[scene]
Today is my last day with IBM Interactive. After six years, I’m moving on.
Working for IBM has been a tremendous experience. Fresh out of college in 2005, I had little idea what I was signing up for. My first task was rather menial: packing the office for its move across town. Immediately after that, Katrina hit and I was tasked with building a quick-and-dirty job search engine to help displaced workers. It was that project that revealed to me the scope and reach of IBM’s influence. No longer was I hacking on dorm room projects; now I was building sites that ended up featured on cable news broadcasts.
In the years that followed, I had the great fortune and privilege to work on a variety of projects supported by IBM’s corporate citizenship group: designing and building the platform that powers the SME Toolkit, a partnership with the International Finance Group and the World Bank; rebuilding the online presence of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; and building tools for American Corporate Partners to help our nation’s veterans.
By far the most exciting experience I had at IBM was the Corporate Service Corps, a 4 week leadership development program in Arusha, Tanzania. Paired with 7 other IBMers, we assisted local NGO and a college with various projects. This was unlike anything I have done: no programming, no Internet. Every day was a new challenge, a new surprise, and we did our best to help our partners with whatever they could throw at us.
What’s next? I’m joining the Obama for America re-election campaign. It’ll be fun.
September 16th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Hell yeah, that’s awesome. Big changes for both of us today. Best of luck to you Chris! Can’t wait to hear about your new adventures soon.
September 16th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
At least it is [scene] and not [Exit, Pursued by a Bear]. All the best, talk to you soon!