They seem to be constantly focused on the unique opportunities and challenges that exist in their industry. They're continually reinventing themselves — generating new revenue streams in places where there weren’t any before.

World-class innovators seem to have an uncanny ability to know when a customer has a problem — even before the customer does — and so they are very customer proactive. In fact, they seem to source customer solutions through their customer base by conversing with them in a unique way. They’re really good at ingesting ideas and thinking quickly. They're very agile; they can switch tactics and strategies faster than their competitors. They know that accessing skills quickly in a fast changing environment is critical to the future.

And perhaps the most important thing is they are not afraid to think big. They realize that we live in the era of Elon Musk — a fellow reinventing both the space and automotive industries at the same time.

1. What can I do to run the business better?
2. What can I do to grow the business?
3. What can I do to transform the business?

Many organizations focus on the first two issues, but in an era of complex business model change, it's the transformation of the business that becomes critical, and doing that well involves highly innovative thinking. That’s where I focus, then, on opening people’s minds.

Think about what is happening in the corporate sector. The new competitors for credit card companies are companies like Apple, PayPal, Facebook, and Google. Visa, MasterCard, and American Express aren't used to innovating as fast as these organizations.

That same rate of change is coming to every single industry. For example, it’s certainly happening in the auto sector as your car becomes more of a computer than a car. Take a look at what's happening with bio connectivity and the change that is occurring in healthcare as tons of new Internet connected medical devices come to the marketplace.

You can give me any industry, and I can point out where we are witnessing absolutely furiously rates of change as technology comes to drive the agenda.

Why is this so?

It’s because of the much-hyped Internet of Things (IOT), but also because technology companies simply innovate faster. Add those trends together, and you’ve got some pretty potent fuel for some very fast change.

There is some real hype around it, but what it really does is change industries, products, and markets in pretty significant ways.

Consider what's happening with the trucking industry for example. Volvo / Mac Trucks has had me talk to their global truck group. That’s because the very essence of what we consider to be a truck is changing with this type of connectivity.

A truck used to be just a truck — a mechanical thing - but it might surprise you to know that the typical truck today puts out about 3 GB of data per month. Much of that has to do with engine performance; we know from this information when a truck is going to break down. If we can bring it in before things go wrong, we can minimize downtime. That has a big impact in terms of the value of a truck to a fleet manager.

So what Volvo and others in the industry realize is that they aren’t just selling a truck anymore – they can sell a service based on their ability to predict when the truck is going to break down. They can sell ‘service uptime.’ That takes them into a whole new different business model. Talk about opportunity! That’s what the iOT leads us to in every industry, and it’s pretty surreal when you think about the scope of the opportunities that come with it.

So that’s what I cover when I’m on stage.