The time is so close now you can feel it! I am 15 days away from departure. My mind is still in this kinda blur-like state. At our team preparation meeting yesterday we went over our logistics guide, which is a pretty detailed assessment of everything we need to know when we land and how things will be organised. It also had a checklist of what items to bring and some other information which I found in the guidebook that I bought, but it was nice to get confirmation from another source.

Our NGO partner, CDC Development Solutions, has been fantastic in helping us get prepared for the assignment and because they have someone on the ground already in Nigeria, we also get a dose of reality when our imaginations run away with us — or when they they fail to 🙂 And the IBM team has been great as well. We get all of our questions answered – no matter how strange they are. And we get a local perspective as part of our intense cultural preparation.

Last weekend, we had the pleasure to get initial correspondence from our client – and you can feel that they are as excited to work with us as we are with them. Our project team also met for the first time last week (it’s 3 of us on our sub-project) and reviewed our statement of work, asked some questions, and assigned some tasks to be completed. And since two teams are working on two projects with the same client, we will look for synergy. Our really international team (over 12 countries) with our really different cultural and job backgrounds will mesh nicely.

Well….15 days! That is all that remains until departure. And as I type this, I realise that Relaxed Rodney must give way to Planning Rodney. So the first order of business tonight is to take all of these guides and checklists, map out what I need to accomplish to ensure I am prepared (separated by 5 day blocks), and then simply work the plan. Yeah, it is as over-bearing as it sounds. But for a trip like this (Nigeria, plus some time exploring Tanzania), those who are best prepared probably have the best experience 🙂

Until next time.

#ibmcsc Nigeria

This week is a fantastic week in terms my IBM Corporate Service Corps project assignment in Nigeria! Not only has my Nigerian visa been sorted out, but we also received our Statements of Work (SoW) today! The assignments will be working mostly with the regional government, but with some non-governmental organisations as well. I am really excited to read through the material and then to meet with our sub-team to go through the approach. So at the moment, I don’t really know what to think since I am in that rather euphoric moment where everything just feels surreal 🙂

So now that I am essentially done with the personal logistics, it feels good to be able to focus on the logistics of my assignment (which is what the SoW about) as well. We have our primary project assignments and then of course we should support each other on the other projects that the team of 15 is working on (we are divided into sub-teams to focus on our projects).

We also finished the last set of presentations on cultural adaptability. And again I have to congratulate my colleagues of putting together such a great set of presentations and materials. I for sure I have saved all of this to my iPad so that I can refer to it whenever I want.

So now it really feels real! Life between now and the next 3 weeks will be busy with my day job, busy with my assignment prep, and busy with my personal prep. But as we get closer, I am only looking more and more forward to the opportunity!

#ibmcsc Nigeria

So we are now done with another week of preparation – and one week closer to departure. It’s hard to imagine, but there are only 4 weeks left! Times does really fly!

On our call today we learned that we will get to know the clients we will be working with next week and I am really excited for that! We’ll also get more documentation and information about these clients and other matters next week. I can now imagine myself on the plane on the way to Ado Ekiti because we are so close to the departure date! For me, the milestone to achieve this week is to try and get my visa fully sorted out – hopefully this week! Then at least I know that there is nothing impeding my departure in terms of formalities.

In today’s meeting we went through some more very important administration issues, heard some more presentations on the different topic areas relating to cultural adaptability in Nigeria to help give us an overview (thanks to the team for awesome preparation work!), and we also got a great overview of our Corporate Citizenship Programmes taking place in Nigeria. Every time I hear about the ways we stayed engaged in our communities around the world, I always feel a source of great pride.

I feel as prepared as I can be for Nigeria at this point. But I also know that the next week and the weeks thereafter are going to be a lot of work right up until the point where we arrive in Ado Ekiti. I feel like next week I will be posting about how unprepared I feel, which is something I am looking forward to because it means we move to the next step of preparation before our arrival!

Every day I am looking more forward to this experience than the day before! \o/

#ibmcsc Nigeria

So this week commences was the eight week of prep for my #ibmcsc Nigeria assignment (please forgive the tags, they are needed for aggregators, etc) and I have to say that with each passing week it begins to feel more real.

This week the members of our team presented on more topics that they did research on in order to give us background and knowledge as a team. The presentations were well done – as usual with the team. We also got some more preparation information and of the course the usual reminders about the preparation work and admin. For someone like me (who wants to normally jump right in when I am enthusiastic about something), the prep work has been very helpful to help pace me. I was a bit behind all of the prep work last week, but now not only am I caught up, I am happy to say even a bit ahead of schedule 🙂

Outside of our group meetings, I finally got everything right in order to submit my paperwork to the Embassy today here in Stockholm. I had to go in person which was inconvenient but a small price to pay for what will surely be an adventure! \o/

It’s hard to think that in 5 weeks from now I will be in Nigeria on my assignment. I feel mostly prepared, but the happy panic will set in around 2 weeks. There is still a bit to do to prepare for Nigeria as well as the trip after Nigeria to see some more of Africa.

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Wishing all of you a happy and healthy 2013! <3

Well it seems that I am not doing the best job in the world of updating my preparation for my upcoming trip to Nigeria on a weekly basis like I had hoped. So I have been jotting down some notes here and there and now I finally have the opportunity to put them down on digital paper.

