working on our presentations...

So this week Thiago and I finally had the chance to start working for our clients. Yesterday and today we spent long working hours at the IBM office to do research for our presentations we promised.
With internet not working at all and even intranet phasing out every now and then, this is really a challenge we did not expect. I keep thinking about the good advice we received before we left: be flexible, step out of you comfort zone, grab this experience and have fun.
The 40 degrees Celsius heat in the IBM office spoilt my fun a bit, but today we managed to finish at least one of the 6 presentations we will give.

Actually I am looking forward to our first presentation which we will have on Thursday this week - arghhhhhh, only one more day to prepare for it!!!! We will give this presentation to the university students (Software Institut), and the principle of this college is a very, very nice lady and it is great fun to talk to the students.
Our topic will be IBM Culture and Values and career possibilities within IBM.
So this is to come..

On Friday I will talk about how to make the sales process more efficient. I planned to present our IBM CVM method, but when talking to Tom today, I had to admit that he might be right that this could be regarded as internal, confidential IBM stuff, so I am sweatingly preparing my own personal lecture. The advantage is: it will be very authentical and lively, as it will be my stuff. The disadvantage is: IT IS A WHOLE LOT OF WORK!!!

Before I do the sensible thing - that is: go to bed - I need to tell you the funny story of this day. Our interpreter, who is paid by the companies we work for, is a real pain... He cannot stop demanding more and more lectures and time with the customer of us. We keep pushing back since we believe, that touching 23 topics is quite a lot for 3 weeks time (including preparation and actual presentation). Ok, it is only a third of what they expect from us, but nevertheless it is definitely a lot. Anyway, the translator met us in the hotel this evening to pick up our presentation on a memory stick and demand new things from us. We sat in the conference room on "our CSC floor" and after 10 min of discussion, nearly every single one of our 9 team-mates appeared in the door and said something like "ah, here you are, I need you to help me" or "we are leaving for dinner in 5 min, hurry up!" or "why are you still working, you need to rest at some point" and similar quotations. Some of them showed up even 3 times (thank you Denis!). I think, even the translator got the message at that point. So, I really have to say:

My dear Team-Mates: I really love you all. You are simply great. You cheer me up every time! Thank you!!

- Sue