aligned to fast-moving science trends with fast genomics, autonomy, the potential world of 24-hour farming, and more. The Canadian Golf Superintendents Association - my very last in-person event in March 2020 - took a look at the future of the golf industry, some of the new technologies, concepts, and ideas coming into the game, and how that might influence their work.
With that in mind, here’s an older post I wrote some years ago, ’ 101 Things We Know About Our Future’ - An Esoteric List of Things That Are Happening Now and Next! ’ It provides some food for thought on what we might be thinking about as we move from triage to tomorrow!
From “Tuesday Unfiltered: The Serenity Prayer, Tariff Rage, and Knowing When Not to Post” (September 2026)
Every morning, I open the news and encounter another statement, tariff announcement, threat, insult, provocation, bizarre claim, or astonishing bit of political theatre coming out of the United States. As a Canadian, I get angry, sometimes really angry, and my instinct is to fire up LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads, or my blog and say exactly what is on my mind.
The same principle applies to what we buy. Canadians have been making very deliberate choices about American products, including alcohol. That particular one doesn’t have much practical impact on me because I don’t drink. I’ve been sober for ten years, so I’m not exactly wandering through the liquor store trying to decide between a Canadian whisky and a Kentucky bourbon.
That, to me, is a much healthier response than spending every waking hour furious online. The Serenity Prayer is about recognizing the difference between things over which we have no control and those where our decisions actually matter. I cannot change the mind of someone sitting in Washington, but I can change what goes into my shopping cart.
From “The BIG Future: Brain Science and the Acceleration of Neurological Care” (February 2023)
Before the onset of the disease, “Opa” and I would have delightful conversations — about world politics, technology, business, and society. He had a mind that was sharp, in tune, and that was very much engaged. And what was remarkable was that his career did not allow him to utilize his insight and intelligence as much as he could have. He had immigrated from Germany in the early 1950s; as such, with limited English skills to start, he spent much of his working life doing honest, diligent work — but which involved manual labor. For over 30 years, he worked for General Motors. He was proud of who he was, and what he had accomplished, and thrived in the love of his wife Susanne (“Oma”), his daughters Christa and Heidie, and his grandkids. But I always had a sense that he had hoped to do more with his life.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty certain that the 2 year old of today is living in a different world than I do - and that being immersed in the era of acceleration, their brain synapses are evolving very quickly, in an entirely different way. Add to that the acceleration of HCI - or Human-Computer Interface technology — and you’ve got trend #17 of ‘19 Trends for 2019.’
We are also seeing the development of better probe implants that help to assess the actual performance of new brain and nervous system drugs because so much of what we have been doing so far has been very subjective in nature: “Assessing the neurological and behavioral effects of drugs is important in developing pharmacological treatments, as well as understanding the mechanisms associated with neurological disorders. Herein, we present a miniaturized, wireless neural probe system with the capability of delivering drugs for the real-time investigation of the effects of the drugs on both behavioral and neural activities in socially interacting mice.”
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Daily Inspiration: “It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!”
Tuesday Unfiltered: The Serenity Prayer, Tariff Rage, and Knowing When Not to Post
The BIG Future: Brain Science and the Acceleration of Neurological Care