[Music]
you
[Music]
if you have to restart your career how
would you do it this was the question I
suddenly had to answer 12 years ago when
I was diagnosed with a chronic
life-threatening disease that forced me
to completely redo my career and
lifestyle at that time I was working the
fast paced lifestyle of consulting
director in a German software company
working out of Beijing the job is very
demanding
I had frequent overtime exhaustive
client negotiations and extensive travel
but I loved it it was so fascinating to
be part of China’s transformation into
the 21st century but living the clinic
I wondered what am I supposed we’ll do
know what am i for how should my new
career actually look like when we’re
changing careers and lifestyles often we
are forced by external forces and that
give us very very few choices and little
time to prepare wouldn’t it be great to
be prepared wouldn’t it be even better
to design yourself a career and a
lifestyle that actually suits in the
groundbreaking study of 2013
Osborn and Frey predict that 50% yes 50
percent of the u.s. working population
are subject of being replaced by either
manual automation or by knowledge
automation over the next 20 years so
that also has been confirmed for
European countries and that’s pretty
scary isn’t it in a world of fast-moving
change of digital disruption artificial
intelligence and automation you
continuously have to redesign your
career to build a plan B or as famous
management thinker Charles handy
a second curve so I wondered can I
redesign my own career sounds like a
quite difficult problem doesn’t it turns
out there’s people out there in the
field that work on difficult problems
every day and they’re called designers
designers solve complicated problems by
using creative techniques so I
considered to assume a designers mindset
because more and more businesses are
turning to designers to solve complex
business problems and gets relaunches of
their products and services reinvent
these to safeguard their future so
having been familiar with this design
methodology the Design Thinking
principle with its five steps in the
software company why is working
I actually thought give it a try
also to redesign my own private career
so the design thinking process follows
these five steps the first step is to
observe a problem from a user’s
perspective and in this case that would
be me
the second step is then to define the
problem that you really want to solve
through these design thinking process by
defining it very clearly to then ID
eight as many ideas as possible that
solve this problem prototype them and
now the scary part test them in the real
world so let me explain how this works
before a designer can actually work on a
solution the designer has to build up
empathy with the human side of the
problem with the user the emotions the
desires the pains the gains that is
really important because only then the
designer can create solutions that are
truly mattering and also improve
people’s lives
so let me explain this so you start
asking yourself what is it that is
annoying in your career well you may say
nothing in your career but at that time
in my career they were quite a couple of
factors that I really hated and that was
basically this enormous amount of work I
had to do evenings weekends also
holidays I had constant calls from
clients negotiating complaining travel
I could almost recognize every airport
in China just by the smell I was
traveling so much and these dreadful IT
projects that will never end and always
escalate so that was what I really hated
about it but there was also many many
things I really loved about this career
it was a fantastic opportunity to work
with young ambitious Chinese consultants
and developers on latest technology and
also an opportunity to rapidly develop
myself so when you look at your career
you also have to look at your lifestyle
because your career is supported by your
lifestyle so let’s look at this one as
well so in my case there were also many
many pains related to my lifestyle
obviously it was a very stressful
lifestyle I had these health issues that
wouldn’t get away and I barely spent
time with my wife and three kids so that
was definitely a major pain point that I
had in my lifestyle at that time now
they were also of course many things I
loved about this lifestyle being out
there in Asia being able to meet new
people to get exposed to these
fascinating Asian cultures and of course
to have a stable income so what I needed
to do then is to define how I can
actually address these problems and the
problems statement is something where I
had the help of a mentor and the mentor
helped me actually to reflect on this
one and
is that I needed a new career working
with people technology leveraging my
knowledge and of course I wanted to have
less stress traveling and projects now
it sounds very very simple but you
really have to dig deep and really
understand and build up true
understanding with yourself where you
may say well I know myself pretty well
so I’m basically spending most of the
day with myself so why should I actually
not know myself but you really need to
build up in this observe and define
exercise you really need to build up a
