The Basics

I should probably take a step back and answer 2 basic questions:

1) What is the IBM Corporate Service Corps?

2) What language is Günü Yakala?

1) What is the IBM Corporate Service Corps?

The IBM Corporate Service Corps was formed in 2008 to provide IBMers with international leadership opportunities while solving problems for communities in emerging markets.  Think of it as the Peace Corps for business.  IBM sends its employees to volunteer for 4 weeks in an emerging market country.  The participants get an incredible experience working in a foreign country.  The host organization gets highly skilled volunteers. And IBM gets leaders trained in working with international teams and emerging markets as well as an enhanced reputation in those growth markets.

The CSC application process happens once per year and includes basic information about your performance ratings at IBM as well as 3 essays.  Each year there are thousands of applicants and only 500 people are admitted to the program.  I’ll admit it … I applied in 2008, 2009, skipped 2010 because I was pregnant, and applied again in 2011.  As you can guess, I was finally accepted J That was June of 2011.  Then I waited, and waited, and waited, and finally got assigned to my team in June of 2012.

2) What language is Günü Yakala?

Which brings us to my specific team assignment.  Günü Yakala is Turkish.  We are 15 IBMers from around the world who are all meeting to live and work for 4 weeks in Izmir, Turkey.  I’ll add more about the team and our work assignments in my next post.

#ibmcsc Turkey 8