“If you are the fastest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.” - Futurist Jim Carroll
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Futurist Jim Carroll is writing his end-of-2025 / introduction-to-2026 series, 26 Principles for 2026. You can follow along at 2026.jimcarroll.com. He welcomes your comments.
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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. Like I've said - I haven't had a job for 35 years, and I work really hard to not have to get a job!
It's worth reading, because it predicted with precision the modern organization of today.
Think about where we are now: many organizations don't define themselves by the depth of their staff - they do so by the reach of their skills network.
But in 2026 and beyond, the sophisticated reach of a networked organization is not enough.
It's no longer about the reach of your skills network, but also the speed with which they operate.
If they aren't as fast as you, it will slow you down even further, stunt your progress, and ruin your ability to align with exponential trends.
That's why, in 2026 and beyond, you have to stop letting slow partners kill your speed.
The Issue of Network Velocity
We are on Day 20. We have built your internal engine: You have the Unapologetic Uniqueness (Day 17), an Antifragile Mindset (Day 18), and Optionality Architecture (Day 19).
Do those things, and you are getting ready for our exponential world.
But as they say, "but wait, there's more!" Now, we must look outside.
You can have a Ferrari engine (your mindset), but if you are driving in a convoy of tractors (your partners), you are going to move at the speed of a tractor!
And here's the thing about what this means to the networked organization, and perhaps your role in it as a freelancer: in a linear world, we picked partners based on stability, history, and comfort. We stuck with the vendor we’d used for 20 years because "they know us."
In an exponential world, loyalty to the past is a guarantee for failure. If your supply chain, your technology vendors, or your peer group are evolving linearly while the market accelerates exponentially, they aren't just slowing you down.
They are anchors.
This means that another discipline you must master going forward is Network Velocity.
Learn why.
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**#Velocity** **#Network** **#Freelance** **#Speed** **#Agility** **#Partners** **#Scale** **#Synchronization** **#Exponential** **#Frictionless**
Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/12/decoding-tomorrow-mastering-2026-20-network-velocity-if-you-are-the-fastest-person-in-the-room-you-are-in-the-wrong-room/