through true understanding and for me
that was really about self-awareness why
do I have so much pain doing this why is
there so much that I get out of this one
why does it delight me and when I
basically it is I had the help of a
mentor who helped me to reflect and
that’s really a good idea to actually
get somebody with an outside perspective
to help you to reflect on yourself and
maybe you are able to uncover certain
hidden facts about your personality that
only an outsider can see so then as I
said we’re putting this into a
definition which is clearly to be solved
by the design thinking process so we had
extensively spent time to observe we
talked about life style careers gains
desires and also have now a very clear
definition of the problem that we’re
trying to address now that is the part
where the fun starts and that is when
you really can go crazy when you can
really id8 many as crazy ideas as
possible to really come up with good
solutions that solve this problem
statement that you’ve just seen there
well good let’s go we’ll wait
you cannot id8 on an empty brain and at
that time my drain was pretty much empty
so how do you fill an empty brain well
you fill it with inspiration so lucky
for you there’s plenty of sources out
there for inspiration
so as for me I took great inspiration
from the talks I had with my mentor Bob
and also later with my dear friend
Delphine I also worked as a senior
intern went to a lot of startup
conferences and of course watched a lot
of TED Talks what I really wanted to
find out is how do these potential
careers feel like how do these people
live to really build up a true
understanding and got a lot of insights
so once the creative side of my brain
was stimulated then I was able to ID
eight and for ideation you can use a lot
of creative techniques that help you to
develop ideas I often start with
something rather simple and maybe you
can do this also now for yourself ask
yourself what is it that in your current
life in Korea what is it that you want
to increase what is it that you want to
invent new what is it that you want to
reduce and what is it that you really
want to throw away and get rid of well I
did this end for me I really wanted to
spend more time with my family I really
wanted to take better care of myself and
health and at the same time I really
wanted to reach out and find and meet
new people new topics and of course try
a little bit of teaching so what I
really wanted to get rid of was the
extensive traveling the enormous amounts
of overtime and of course these dreadful
IT projects I tell you there is
something I’m so happy and the stress
yeah well of course stress everybody
wants to get away so once you’ve done
this you need to ask yourself how how
can you make this happen how can you
find a lifestyle that is actually
allowing you to do all the changes that
you see and adopt it inside of your new
lifestyle so basically I came up with a
list of ideas and
there’s many ideas there’s some
ambitious ideas like for example the
guru we have here so a very
knowledgeable person gray hair and but
has also careers and lifestyles in there
that are just a tiny departure from my
previous lifestyle in IT like a web
designer and that’s not really a
surprise because when you do this for a
very very first time you don’t want to
leave your comfort zone you just feel so
comfortable so cozy in here so you have
to do this over and over again this
ideation phase on the process only then
when you’ve done this multiple times and
you push yourself out of the comfort
zone then is the time when truly
ambitious careers emerge so now you’re
totally excited and what you need to do
is you want to share it with other
people so the thing is you need a
prototype so I built a prototype because
that is important to visualize and to
conceptualize these ideas to show it to
others how does a typical day look like
how does this job feel smell and taste
you want to talk about you want to get
this done and I have envisioned this
21st century professor with these
virtual reality glasses on using a lot
of technology to basically show this to
students and then of course I have the
tech entrepreneur so when you have this
prototype you need to go out and show it
to other people and when I actually took
the prototype of the tech entrepreneur
and show this to tech entrepreneurs I
realized it would be a great opportunity
to meet new people new topics but at the
same time it would also bring back a lot
of the stress to me that I really try
and want to avoid obviously not a career
I was looking for so when you have a
good prototype then you need to test it
you need to go out and live this new
career maybe only a few days or maybe
just during an event or during an
internship but get out of there
test it and get feedback to continuously
improve this
over time as for myself since I’ve been
diagnosed I’ve been done this multiple
times now and Here I am 12 years later a
much much healthier person fulfilled
spending time with my family and a
happier human being so get out there try
it for redesigning your own career you
have to do it it’s fun do it
before something bad like myself is
happening thank you very much
[Applause]
you
[Music]
