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Identifying which companies you hope to work for is one of the biggest hurdles job seekers face. I know this because I was a search consultant for over 25 years. Now, I have an executive résumé and LinkedIn profile writing practice. And my clients almost always ask questions about how to find future employers. I advise them to use AI chatbot platforms like ChatGPT, Claude AI, and Perplexity. To help the platforms work their magic, I encourage them to use NAICS codes in their prompts. Heres how to do this: What are NAICS codes? NAICS is the acronym for the North American Industry Classification System. It assigns six-digit codes to companies as follows: The first two digits in a NAICS code identify economic sectors (e.g., 23 for Construction). NAICS has 20 sectors. The third and fourth digits divide economic sectors into subsectors. Example: 23 becomes 2382 for Building Equipment Contractors, a type of construction company. NAICS has 99 subsectors. The fifth and sixth digits divide economic subsectors into industries. Example: 2382 becomes 238220 for Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors, a type of building equipment contractor. NAICS has 1,000-plus industries. Thus, you can use NAICS codes at different levels to identify where you want to work. Once you know that, you can ask AI chatbot platforms to find companies in those NAICS codes. How AI chatbots can help find companies I asked ChatGPT how it finds companies. It searches for and analyzes public information from filings, directories, and the internet. It does in a minute or two what would take a job seeker hours, days, or weeks. I ran several searches on different platforms to show you how to use these chatbots to speed up your job search. You can see my prompts and results below. Prompts to find target companies I used these prompts to find companies by industry, location, and size: Prompt 1: Please list all the companies in NAICS code 713210 (Casinos) in Nevada. Claude AI provided a list of 55 large casinos. When I asked it to limit its results to Reno, it gave me 20 casino and gaming establishments. Prompt 2: List the 20 largest companies in the US in NAICS code 221115 (Wind Electric Power Generation). Perplexity listed 20 companies. When asked, it also shared locations, descriptions, and the 21st through 40th-largest companies. Prompt 3: List the companies in NAICS code 441110 (New Car Dealers) in Washington States King County. Perplexity named 17 dealerships, which was a good start but not comprehensive. ChatGPT wouldnt answer my query. Instead, it suggested I use Data Axle Reference Solutions, which I have recommended for years. DARS has a database of almost 100 million U.S. businesses. Its the ultimate resource if you hit a dead-end finding target employers, and its searchable by NAICS codes. Prompts to find recruiting, private equity, and venture capital firms Job seekers also want to find potential sources of opportunities, such as recruiting and private investment firms. To identify these targets, I used the following prompts. They included a subsector, industries, and specific investment strategies: Prompt 1: Please list search firms that recruit executives for companies in NAICS code 3254 (Pharmaceutical & Medicine Manufacturing). ChatGPT provided a list of 25 firms, although I had to re-prompt it with Any more? several times. Prompt 2: List venture capital firms that invest in AI start-ups (NAICS code 541745). ChatGPT provided a list of 28 firms. While I had to re-prompt it with Any more? several times, I stopped asking before it was done sharing firms. Prompt 3: Please list private equity firms that acquire turnaround clothing retailers (NAICS code 458110). ChatGPT provided a list of 17 firms. Again, I re-prompted it several times. Perplexity, prompted and re-prompted, gave me a list of 18 firms. You can use different platforms and variables at will. Doing so enables you to assemble lists of potential target companies in minutes.
Category:
E-Commerce
Across the U.S., dozens of proposed solar, wind, and battery projectsencompassing thousands of gigawatts of potential powerare backlogged as they wait to be allowed to plug into the power grid. And, even in areas where renewable energy projects are already online, their output is often heavily curtailed. This clean energy bottleneck stems from the fact that, as demand for renewable energy rises, the U.S. isn’t building new transmission lines fast enough to transport large amounts of clean energy from point A to point B. Now, theres a company looking to address that problem with a simple yet radical solution: Putting renewable energy into giant batteries and transporting those batteries by train. SunTrain is a San Francisco-based company founded by green energy developer Christopher Smith, who now serves as the companys president and chief technology officer. The idea, he explains, is to use the existing U.S. freight train systemwhich covers around 140,000 miles of terrainto bring renewable energy thats being curtailed by transmission bottlenecks to the areas that need it most. SunTrain is currently working on a pilot project that would run between Pueblo, Colorado, and Denver. If its approved by regulators, Smith says, he expects the pilot could be off the ground in just two years. [Photo: SunTrain] Current challenges to transporting renewables Clean energy is the fastest-growing source of electricity in the U.S. According to a report from American Clean power, 93% of the new energy capacity last year was solar, wind, and battery storage. The issue, Smith says, is that transmission line infrastructure lags far behind the rate of clean energy growth. The United States needs 300,000 miles of new transmission lines, like, right now. That’s the amount that we need immediately to keep up with current demand, Smith says. It’s also estimated that, to reach 100% renewables, as well as the electrification demand that we’ll have by 2050, well need over a million miles of new transmission lines by 2050. Currently, we’re building less than 1,000 miles a year. [Image: SunTrain] Building new transmission lines is challenging for a number of reasons, including environmental regulations, the time it takes, and the fact that any new lines would have to cross thousands of miles of privately owned land. In Colorado, for example, Smith says theres a lot of renewable energy in the states southeast corner, which flows through the grid to Pueblo. However, because theres not enough transmission line capacity between Pueblo and Denver, much of that power can’t ultimately be used. Once that renewable energy gets to Pueblo, there’s not enough transmission line capacity to get