Today I answer the question how we are organized within the IBM Corporate Service Corps. There are several roles and responsibilities associated with the CSC pre-work and the assignment. A more detailed description follows:
CSC Leadership Team The CSC program is led by a Program Manager and supported by a global network of leaders from the Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs organization. The CSC Leadership team identifies and establishes geographic priorities for the CSC program, manages all relationships with the global NGO partners, runs the annual application and selection process and organizes the networks of roles listed below.
Facilitator Each team will have a CSC facilitator appointed to support them. The role of this person is to oversee the CSC experience and teaming process for all IBM employees assigned to each team from notification to tracking participant’s progress during pre work activities and coordinating their four week in-country assignment. The facilitator role also extends into the post-service phase. The facilitator will be the liaison between the CSC leadership team and the global NGO partner for program topics relating to logistics and project planning.
Global NGO Partner The role of the global NGO partner is to work with IBM to identify Corporate Service Corps assignment opportunities in the destination countries and provide in-country and online support for the volunteers throughout the 6 month CSC experience. The NGO partner will lead in all logistical details relating to the in-country experience and ensure the volunteers are well prepared and supported throughout their in-country placement. Logistical details include in-country transport, lodging, food per diem, provision of cell phones, airfare and where necessary language interpreters. The NGO partners will also collaborate with IBM to provide detailed information on the country of work, selected projects, and community clients. NGO partners provide an in-country manager who is a host country national to support our teams while on assignment.
Local Community Clients Local community clients are the people whom CSC participants work with during the in-country portion of the CSC. Past local community clients have included small and medium enterprises, universities, non-profit organizations and governmental agencies. Local community clients are identified by our global NGO partners, CSC leadership team and IBM business leaders in-country.
Alumni Mentor Every CSC team has a CSC alumni assigned to support them during pre-work. When possible, the CSC alumni will have served in the same country the team is preparing to go to. The alumni mentor is expected to participate in about one team call per month, answering questions from participants about working in the destination country, how to prepare, and linkages that can be leveraged with other CSC alumni.
At lot of people asked me how do we get prepared for our one month IBM Corporate Service Corps assignment in the Philippines. Before the assignment starts we have to participate a three month pre-work process. The activities will be varied and may be as simple as reading a suggested article, conducting research, doing a group activity or brainstorm and developing a work plan. We will be using an online learning delivery program, social network platforms and weekly telephone conferences to get on board. Also, we get access to a wide range of information which is needed for our assignment like country reference materials, stages of team development and logistics (airfare, immunization, visas, logistics, transport, lodging, etc.). Despite this, we will get specific education about the following topics:
Team Development
Roles and Responsibilities
IBM Values
Travel Health and Safety
Cultural Adaptability
Consulting Skills
Media and the Evolving Nature of Communications
The Role of International Development in Emerging Markets
Facebook is the victim of an “information overload” attack of daily society trash. The trash of non-useful information is normally stored on the wall section in your profile where others can write messages to you. The wall is a public writing space so other who view your profile can see what has been written on your wall. The problem is that real friends and family get lost amongst your Mafia Wars and Farmville friends wall postings. Personally, I don’t understand why this information is useful and why it is necessary to post every single step via a separate message in your profile. Also, I don’t understand why Facebook is not improving their implementation by a better filter function or a second “more spam tolerated” wall. To get rid of all this society trash I am almost blocking every application which has spam potential. In the following you can find my list of blocked applications. What is your list?
Facebook gives users the possibility to comment on wall or newsfeed items as well as to “like” them. But where is the “dislike” option? There are several fan pages trying to get a “dislike” button, but again, where is it? The official main reason why Facebook will likely not add such a feature is that it will not promote negativity. In my opinion, this is typical for our society!
You are allowed to like status updates of friends. You are allowed to like posts of fan pages. You are also allowed to like links and videos that somebody posted on his wall. You are only allowed to say negative things via a comments to describe yourself to the rest of of the well-behaved world. Nevertheless, you are not allowed to just don’t like anything. You are not allowed to like a “dislike” button, and even more, you are not allowed to press the “dislike” button. In my optinion, the applied method is to cover-up through openness in order to hold two-facedness in honors.
