Page 22 - The Interconnected Individual: Seizing Opportunity in the Era of AI, Platforms, Apps, and Global Exchanges

HOw TO NAVIgATE YOUR CAREER 65

is more important than learning fast. What can you do with what
you have learned? 6

Where Do You Fit?

Where you fit today is not where you may fit 10 years from now. The
responsible role you play today in the current stage of your career may not
be what you are responsible for 10 years from now. The winning strategy
is to cultivate the awareness of where you prefer to fit, what environment
suits you, and where you add value. With this knowledge, you can always
work in a way that elevates you and makes you more sought after, without
your being fixated on a particular field, job type, or skill.
Start from where you are now. Build your experience on what you
know, but expand your comfort zone in terms of the region, field, or
industry that you may choose in the future. The career path is no longer
a straight line.

Choose Your Region Carefully

You may choose to work in varied regions such as the SF Bay Area,
Denver, New York, Ireland, Bangalore, or any number of places during
your career. Different regions expand your experience, making you more
valuable because you have different contexts to bring. If you can be “an
anyplace person” you can still live in one region and work virtually with
several others. Being a geographically dispersed worker is becoming more
the norm and the Internet enables both work mobility and living stability.
Regional clusters (as discussed in chapter 9) are magnets for the
“ Creative Class” of online-based professionals. They are now known as
“superstar cities.” Richard Florida has described those superstar cities—
such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles—and how they have
become even more attractive in this technology-driven era:

6 V. Cerf. 2017. “Institute for the Future,” Conference on Human Centered AI. http://
www.iftf.org/future-now/article-detail/vint-cerf-presents-at-iftf-about-ethics-and-ai,
(accessed July 29, 2017).