Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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Career Paths

Stephen Baker, former BusinessWeek editor and author of the book The Numerati, has an interesting post about what LinkedIn has in store:

The company has some 70 million members. That’s data on 70 million careers. Conceivably, the company could provide a service showing each one of us the paths that others took when they were in the same position we’re in now. It could diagram where those choices led. … “Maybe he ends up deciding to be a high school math teacher,…” Nishar [Vice President of Products and Services at LinkedIn] says. In that case, he could find current math teachers who have followed that path and debrief them.

The information in and of itself is not that valuable probably, but when combined with the ability to connect with folks that have followed a path that seems interesting sounds exciting. Of course, you’d need those people to respond to your request for advice, though, in my experience, that’s actually easier than most folks think it is.

June 30, 2010