canada design journalism vancouver Work, July 20, 2008 3:22 AM 3 comments
Future Perfect Career 1
The following email was written to a professor of mine in June, 2007. I'm reviewing it again to see if it still holds true: is my dream job still Jan Chipchase's job? This two part article will first look at my thoughts on the topic from one year ago and then re-evaluate them in conjunction with what I've learned about design, and myself, over the past year of internships in Asia and an exchange in Europe.
A typically Chipchase moment I published last year.
June 15, 2007:
OK allow me to think aloud for a moment and bounce something off you,
I'm trying to distill exactly what it is that really interests me in life. I tend not to distinguish between personal and career interests, right, so I realize my interests aren't that clear in my head likely because I have so many. So I was making a sky-is-the-limit list and came up with some of these:
Careers and Work I like
- Journalism
- Photo Journalism
- Design
- Graphic Design
- Advertising Design
- Art Direction
- Usability Consulting
- Urban Planning
- Public Transportation
- Politics
- Municipal
- Policy Advising
- Research
- Cultural Management
- Curator
- Historian
Then I asked myself, if there were an ideal job you'd like to have right now, what would it be? And that answer is multiple, too, from running a little conceptual design consultancy in Vancouver with some ECI kids, to being the next Robert Capa war correspondent. But as of June 15, 2007 (because these notions I have change quickly), The one job I want most in the world right now is working with head Nokia field researcher Jan Chipchase.
Chipchase has a blog I admire, and am basically in awe of every day, janchipchase.com/ aka Future Perfect. The guy is in charge of envisioning, through pure observation of cultural behaviour, where mobile communications are going to be in 3-10 years. He and his team travel the globe, from first to third world, doing interviews, photo documentation and deciphering, then compiling their findings and presenting them to both Nokia and the design and business world. It's research, theory, travel and presentation, my four favourite things. And it's often not all about making money for a phone company.
So now my question is, how do I make something like this happen? How do I get (or make) that job? I figured my next two months off in SE Asia are a perfect place to start.
More Chipchase-like research.
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There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.—Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )
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