It's a very diverse group; we are 14 people representing 7 countries: Brazil, Denmark, Germany, India, Japan, United States and Uruguay; we span about a 20-year age range; our 'day jobs' include technical sales, process/lean six sigma black belt (who wouldn't like to have a job title with 'black belt' in it), human resources, web specialist, communications, staffing manager, and many more. Since we spent time on many teleconferences over the past 3 months, we already knew something about one another, but it's so much easier to get to know people when you meet face to face.
Our weekend included a visit to IBM South Africa:
The highlight of the weekend was our trip to the Lion and Rhino park:
The white tiger cubs were definitely my favorite.
We are now in East London, a very industrial town on the Indian Ocean. It's a river port, which makes it a prime location for a Mercedes-Benz plant; this plant makes all of the right-hand drive Mercedes for Europe. We flew here on 1time, which I'll have to actually fly 2times - it's how we get back to Jo'burg at the end of the month. The landing in East London was not what I'd call relaxing, it was more like a nose dive toward the runway.
Tomorrow we meet our clients. I'm part of a group of four (Immi, Anil and Anna are the other three) who will be working with Ruliv, an NGO focused on helping rural businesses succeed. Our task: to focus on marketing and communications. We have a general statement of work for the project but we'll spend our first week speaking with the team at Ruliv and will more accurately define what we'll do for them. I think one of the most important aspects of our project is to define a strategy that the Ruliv team can realistically execute on once we're gone. We'll have the time to get the project going but we need to leave them in a position to carry the work forward.
Oh, and how did I learn about 'umoja?' It's the title of an incredible dance musical, Africa Umoja, that many of us saw over the weekend.
An incredible adenture with the PAWS prints to prove it! Can't wait to hear about your adventures inside the office ... do you know what your project is yet?
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