Post by Dr. Julia Pahl-Schoenbein

Networking is like a string of pearls. At a festival full of impulses on how to EMBRACE the new, I found myself diving for pearls that might guide me toward my next step. The first pearl shimmered in Pascal Finette 's activating talk and his book Outlearn: The Art of Learning Faster Than the World Is Changing. As an innovation methods enthusiast, I immediately connected with his actionable implementations for everyday work life. I applied his “harvest meeting” structure to my own pitch experience: autopsy, extraction and deposit. For me, #outlearning is one of the essential meta-skills of the AI era — for organizations and individuals alike. The second pearl was the mission of the Velocity Network Foundation, presented by Etan Bernstein: rebuilding trust in the global labor market through verification. Not only through verifiable credentials for degrees and formal education, but also for skills. How this can work for soft skills and transferable skills is a future field for research and experimentation. Possible starting points: asking for credentials bottom-up and rewarding skill assessments by issuing credentials! The third pearl was reconnecting with generous people who gave me feedback and challenging questions on my iterated startup concept Practineur. And it was discovering new people and fresh perspectives — sometimes simply through a spontaneous conversation in the line at the food truck. Special thanks to Andreas Schöning, Robindro Ullah and Joern Klick from Trendence Institut, Felix Bünting, Stefan Schmahl, Dr. Dunja Glasmacher, Mareike Schure, Ilker Ertürk, Cornelia Paul, Melanie Wegerer, Mario Derntl, Jens Bender for your thoughtful input and encouragement and the entire EMBRACE Team around Gero Hesse, Stefan Wagner for creating this learning environment. If you have a pearl for my mission to explore unconventional career paths between theory and practice in the era of AI, I’d love to hear from you. DM me — and follow my podcast #SecondBloomers.