Sokanu: The Blog

*Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts leading up to the launch of Sokanu. In this series we will be discussing the core purpose behind the Sokanu vision as well as outline what our product does. For a full list of posts in this series see the left hand column of the blog

In our last post, we talked about why it is so important to become purposeful and what it means to find purpose in any of the four aspects of life. We made the point that many people find purpose in other aspects of life besides careers.  However, since Sokanu is focused on finding your passion in a career, we are going to going to talk about what we are attempting to do in order to help you find your passion.

What Is The Problem?

Humans are extremely complex. This is problem #1. If everyone was the same, or a piece of machinery, we could optimize our system for that model. Thankfully for our planet, this is not the case. Humans are instead natural, organic creatures. We evolve at different paces, live in different cities, grow up in different environments and go to different schools.Thus, building a system for everyone is a very fun and interesting challenge. Are we going to solve the problem right away? Of course not, it is going to take a while, and that's okay.

The main problem we are trying to solve is that the majority of people on the planet do not know what their passion is in life, or don't know how to translate their talents and interests into a career that they will love. As a result, many people at a young age are directionless, and filter into jobs that either a) their parents, friends and teachers tell them to go into or b) pays the most amount of money for the least amount of effort. At a systemic level, this is not just the fault of schools, but the fault of parenting, government, media, etc... Many people will go through life wondering what it is that they are meant to really do. This epiphany may come at an early age, right out of high school. It may come during your first internship, when you realize you actually hate what you thought you would love. It may come slowly, as you progress through life. Or it may not come until you retire, and you ask yourself, "what did I just do with the last 30 years of my life?"

Regardless of the timing, the reality is that all humans need to find a reason for existing. We need something to define ourselves by, while at the same time fitting into the economic system and providing for our families. The ultimate situation is having fulfillment both outside and inside the house.

How Do We Solve This Problem?

While a complex problem, we think this can be solved. Why is it that Netflix knows exactly what movies you should watch next, or that Amazon knows what books you would like to buy with remarkable accuracy? Why do we have intelligent systems solving material problems but not human problems? Answer: movies and books aren't made up of moving, evolving, unique DNA. They are made up of molecules that follow a specific formula. We don't. However, there must be a way to build an intelligent system that knows what careers you should go into, right?

Step one is narrowing down something we call the cluster effect. One of the major problems that humans have finding their passion is that they don't know where to start. We jump around from idea to idea, leaving them as quickly as they come. How about becoming a pastry chef? No? Maybe a real estate agent? Probably not. A swim coach? Graphic designer? You get the idea. There are hundreds of thousands of careers out there (not kidding), so how on earth do you even start to narrow them down?

The answer has to do with the aforementioned cluster effect. Sokanu has been built initially with 16 categories in mind, ranging from Arts & Entertainment to Sports, from Beauty & Style to Business & Entrepreneurship. Our first goal is to narrow you down into one or two of these "clusters" or categories of careers. How do we do this? Well think about how you find what you like offline. If you watch ESPN and Fox Sports, read Sports Illustrated and can tell me who won the Bulls-Hawks game last night, you probably have an interest in sports. Does this mean you should have a career in it? Maybe not, but it is a starting point. Think about the magazines you read, the TV shows you watch, the things you read on the Internet. What do you "not hate" doing when you have to do it for work? What do you have a natural tendency towards? Have you ever entered into a natural "flow" state while doing an activity? What jobs are out there that you can't believe people get paid to do, because you think it would be so much fun?

In the current social web, we have hints as to what you like to do. Think about when you "like" something on Facebook. Is this a 100% accurate representation that you actually "like" that activity? Probably not, but it gives us a clue. And if you like enough items in the same cluster, then that may mean you also like those things offline. Combine that with some of the things that we will be doing on Sokanu, and hopefully we can provide a pretty accurate hypothesis as to which cluster you should be focused on. 

What if you can't think of any cluster that you fit in to? What if you have absolutely no idea as to what you like, or what career cluster you should go into? We think that is perfectly normal, in fact we think that is almost better, as you have a fresh slate to start with. These interesting questions will be solved in a future post. 

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