Work hard, Play hard (Part 2)

And now for the play...

I’ll admit it … I haven't posted anything about our weekend adventures because I was waiting for everyone else to post something that I could plagiarize!  ;-) 

My patience has paid off so I will now offer you a summary of what everyone else wrote!

On Saturday we hired a mini-bus and driver and headed south to the resort town of Çeşme. Çağrı (we call him Charlie) is the translator for Teams 3 & 4 and doubled as our tour guide for the day.

First stop was Alaçatı which is known world wide for it's wind surfing although on this particular day there wasn't even enough wind to blow a paper bag, let alone a surfboard!  Then on to the local market selling everything from clothes to household goods to spices to ... well everything.  I found a pair of Lacoste tennis shoes for 20TL when they normally cost 200TL.  OK, sure, I know they're knock offs but they're cute and cheap and who cares if they fall apart before the end of the trip!  I also found some really nice glass handicrafts for only 10 TL to take home.

Next we drove through Çeşme and up the hills to overlook the Agean Sea and the Greek Island of Chios.  There is a regular ferry to Chios which I'd love to take but some teammates have more restrictive visas than those of us from the U.S. so it wasn't a good group activity.  Maybe I'll get back there the final weekend that we are here.  Anyway, the island is only 2 miles off shore and there are coast guard boats regularly patrolling the border.  We took a bunch of pictures from the hilltop, including some of the nearby mansion with an aquarium as a fence.

Viv took great pictures of everyone and put them together in this collage:

Next stop was the marina.  Lots of yachts surrounded by picturesque boutique shops and restaurants.  You can see a bit of the Greek influence in all the white buildings and blue decor.

(another credit to Viv for the collage)

And finally to the beach.  The Agean Sea water temperature was perfect and guys worked off some pent up energy in the sand.

#ibmcsc Turkey 8

Work hard, play hard (Part 1)

Let's start with the work...

This week has been busy with lots of meetings and interviews.  Team 1 and 2 worked together to develop interview questions and a survey which was used to gauge the satisfaction of the current TechnoPark tenants as well as get their thoughts on the proposed new services of the Innovation Center.  We divided into pairs, generally one person from each team, and met with 13 companies and conducted a workshop for young entrepreneurs / students who are looking to start new businesses in the TechnoPark.

There have been several times this week where we had to stop and realize we were taking things way too seriously.  Or maybe a better way to put is is that we were operating as if we were dealing with other IBMers on an IBM timeline.  But time just isn't the same here in Izmir.  It's a very laid back city where meetings generally don't start on time and no matter how short the meeting is you still take time to enjoy a cup of tea.  So our entrepreneur workshop, which we prepared for 15 attendees, only had 3 participants.  Some had classes, some had job interviews, and some just slept in and missed the bus to campus.  Oh well.  Throw out the plan, adapt to the new reality and get the best information you can.  All 3 had great ideas and one in particular was very impressive in his ideas and his passion.  He'd make a great change management consultant for IBM.  We'll have to pass his name along to IBM Turkey!

We also met with the Recktor (President) of the University.  He's a key stakeholder in the TechnoPark and is the one who came up with the idea of the Innovation Center.  He's a very bright man, excellent communication skills, and a great sense of humor.  It was a pleasure meeting with him and getting his vision for the University and the TechnoPark.  And he gave us a bottle of olive oil produced entirely on the campus.  It's a special edition for the 20th anniversary of oil production on the campus.  Everything from growing the olives, to processing, to research in more environmentally friendly ways to manage the processing chemicals and product waste.

Today we worked from the hotel to compile all the data we have gathered into our Phase 1 deliverables.  Tomorrow morning will be a final polish of Phase 1 (analysis of proposed services) and then move on to phase 2 (implementation plans).

Tomorrow afternoon we're doing our community service day and will be working with underprivileged children.  Like typical IBMers we've spent hours planning the agenda ... how best to overcome language barriers, how to teach them something, how to inspire them to work hard in school and be successful in life.  And I'm predicting we'll get through less than half of the games on the agenda.  Oh well, such is life in Izmir!

#ibmcsc Turkey 8

Here are a few more work related posts from other team member blogs:

Serina has a very nice post about learning to Pause and get on Izmir-time.  She has another one about the drive to work.

Here is an article about or work at the University.  Sorry, it's in Turkish!

Antonio has a great description of everyone on the team.

Rewind ... Split and Trogir, Croatia

(Catching up on old blogs.  This one is from Wednesday and Thursday, 19-20 Sept)

On Wednesday, we sadly left beautiful Dubrovnik but happily left our Hotel Adriatic and headed back up the coast to Split.  After a few wrong turns in and around Split we made it to Diocletian’s Palace in downtown Split.  Diocletian was a Roman emperor from 284 to 305 A.D.   After his rule, he retired to the palace he had built in the country, along the coastline, in what is now Split, Croatia.  It wasn’t a palace in the sense of a single building but rather a small walled city with the royal residence taking up 1/2 of the space and support and military buildings occupying the other half.  What remains are partial city walls and the basement of the palace whose layout mirrors what used to be above.  Over the years the city has grown up and around the palace so now they are inseparably entangled.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the rest of the palace city and eating gelato.

 On Thursday, we headed back into Split with the intention of catching a catamaran to Hvar Town on Hvar island at 11:30am but there was only 1 ticket left.  And even though Hvar is becoming the hot new place for celebrities and tourists alike, there is no regular ferry for day trips.  If anyone has some seed money, Amanda and I are going to start a regularly luxury ferry service to the island!  So we ended up hanging around Split until 2:30 when we took the slow boat (car ferry) to Stari Grad on the other side of Hvar Island from Hvar Town.  It took 2 hours to get to Hvar, we had ½ hour on the island, and then had to catch the return ferry or be stuck on the island for the night.  Our primary goal was to enjoy being on the water so it wasn’t all bad but it would have been nice to actually see some of the island rather than just the water.

The Green Market (Farmer's Market) in Split

 We ended the day with dinner in Trogir, the small town outside of Split where our hotel was located.  It is a UNESCO protected site and is like a mini-Dubrovnik.  It was really quite charming, especially at night, and more interesting than Split itself.