Chapter 32 Chapter 31: A's Arsenic, B's Bear's Paw

Later, I was introduced to the president of the San Francisco office of Booz Allen Consulting, an international consulting firm.I had to impress the president that I would be responsible for the company's life sciences customers.During the interview, the branch president asked me a question: How can a Ph.D. in neurology make a good management consultant.I haven't actually thought about it, but I can't say that, I can't afford to lose a single opportunity.So, on the spot, I briefly described the similarities between brain research and management consulting.For example, both need to identify a burning problem, gather and analyze relevant data, select the most effective solutions, craft a convincing presentation, and then move on to the next burning problem.Later in the day, the president arranged for me to retest, and I got a job offer in the evening, which I accepted without hesitation, of course.The job turned out to be a fantastic opportunity to learn about business as well as a range of other industries, and I went beyond my skills as a scientist.Later, out of curiosity and work needs, I constantly adjusted my personal skills and created new opportunities for myself.Whenever people ask me, how do you neuroscientists teach entrepreneurship to engineers now?I had to reply, "Oh, that's a long story!"

I use these examples to illustrate the point that no matter how complex an organization is, there will always be opportunities around you.Even if you're not good at spotting opportunities and solving problems, with a little creativity you can find a way to adapt your skills to meet challenges.Paul Yorke discovered a missed opportunity at Stanford and designed a new plan to fill the need; Deborah Dunn noticed the department's vacancy, so she found a way to make full use of her talents, and finally won what was not hers position; and I also came up with innovative ways to readjust my personal skills in order to cross two seemingly unrelated fields.

A's arsenic, B's bear's paw There is another way for a character to achieve self-realization, which is to find a way to turn things that others don't want into useful things.There is often enormous value embedded in projects that others carelessly abandon.As we discussed earlier, people sometimes simply discard ideas because they don't fully analyze them, or because they don't have the time to explore them thoroughly.But these discarded ideas often contain rich treasures. When Michael Dearing first entered the workplace, he worked in the strategy department of Disney. Later, he started his own business and established a retail business. However, the business failed and he went to the well-known online auction website eBay.From his first job at eBay, Michael felt little excitement.So, he decided to use his free time to study the abandoned functions on the website and the whimsy waiting for people to develop. In 2000, Michael discovered that a new feature was added to the website-users only needed to pay 25 cents to add a picture to the product description, but only 10% of eBay users used this feature.Michael took the time to analyze the benefits of this new service for sellers, and he found that items with pictures sold faster and at higher prices than those without pictures.Therefore, he collected a lot of convincing data and began to increase the marketing of the image function of the website, and finally increased the number of eBay users using this service from the previous 10% to 60%, which increased eBay's annual revenue by 3000 Ten thousand U.S. dollars.With no one's advice, Michael discovers an untapped gold mine, which turns out to be very profitable.For eBay, the marketing expenses invested are negligible, but they have created huge profits.