it into downtown Denver, Smith says. So that energy basically gets curtaileda fancy word for being wasted. Until now, the costly construction of new transmission lines has been the main solution that’s available. But Smith says this discussion overlooks a resource thats been used to transport energy for almost 200 years: railroads. The freight railroad network already moves virtually every single form of energy known to man that’s used in a real way: natural gas, coal, oil, ethanol, biomass, spent nuclear waste, various fossil fuels, and the list goes on and on, Smith says. So there’s this huge amount of overlap of our great railroad network and our electrical systems already. There is no reason why we cannot be moving battery trains over the freight rail network like we move every other form of energy. [Photo: SunTrain] SunTrain’s solution For its pilot project, SunTrain is partnering with Xcel Energy, Colorados largest electric utility. Xcel owns a coal plant in Pueblo (Comanche Generating Station) and a natural gas plant in Denver (Cherokee Generating Station) that are both set to be decommissioned within the next several years. Through a collaboration with SunTrain, these plants could potentially be re-powered with battery stored energy. Smith says SunTrain would use the existing substation inside Comanche Generating Stationwhich already has extensive railroad infrastructure from its history as a coa plantto charge its batteries from Pueblos bottlenecked grid. During the day, Smith says, the energy will likely be 100% renewable. Then, the batteries would be transported to Denver and the energy offloaded at the Cherokee Generating Station onto Denvers grid. (Charging and discharging take between four and six hours each, and the 139-mile trip from Pueblo to Denver takes about five hours by train.) A substation can turn energy into a format that can cover long distances without losing much energy, Smith says. A substation can also turn electricity generated from a power plant into a format that can be used by local homes and businesses. For SunTrain’s purposes, the Pueblo substation allows us to get the electricity formatted properly for our batteries while also collectively accessing all the various renewable energy generators in the region. [Photo: SunTrain] SunTrains proposed railcars will be made of 20-foot shipping containers, each of which will hold about 40 tons of batteries. The company designed proprietary charging and discharging systems that allow the energy to flow right from where it’s generated, whether it’s a solar array or a substation, right under the batteries on the railcar, Smith says. Then, once the train arrives at its destination, the discharging system would similarly allow the energy to flow right off the batteries. The whole process is designed so that the batteries never actually need to be removed from the train. [Image: SunTrain] In an interview with the podcast In the Noco, Smith said SunTrains first generation railcars are designed to match the freight railroads existing standards for coal trains, to ensure that the system itself doesnt need to change anything in order for SunTrain to come to market. Based on those parameters, each train will be built at between 8,000 and 9,000 feet long, with the capacity to carry around two gigawatt hours of power in total. Thats enough to power a city of 100,000 for a full day. Smith says the team has already tested a proof-of-concept train on several trips amounting to more than 10,000 miles on the Union Pacific network, traveling from SunTrains San Francisco testbed to discharge locations across California, Nevada, and Colorado. Now, the company is waiting for Colorados Public Utilities Commission to approve Xcels expenditure of about $125 million to begin construction on the pilot project. We tested the technology, the feasibility, made sure the mechanical standards were there, Smith says. Our manufacturing partners can deliver entire unit trains of thesemeaning 200 rail cars of batteries that could carry about 1.75 gigawatt hours of energy. So this isn’t something that’s far away, coming in the pipeline, or needing some kind of technological breakthrough. This is an immediately executable idea. It just needs the capital.
Category:
E-Commerce
Visit a celebritys Wikipedia page and theres a good chance youll be greeted by a blurry, outdated, or unflattering photo. These images often look like they were snapped in passing at a public eventbecause, in many cases, they were. The reason? Wikipedia requires all images to be freely available for public use. Since professional photographers typically sell their work, high-quality portraits rarely make it onto the site. Thats bad news for celebrities, for whom this page is often their most-viewed online presenceand therefore the face they present to the world. Some photos are so notoriously bad, theyve even earned a spot on a dedicated Instagram page. Enter WikiPortraits: a team of volunteer photographers on a mission to fix this injustice. Armed with their own camera gearand often covering their own travelthese photographers attend festivals, award shows, and industry events to capture high-quality, freely licensed images of celebrities and other notable figures. Theyve brought portrait studios to major events like the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, and Cannes, helping to refresh outdated Wikipedia photos or fill in the blanks for biographies missing images altogether. Its been in the back of our minds for quite a while now, Kevin Payravi, one of WikiPortraits cofounders, told 404 Media in a recent interview. Last year, the team decided to turn the idea into action. They secured press credentials for Sundance 2024, sent a few photographers to the festival, and set up a portrait studio on site. It marked WikiPortraitss first coordinated effort in the U.S. to capture high-quality, freely licensed images specifically for Wikipedia. Since launching last year, WikiPortraits has grown to over 30 photographers, collectively covering about 10 global festivals and snapping nearly 5,000 freely licensed celebrity portraits. Their photos have racked up millions of views on Wikipedia and have even been picked up by news outlets around the world. Celebrities? Theyre often thrilled. Just ask Jeremy Strong. At a New York screening of The Apprentice, photographer Nikhil Dixit approached the Succession star about taking an updated Wikipedia photo. Strongs publicist initially declined, Dixit told 404 Media, but the actor interrupted. Wait, youre from Wikipedia? he asked. For the love of God, please take down that photo. Youd be doing me a service.
Category:
E-Commerce
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