if you have to restart your career how
would you do it this was the question I
suddenly had to answer 12 years ago when
I was diagnosed with a chronic
life-threatening disease that forced me
to completely redo my career and
lifestyle at that time I was working the
fast paced lifestyle of consulting
director in a German software company
working out of Beijing the job is very
demanding
I had frequent overtime exhaustive
client negotiations and extensive travel
but I loved it it was so fascinating to
be part of China’s transformation into
the 21st century but living the clinic
I wondered what am I supposed we’ll do
know what am i for how should my new
career actually look like when we’re
changing careers and lifestyles often we
are forced by external forces and that
give us very very few choices and little
time to prepare wouldn’t it be great to
be prepared wouldn’t it be even better
to design yourself a career and a
lifestyle that actually suits in the
groundbreaking study of 2013
Osborn and Frey predict that 50% yes 50
percent of the u.s. working population
are subject of being replaced by either
manual automation or by knowledge
automation over the next 20 years so
that also has been confirmed for
European countries and that’s pretty
scary isn’t it in a world of fast-moving
change of digital disruption artificial
intelligence and automation you
continuously have to redesign your
career to build a plan B or as famous
management thinker Charles handy
a second curve so I wondered can I
redesign my own career sounds like a
quite difficult problem doesn’t it turns
out there’s people out there in the
field that work on difficult problems
every day and they’re called designers
designers solve complicated problems by
using creative techniques so I
considered to assume a designers mindset
because more and more businesses are
turning to designers to solve complex
business problems and gets relaunches of
their products and services reinvent
these to safeguard their future so
having been familiar with this design
methodology the Design Thinking
principle with its five steps in the
software company why is working
I actually thought give it a try
also to redesign my own private career
so the design thinking process follows
these five steps the first step is to
observe a problem from a user’s
perspective and in this case that would
be me
the second step is then to define the
problem that you really want to solve
through these design thinking process by
defining it very clearly to then ID
eight as many ideas as possible that
solve this problem prototype them and
now the scary part test them in the real
world so let me explain how this works
before a designer can actually work on a
solution the designer has to build up
empathy with the human side of the
problem with the user the emotions the
desires the pains the gains that is
really important because only then the
designer can create solutions that are
truly mattering and also improve
people’s lives
so let me explain this so you start
asking yourself what is it that is
annoying in your career well you may say
nothing in your career but at that time
in my career they were quite a couple of
factors that I really hated and that was
basically this enormous amount of work I
had to do evenings weekends also
holidays I had constant calls from
clients negotiating complaining travel
I could almost recognize every airport
in China just by the smell I was
traveling so much and these dreadful IT
projects that will never end and always
escalate so that was what I really hated
about it but there was also many many
things I really loved about this career
it was a fantastic opportunity to work
with young ambitious Chinese consultants
and developers on latest technology and
also an opportunity to rapidly develop
myself so when you look at your career
you also have to look at your lifestyle
because your career is supported by your
lifestyle so let’s look at this one as
well so in my case there were also many
many pains related to my lifestyle
obviously it was a very stressful
lifestyle I had these health issues that
wouldn’t get away and I barely spent
time with my wife and three kids so that
was definitely a major pain point that I
had in my lifestyle at that time now
they were also of course many things I
loved about this lifestyle being out
there in Asia being able to meet new
people to get exposed to these
fascinating Asian cultures and of course
to have a stable income so what I needed
to do then is to define how I can
actually address these problems and the
problems statement is something where I
had the help of a mentor and the mentor
helped me actually to reflect on this
one and
is that I needed a new career working
with people technology leveraging my
knowledge and of course I wanted to have
less stress traveling and projects now
it sounds very very simple but you
really have to dig deep and really
understand and build up true
understanding with yourself where you
may say well I know myself pretty well
so I’m basically spending most of the
day with myself so why should I actually
not know myself but you really need to
build up in this observe and define
exercise you really need to build up a
through true understanding and for me
