Pursuing the third career will permit a change of focus from a duty to pleasure, and I would like the motto of this third career to be “the art of creating a life while making a living”.

There is a touch of irony involved in using the term “The Salon” to refer to the kind of relaxed hospitality that allows time to be spent re-discovering conviviality, friendship and co-operation – something which has all perhaps been forgotten or neglected. The location, the quality of living and the history of the Georges Bloch house in Susenbergstrasse have already been put to the test in earlier meetings and conversations over cheese, wine and bread. The “salon” is designed to offer a venue where subjects arising out of Jens Drolshammer’s work as a consultant, a scholar and a teacher can be enriched by socio-cultural interests, e.g. representational art, music and politics.

Here as elsewhere, a “network” is growing up like a crystal. At these proposed meetings, the idea is not for people to consume, but to interact, though possibly with the help of (to use the technical term) a moderator, a facilitator or third-party organizer. All this, I hope, will prove a useful addition, seamlessly enhancing my academic and consultancy work, entirely private, following a program, but not programmatic, regular to a point, but also open to unexpected opportunities.

It may take various forms, e.g. meetings, entertaining chats, presentations, readings or reading clubs, lectures or colloquia – but discussion will always be at the heart of it all. On the face of it, the idea is to link areas that remain unconnected, but with a tendency towards integration, ensuring that space – a very private space – can be given to issues that are inconclusive or inadequately understood.

I am (Jens Drolshammer) particularly interested in the possibility of freeing up space and creating a place where it will be possible, on the level of friendship and intellectual debate, to go deeper into what is being written on the new aspects of consultancy, scholarship and teaching — in contrast to the usual technocratic and monetarists “busyness”. All this is meant to be part of a new kind of private life. In that sense, and with an ironic allusion, it is about an attempt to “privatize” meetings and discussions among people who like each other and have the same way of thinking. The idea of “The Salon” is related to my efforts to draw on the opportunities offered by the new media to create “virtual groups”, e.g. within a “virtual classroom” or in video conferences.

Under the general heading of “The Salon” this is where the encounters of the academic reading club the General Counsels Club, the General Counsels Network, the Strategy Club and the Legal Culture Club will take place as well as events in academic and cultural areas. These will at times be supplemented by colloquia for continuing professional development by way of a commercial service. All this will take place in a single “Musée Appartement“. If the guests agree, we will only show on the website the dates of events, their titles and the participants, but not their content.

All encounters are private events by invitation only and which will be held off the record. It is a re-privatization of the cultural and scientific dialogue in the form of technical discussions in the social context, between friends à la taille de l’home!