But there is some hope! You can install one of the following two Firefox plugins to get the “dislike” Facebook functionality back and you are allowed press it as often you want. :)
Andrew Zimmern is off to the island nation of the Philippines. There he chows down on local favorites like ‘balut,’ crickets, stuffed frogs and even live worms!
On this journey, Andrew eats his way across two of the country’s seven islands: Palawan, known for its stunning beaches; and Luzon, the largest island in the chain. Luzon is also home to the capital, Manila. Just outside this bustling city, Andrew finds a town known for making one of the most bizarre treats yet – ‘balut’! Balut is a partially developed, 18-day-old duck embryo, still in its shell. To eat it, you crack the shell open, suck out the juice, and dig right into the duck itself. This dish is truly bizarre, yet Andrew finds it quite tasty!
From there, Andrew heads north to the culinary capital of the Philippines, Pampanga, where he feasts on local favorites harvested right from area rivers. Among other treats Andrew samples stuffed frog and sautéed crickets.
In the town of Angono, he enjoys an amazing meal at Balaw Balaw, a restaurant and art gallery known for its unusual foods. After another round of ‘balut’ (this time served in a soup), Andrew is more than ready to tackle ‘uok’ – a giant local worm harvested from fallen trees.
But that’s nothing. In Angono, the ‘uok’ are sautéed. How about live worms, just pulled from the trees? That’s what’s on tap on the beautiful island of Palawan, Andrew’s last stop. Still squirming away, the large, clear worms with giant screw-top heads are pulled from mangrove branches. All Andrew has to do is pull off the head, dip in some salt and down the hatch they go!
Facebook changed his privacy settings in combination with a privacy transition tool that is supposed to help users to update their profiles. The ugly true is that Facebook only made this change on pressure from the Canadian privacy commissioner. Or in the words of Facebook: “New tools to control your experience.” Nevertheless, the new privacy setting page is nice and gives you more freedom to control your privacy, which is not bad! On the other hand, Facebook doesn’t say that the default setting of the privacy transition tool is more open has it was before. Also, they made it possible to hide one’s friend list via a laughably ham-handed way. It is not integrated in the normal privacy setting and you can only enable and disable it, which I don’t like. Because of this and the fact that Google will integrate Facebook and Twitter in its real-time search functionality it is recommended to verify its privacy settings. The New York Times made a very nice how-to about the new Facebook privacy settings.
Today I discovered that No Reservations, one of my favorite travel and food shows, have an episode about the Philippines. In this episode, Tony visits the Philippines, the “Land of the Lechon.” He stops in Manila, which is a diverse combination of Spanish and Chinese cultures. Then he heads off to Pampanga to sample some of their rare delicacies.
One nice thing about the IBM Corporate Service Corps assignment is that you have to work in international and global integrated teams. Our “Philippines 8″ team consists of ten IBMers, which are are from six different countries. Three people are from India, two people are from Germany, two people are from the United States, one person is from Canada, one person is from the Switzerland and one person from the Slovakia. Six of us are non-manager and four are manager. Four are female and six are male. The tenure is from 2 years to 22 years and we work in four different time zones. As you can see—we are an international team. ;-)
The location for my CSC assignment was changed and is not longer Bacolod. Our team will now based in Manila. The change from Bacolod to Manila is a result of aligning our team assignment with the typhoon disaster recovery efforts. Additional details will follow later on. I think this will give our team a great opportunity. I truly believe that one person can make a difference by getting a unique opportunity to transform the way the world works. This opportunity give us the option to become proactive and support endeavors in developing countries. Life is what we make it!
Alina from the Philippines-7 team of the IBM Corporate Service Corps sent me local information about Bacolod, its surrounding area and the Philippines. The information was very interesting for me and I am happy that she sent it to me. Thanks again Alina! The funny thing was the envelope. While the front with my address, some stamps and an a seal from the German customs looked more or less normal; the back of the envelope was kind of unusual. It had approximately 170 stamps on it. In the following you can find photos of the front and the back. I am sure you will like it, too. :-)
There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