that was really about self-awareness why
do I have so much pain doing this why is
there so much that I get out of this one
why does it delight me and when I
basically it is I had the help of a
mentor who helped me to reflect and
that’s really a good idea to actually
get somebody with an outside perspective
to help you to reflect on yourself and
maybe you are able to uncover certain
hidden facts about your personality that
only an outsider can see so then as I
said we’re putting this into a
definition which is clearly to be solved
by the design thinking process so we had
extensively spent time to observe we
talked about life style careers gains
desires and also have now a very clear
definition of the problem that we’re
trying to address now that is the part
where the fun starts and that is when
you really can go crazy when you can
really id8 many as crazy ideas as
possible to really come up with good
solutions that solve this problem
statement that you’ve just seen there
well good let’s go we’ll wait
you cannot id8 on an empty brain and at
that time my drain was pretty much empty
so how do you fill an empty brain well
you fill it with inspiration so lucky
for you there’s plenty of sources out
there for inspiration
so as for me I took great inspiration
from the talks I had with my mentor Bob
and also later with my dear friend
Delphine I also worked as a senior
intern went to a lot of startup
conferences and of course watched a lot
of TED Talks what I really wanted to
find out is how do these potential
careers feel like how do these people
live to really build up a true
understanding and got a lot of insights
so once the creative side of my brain
was stimulated then I was able to ID
eight and for ideation you can use a lot
of creative techniques that help you to
develop ideas I often start with
something rather simple and maybe you
can do this also now for yourself ask
yourself what is it that in your current
life in Korea what is it that you want
to increase what is it that you want to
invent new what is it that you want to
reduce and what is it that you really
want to throw away and get rid of well I
did this end for me I really wanted to
spend more time with my family I really
wanted to take better care of myself and
health and at the same time I really
wanted to reach out and find and meet
new people new topics and of course try
a little bit of teaching so what I
really wanted to get rid of was the
extensive traveling the enormous amounts
of overtime and of course these dreadful
IT projects I tell you there is
something I’m so happy and the stress
yeah well of course stress everybody
wants to get away so once you’ve done
this you need to ask yourself how how
can you make this happen how can you
find a lifestyle that is actually
allowing you to do all the changes that
you see and adopt it inside of your new
lifestyle so basically I came up with a
list of ideas and
there’s many ideas there’s some
ambitious ideas like for example the
guru we have here so a very
knowledgeable person gray hair and but
has also careers and lifestyles in there
that are just a tiny departure from my
previous lifestyle in IT like a web
designer and that’s not really a
surprise because when you do this for a
very very first time you don’t want to
leave your comfort zone you just feel so
comfortable so cozy in here so you have
to do this over and over again this
ideation phase on the process only then
when you’ve done this multiple times and
you push yourself out of the comfort
zone then is the time when truly
ambitious careers emerge so now you’re
totally excited and what you need to do
is you want to share it with other
people so the thing is you need a
prototype so I built a prototype because
that is important to visualize and to
conceptualize these ideas to show it to
others how does a typical day look like
how does this job feel smell and taste
you want to talk about you want to get
this done and I have envisioned this
21st century professor with these
virtual reality glasses on using a lot
of technology to basically show this to
students and then of course I have the
tech entrepreneur so when you have this
prototype you need to go out and show it
to other people and when I actually took
the prototype of the tech entrepreneur
and show this to tech entrepreneurs I
realized it would be a great opportunity
to meet new people new topics but at the
same time it would also bring back a lot
of the stress to me that I really try
and want to avoid obviously not a career
I was looking for so when you have a
good prototype then you need to test it
you need to go out and live this new
career maybe only a few days or maybe
just during an event or during an
internship but get out of there
test it and get feedback to continuously
improve this
over time as for myself since I’ve been
diagnosed I’ve been done this multiple
times now and Here I am 12 years later a
much much healthier person fulfilled
spending time with my family and a
happier human being so get out there try
it for redesigning your own career you
have to do it it’s fun do it
before something bad like myself is
happening thank you very much
[Applause]
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