Each year, a few hundred IBMers get accepted into the CSC program.  Once accepted, we wait patiently to get staffed on an assignment, sometimes waiting as long as a year.  Luckily I only had to wait 7 months to hear what team and what country I’d be going to. Upon receiving that first email with my assignment, I started looking up all 14 of my new teammates.

The CSC has had several years to perfect the process of bringing strangers together who only share a common employer, IBM, to become a team.  Under the trusted guidance of a past CSC Africa participant, Inna, we started weekly teleconference calls on Tuesdays at 7 am that would last for 12 weeks.  For those that know me well, they’ll know that I am not at my best early in the morning (that’s an understatement), but I had no room to complain as it was 6 am for my Texas and Minneapolis teammates, 5 am for Paola in Costa Rica and 9 pm for Chandra in Australia.

The first month was mainly ice breakers. It has been years since I’ve done ‘ice breakers’, but turns out I learned a lot.  We buddied up with another teammate and had to learn about them in order to present them to the team at large — part of my profile is below.

We also had to take a cultural assessment for our personal work styles and if they match up with the country we’ll be working in and with the rest of the team.   There were 9 categories and I’ve provided a snapshot of 2 – I’m the black square and South Africa is the red square with all the other colors being my teammates.   My direct / simple thinking / task-based way of working will apparently not be well-received in South Africa, based on how far apart the red and black squares are.  It’s good to know what I’ll need to be aware of and work on to gel with the clients.

After taking a 20-min test, our preferences were mapped out

Once in country, we will do a cultural exchange where we present our home country / region and give a small token that represents us to each teammate.  I’m really looking forward to that, although am still a bit stumped on what to bring for Ohio / Cleveland / the Midwest.  Any ideas??

The 14 names that seemed so distant a few months back are now identifiable by voice and have moved from strangers to colleagues.  I can’t even imagine what these relationships will be like after living with them for a month, but am excited for the possibilities!

#ibmcsc southafrica

I’m heading to Africa for 37 days this summer for a unique work opportunity, plus a little bit of play at the end!  This is something I’ve been actively chasing for a few years and was notified 2 months ago of my trip. With one month left to go before leaving, here’s what I know so far:

The opportunity that is bringing me half-way around the world is IBM Corporate Service Corp (CSC)

According to the official IBM CSC site… 
“The IBM Corporate Service Corps was launched in 2008 to help provide IBMers with high quality leadership development while delivering high quality problem solving for communities and organizations in emerging markets. The program empowers IBM employees as global citizens by sending groups of 10 – 15 individuals from different countries with a range of skills to an emerging market for four week community-based assignments. During the assignment, participants perform community-driven economic development projects working at the intersection of business, technology, and society.”

Or to put it more succinctly… it’s a triple benefit:
1. Communities have their problems solved.
2. IBMers receive leadership training and development.
3. IBM develops new markets and global leaders.

Since its launch in 2008, the Corporate Service Corps has had a positive impact of the lives of more the 140,000 people through skills transfer and capacity building.  The Corporate Service Corps program has sent over 2,400 participants on over 200 teams to more than 30 countries around the world.

I’ve been staffed to CSC South Africa 12 … yes, that means 11 prior teams have been deployed to South Africa over the last 6 years.  However, none have been to the same city or region.  My home for 4 weeks will be Mafeking (also known as Mahikeng) in the North-West Province of South Africa, 160 miles west of Johannesburg, near the Botswana border. Mafeking has a population of around 250,000.  For those in my homestate that’s bigger than Akron, smaller than Cleveland, and more along the lines of Toledo.  It sits at nearly a mile elevation – which was very surprising to me – and its predominant language is Setswana (Thanks Wikipedia)
I’ll be joined by 14 other IBMers from the US (Austin, Minneapolis, Raleigh, and Westchester County NY), Canada, Costa Rica, Brazil, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, India and Australia. We met via phone for the first time on March 18th to begin preparing for our adventure.   Through weekly 7 am Tuesday telecons, we are led and mentored by past CSC South Africa participants.  I will depart the US on June 12th and finally meet everyone face to face in Johannesburg on June 13th before we travel as a group to Mafeking to live and work for 4 weeks with our designated client.

The Client – Ikamva National e-Skills Institute (iNeSI).  We will be divided into sub-teams of 5 to tackle 3 different projects, all tied to training and skills development for the North West Province.

There is so much more to share, but I’ll save that for another post –
tlhôla sentle (Have a good day in Setswana)

#ibmcsc southafrica

That’s how long I have left until I board a plane for Johannesburg, South Africa.

So, what am I doing in Africa? I have the opportunity to break free of my normal Procurement role with IBM and participate in their Corporate Service Corp – a digital Peace Corp type program where teams are deployed to an emerging market to tackle societal and economic issues.  I will be part of a team of 15 fellow IBMers from all over the globe coming together for 1 month in Mafeking, South Africa – on the Botswana border – with the goal of enhancing the technical skills of the young adult workforce. Curious to learn more or follow my adventure? I’ll be posting regularly before departing and as often as technology will allow while in South Africa.  My blog posts will publish automatically to Twitter (@katybrownley) and Facebook if you follow me there.  You can also enter your email address in the “Follow this Blog” box on the right or in the footer to receive an email every time I post. Or if you are technically-fancy, you can use the RSS link in the sidebar or footer.

Wish me luck!