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Rethink An Industry
Rethink An Industry
Every industry right now is being reinvented in ways that do good. The companies leading the charge are the ones who are going to hire you. Before you begin this exercise, choose one industry you are interested in working in.
Don’t know which industry to choose? Go back and consider other options you may have missed while Mapping Your Current Career Path
Once you have chosen your industry, answer the following questions to help you discover the often invisible companies that are actually rebuilding, reinventing and redesigning our world.
- Why does industry X exist?
What fundamental need does this industry meet? Does it ensure that people travel great distances quickly, or does it help us understand the world around us? How different do these needs look if you zoomed out 10, 20 or even 50 years from now? Express your answer to these question in the form of a human need that will be around for many years to come. - What’s broken?
Knowing the current limitations, flaws and challenges of your industry can help you identify the gaps that you could fill and the opportunities for innovation. How could you help this industry function better and more sustainably and efficiently? Where are there opportunities for reinvention? Seek to answer these questions from an industry perspective. - What are the mavericks doing?
Once you start to look, you will find people that are already working on these core questions and rethinking industries from the ground up. If you can’t find your answer in the lists featured here track down someone who’s been in the industry for 10+ years and ask them. Look at industry conferences to see who is speaking. Everyone within a particular industry knows who the relevant upstarts are. Get to know what these companies are doing, what questions they are asking and how they have found funding that allowed them to dedicate themselves fully to realizing their answer to that core question. Can’t figure out how to get in touch with someone already in the field? Talk to a Company You Do Not Know or make a list of mavericks - Who are the winners?
Understanding who profits as a result of your industry’s improved redesign will help you immediately recognize who will fund your work, who will hire you, or who will eventually acquire the company you work for. You can guarantee that the companies already firmly entrenched in answering this question are looking for ways to recreate and rebuild in response to our changing environment: they want to hire you.
Bonus Work: Take a read through the free report called The Social Intrapreneur: A Field Guide for Corporate Changemakers to get an idea of how industries are changing from the inside.
Now that you have answered these questions Make a Company List , Talk to a Company You Do Not Know and then Send This Email to the Company You Want to Work For
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Go on a Solo Trip
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Describe Your Dream Job
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Imagine 3 Vastly Different Careers
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Rethink An Industry
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Write Creative Nonfiction About Yourself
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Visit MyOccupation.org
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Create a Fictional Mentor
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Interview Someone