Trends to Consider when making a Midlife Career Change: Place or No Place?

This is the fourth column in our series of seven that look at the macro trends to consider when making a midlife career change. In the first three, which can be found by clicking on the column titles below, we looked at the Flow to Global, the Flow to Individual and Disintermediation. This column looks at the choice between Place or No Place.

Until the last quarter century, one pretty much worked where one lived. In the Agricultural Age this was absolute. One lived near the fields that needed to be farmed or to serve those that did so. In the Industrial Age, the great migration of people from rural to urban areas occurred. This of course was to support the growth of production and factories that defined this Age. The place of work changed. The products of both of these ages were physical, and needed physical tending and needed transport, which gave rise to highly developed transportation distribution systems.

Often, this urban centralization shaped and located entire industries. The automotive industry was largely in Detroit, the entertainment industry in the Los Angeles area, finance and publishing in New York. Most professions, to some degree, dictated that if one wanted to succeed, one had to be in a certain place -- if you really wanted to make it in the movies, you had to go to Hollywood. Artistic endeavors were one of the few areas where this was not ironclad. A writer, painter or composer could do creative work anywhere, as long as, from time to time, they went to the physical marketplace where deals were to be made and things to be sold. Ernest Hemingway wrote from all over the world. He helped to define the current image of artists living in exotic places as, indeed, one of the benefits of this type of occupation.

Today, with the level of connectivity that now exists, one can choose how important place really needs to be in life with much less geographical dictate. The Internet, the cell phone and wireless connectivity have, for the first time in history, freed us from place.

Now the question becomes what one wants as it pertains to place. We have the choice to integrate our work with the place we live or to disconnect the two. Many people have chosen to live like Hemingway, doing one’s work while living in a beloved place, using the high speed Internet and other forms of connectivity to stay connected to the market or work place. Others, particularly many making a midlife career change, seek a high level of physical interpersonal interaction or a deepened sense of community around work.

Do you need to work and supply goods or services to the community in which you live? Do you want your work to be tied to a place? If you do, then opening a restaurant or café or retail store is the epitome of a place based business. The benefits of such businesses are obvious: high in-person interaction, a physical business to go to every day, a business identity tied to the community in which you live. The downside of course is that you need to be at your place of business. You are much less mobile and much more place based in terms of revenue. If the community changes, your business will too, which can be good or bad, but your investment is local and tied to a place.

If, on the other hand, you choose a business that is based upon intellectual capital then you can be anywhere and be in business. The Internet will connect you will your clients so that you don’t need to be where they are. Of course if you choose this path you must understand that you will also be putting yourself in competition to anyone in the world who is providing the same product or service you are. The best position in a global arena is to be unique or create your own brand that is distinctive, and ultimately in demand. If you get a charge out of ‘pressing the flesh’, or are a people person, then perhaps a ‘no place’ business might not be fulfilling.

This is the first time in history that a great number of middle aged people have the opportunity to choose ‘place or no place’ when thinking of the next career. Make sure to make the right decision for you.