Beth Porter is the President, CoFounder, and COO of Esme Learning, an executive education company focused on new and emerging skills. She has led multiple product and engineering teams to deliver high value, customer-focused educational technology products while serving in in product development, business strategy and operational roles. She also founded and is CEO of Riff Analytics, an AI-enabled collaboration platform, and is a researcher and lecturer at MIT and BU Questrom School of Business. Beth joins host, Mike Palmer, in a free-flowing conversation about emerging trends in the skills ecosystem, the future of work, and in education and media. Beth shares her experiences beginning as a Math Teacher, then proceeding through a series of ed tech, customer service, and product management roles before studying at the MIT Media Lab where she founded Riff Analytics. She then describes what led to her founding Esme Learning with Co-Founder David Shrier. From there we explore how to thrive through digital disruption and how social emotional skills like creativity, teamwork, and communication are an essential complement to technical expertise in the emerging work ecosystem. Beth highlights gamification and augmented reality as emerging trends to keep an eye on in an informative, future-focused conversation that you don't want to miss. Subscribe to Trending in Education wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more insightful conversations about what's new and emerging.