Weeks 6 and 7 are not continuous weekly. We didn’t have a meeting on 5 December and because I was on vacation in Irsael, I had to listen to the recording on Week 6 (12 December). However, I did attend our prep call for 19 December (Week 7), which was our last call of the year, and essentially concludes the second month of preparation.

Week 6 (12 December)

If I had to summarise Week 6, it would be that the administrative details and the logistical requirements are rather easy, but making the time for them is difficult. It’s the normal pressures of work against the ‘homework’ requirements that we have combined with the need to get through all of the formalities such as obtaining our visas, etc, etc. It is pressure that can be handled of course, but it does leave us with a lot to do.

In terms of the preparation meeting we had this week (again, thanks to the team for recording the call), we got to hear more details from our colleagues in Nigeria about some more of what we can expect which was nice because it is always good to get first-hand knowledge. Our ‘Alumni’ member assigned to our team (someone who has done a Corporate Service Corps community project in the country before) also provided us with some valuable insight.

I think for many of us, the thing that is still outstanding (and most eagerly awaited) is to know what our assignments will be. Who will we be working with (we are told that Ado Ekiti is most dedicated to university education and the government)? What issues will be working on? How do we ensure we make the best start possible? What is clear from the team is a great commitment to get started and to do a good job. Personally for me, there is a positive pressure that I am putting on myself to make sure that we do at least as good of a job as our predecessors. Once we know the issues that we will be working on, I plan to make full use of our global project library to contact and work with experts.

So that is what Week 6 was about…preparation, homework, exciting building, sharing how we feel about the assignment, and lots of admin and logistics!

Week 7 (19 December)

It’s our last meeting for 2012. And it’s hard to imagine that since getting our initial notifications that only 9-10 weeks have. Goodness how quickly time is flying! We began our meeting with a status on more logistics and preparation of course! I got a timely reminder that I had to visit a travel doctor in order to fix any required vaccinations that I need and medicines I must secure before I travel. According to a lot of people, the vaccinations will be very expensive. However, since I was already traveling a lot for IBM as a IT Auditor and then for my personal travels, I don’t think I’ll need as many vaccinations as my colleagues had to get (Note: My assumption turned out to be correct. I needed 2 booster shots and everything else was in order). And of course then there is sorting out the visa. I have completed most of the paperwork for the visa, but I have confess that I have not filed it yet. First because you have to show evidence of being vaccinated against Yellow Fever. Second, the different websites I have been checking have shown different information requirements and fees. So I will contact the Nigerian Embassy in Stockholm again in early January (after the Christmas break period) to sort it out once and for all. When I contacted them earlier this month, they were very helpful and told me that with the correct paperwork, the visa should be approved and in my passport within 4 days of submission.

Today was also presentations by members of the team on certain topics relating to Nigeria in terms of culture and customs. It is a great way to get us engaged and committed to learning more about the destination country. The presentations were really good actually – I have saved them to my DropBox account so that I can have easy reference to them to read when I am community or otherwise don’t have access to my laptop. Our IBM Nigeria colleague was on hand as well to serve kind of as a point of truth and I have to say that everyone pretty much passed. Of course books and reality are always a bit different from each other, but I was impressed with the level of energy the team has. I also learned that even through I have like 14 hours of air travel, there will essentially be a 1-hour time difference between Stockholm and Ado Ekiti. No that doesn’t mean that I will be taking work calls. It does mean however that I should have less of a time adjustment to make over everyone else. Speaking of my day job – I also have to make a note to review my coverage plan with everyone covering for me and to make sure that I share it with my managers and other interested parties. I want to make sure that I am fully focused on my CSC assignment.

Frustratingly, we still don’t have our assignments for what we will be doing in Ado Ekiti. It is entirely normal that we don’t get details until Month 3 of our preparation (January….yikes! It is so close) so I look forward to getting the details in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, there is still plenty of admin and homework to be done – and I have to confess that I am behind. Guess who will be a bit busy during Christmas and New Years playing catch up? 🙂

Our next week is the first Wednesday in January. I am basically 6 weeks from departure, yet I feel remarkably calm and related about the CSC engagement. It’s the other things surrounding the engagement that have me a bit nervous 🙂 But all things will work out. We have a lot of great support and material to help me be as a prepared as possible 🙂 So all I can say is “bring it on!” 😀

#ibmcsc nigeria

Yesterday we had our first kick-off call as a team of people who are going to Nigeria as part of IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC). All of the team members were present as well as the operations and support team who will be helping us with the logistics. We are Nigeria Team 6, meaning we will be the 6th IBM team to do a project in Nigeria. We spent a good part of the call making some introductions to each other, but I suspect we will have a lot more opportunity to get to know each other. We spent the other part of the call getting an overview of the programme, what we will need to do, and some more initial information with the promise of more to come. We also got to ask questions. We asked about the logistics of travel, security, types of projects, etc. I left the call feeling satisfied that we are on our way – and in some way wanting to quicken the pace 🙂

I awoke this morning to find several administrative and logistical e-mails in my inbox, including forms for travel, pre-work assignments, and more overview information. It somehow now feels real. Like there is no turning back (like I would want to). It’s hard not to feel excited for what is about to happen: the opportunity to serve, a new adventure, a new experience. I can already tell that this will not be about “kissing babies and shaking hands.” We will get some real work done, and I am confident that we will have real results to show for it.

Bring it on 😀

#ibmcsc nigeria