In less than 34 hours I'll be on a plane off to Puerto Montt. My goal was to for my blog to be caught up before I deployed. Time to get into high blogging gear!
In my last post I wrote about the application process. Today I'll write a little bit about what happened between applying and the start of the pre-work.
Obviously the first thing was to wait to hear if I was accepted into the program. The 2013 application deadline was May 5th. The target date for informing applicants of a decision was July 1st. I received an acceptance email a bit earlier on June 28th. My reaction to the acceptance email was a combination of disbelief, excitement, and fear. I could relate very well to the ending line of the 1972 movie "The Candidate." In the last scene Bill McKay (played by Robert Redford) unexpectedly wins an election for a California senate. As his campaign manager opens the door to greet the press Bill asks him, "what do we do now?" In my case the answer was easy. I accepted.
After accepting the offer things seemed to go into a black hole. The acceptance email essentially said don't call us we'll call you, although it was worded much more diplomatically. The "don't call us we'll call you" tone was understandable, but nonetheless frustrating. At this point I was dying to know where was I going, when was I going, and what I would be doing.
The first question was answered on November 5th when I saw an email in my inbox congratulating me on being invited to join the Chile 5 team. The second question was answered when I opened the email and saw a tentative departure date of March 7th. The third question was not answered until February 11th.
The next significant event occurred on November 25th when I received a "Participant Agreement & Manager Information" email. This was the first email where I was given a clue to who the other members of the Chile 5 team were going to be. The note was sent to more than just me. I immediately used Blue Pages to reverse engineer the Louts Notes short names. There were 6 men and 6 women. There were people from the US, UK, Germany, India, Ireland, China, Slovakia, and Malaysia. It was then that I began to realize the magnitude of the cultural and diverse experience I was about to embark on. Eventually an invitee from the US declined to joint the Chile 5 team and was replaced by a participant from Japan.
Our 12 weeks of pre-work started on December 4th. As pre-work to the pre-work we were asked to fill out a participant profile. The profile covered our IBM experience, some personal facts, and some questions about why we applied to the program. Seeing these profiles just increased my expectations. Not only was the team made up of 6 men and 6 woman representing 9 countries, it was made up of people with varying years of experience at IBM and with varying types of experience. It's hard to imagine being part of a more diverse team.
#ibmcsc chile
In my last post I wrote about the application process. Today I'll write a little bit about what happened between applying and the start of the pre-work.
Obviously the first thing was to wait to hear if I was accepted into the program. The 2013 application deadline was May 5th. The target date for informing applicants of a decision was July 1st. I received an acceptance email a bit earlier on June 28th. My reaction to the acceptance email was a combination of disbelief, excitement, and fear. I could relate very well to the ending line of the 1972 movie "The Candidate." In the last scene Bill McKay (played by Robert Redford) unexpectedly wins an election for a California senate. As his campaign manager opens the door to greet the press Bill asks him, "what do we do now?" In my case the answer was easy. I accepted.
After accepting the offer things seemed to go into a black hole. The acceptance email essentially said don't call us we'll call you, although it was worded much more diplomatically. The "don't call us we'll call you" tone was understandable, but nonetheless frustrating. At this point I was dying to know where was I going, when was I going, and what I would be doing.
The first question was answered on November 5th when I saw an email in my inbox congratulating me on being invited to join the Chile 5 team. The second question was answered when I opened the email and saw a tentative departure date of March 7th. The third question was not answered until February 11th.
The next significant event occurred on November 25th when I received a "Participant Agreement & Manager Information" email. This was the first email where I was given a clue to who the other members of the Chile 5 team were going to be. The note was sent to more than just me. I immediately used Blue Pages to reverse engineer the Louts Notes short names. There were 6 men and 6 women. There were people from the US, UK, Germany, India, Ireland, China, Slovakia, and Malaysia. It was then that I began to realize the magnitude of the cultural and diverse experience I was about to embark on. Eventually an invitee from the US declined to joint the Chile 5 team and was replaced by a participant from Japan.
Our 12 weeks of pre-work started on December 4th. As pre-work to the pre-work we were asked to fill out a participant profile. The profile covered our IBM experience, some personal facts, and some questions about why we applied to the program. Seeing these profiles just increased my expectations. Not only was the team made up of 6 men and 6 woman representing 9 countries, it was made up of people with varying years of experience at IBM and with varying types of experience. It's hard to imagine being part of a more diverse team.
#ibmcsc chile