Blogging is Hard!

Yes, it is when you have to write about serious topics. Some of you probably remember my old personal blog. I think I updated that blog more regularly. It was more of a banter than a blog. This has been mostly clean. The lack of an app from Google has made it even more difficult.

I promised a post about last Friday and Saturday. I guess I will get started now.

The organization we are working with, Junior Achievement Argentina, had a special program at a school in a neighborhood called Ramos Mejia. It was a catholic school called Colegio Parroquial San Juan XXIII. The program was set up at the request of Metlife - one of JA sponsors. We found out about the event on Thursday afternoon and it turned out that the JA staff were rushing to put everything together. We all wanted to be at the event, but we figured it made more sense if one person went to the program and the rest stayed behind to work on other stuff. I agreed to tag along with the JA staff without our interpreter Lu. The plan was that I was going to take a taxi to the school and meet up with the JA Director of Education (Feli) at the school. The ride was long. As we approached the neighborhood, the taxi driver made sure that all the doors were locked. I figured we were entering a dodgy neighborhood. Once I arrived at the school, it turned out that Feli and a busful of Metlife volunteers were stuck in traffic and were going to be late. Aldana, one of the JA staff, was already there and she introduced me to the principal. She was an old lady and spoke very little English, but she was pleasant. I basically hung out with Aldana and chit-chatted about the event. I received a copy of the volunteer training materials the day before. I used Google to translate it into English and had a good idea about the program. I noticed that both JA logo and Metlife logo were both prominently present on the cover page of the training material. That bothered me a bit. Yes, the program was being sponsored by Metlife and the volunteers came from Metlife, but it was still a JA program. The Metlife logo served no purpose other than pure advertisement. It reminded me of a cartoon strip from my college sociology course about commercialization of education. I think I still have it somewhere. As I was waiting with Aldana, three women walked in and introduced themselves. It turned out that they were metlife executives from Raleigh, North Carolina and one of them, Maureen, was the executive sponsor of the program. Maureen is an SVP and responsible for IT infrastructure at Metlife. She was quite pleasant to talk to and she wanted to know everything about SAP Social Sabbatical. Maureen was in town for her Latin America leadership meeting and wanted JA to organize an event for all her direct reports. Apparently she holds one such event for every leadership meeting. She spoke no Spanish (just like me) and we ended up hanging out most of the session. There were 5 concurrent sessions running and she stopped by each session. She gave a speech in every session on how big Metlife was, how much profit they had in 2015, and how important it is to research a company before showing up for a job interview. Then she asked for a volunteer and demoed how to do firm handshakes (and not limp ones) while maintaining eye-contact. It was really useless because norms on handshakes and eye-contact vary across cultures. I should have mentioned that to her but she was really sweet and had good intentions. To be honest, her speech was mostly useless. Most of the kids were just happy that they did not have to attend scheduled classes because of this event. However, as she was finishing up in one of the classrooms, a young girl stood up and asked her if she found it difficult as a woman to succeed in her career. Keep in mind that there were only a handful of students in each sessions - about 25%. Maureen shared her experience, how hard she had to work, mistakes she made. As Maureen opened up, more girls started asking her questions. In one classroom, the girls surrounded her after her speech to ask her more questions. To them, she represented something totally different. That's when I realized the impact of the program. The school we went to was primarily for underprivileged students. Many of these students don't have a role model outside of the school. For them, staying in school is a challenge. They don't even think beyond middle school or high school, but then there was a woman standing in front of them that came from a similar background, finished high school, went to college, had children, worked hard, and established herself as a leader in a male dominated workforce. If that alone inspired a handful of young girls to stay in school and follow their dreams, then the event served its purpose. As much of a tough guy as I am, it was really heartbreaking to see how these girls reacted to Maureen and what she had to say. Maureen and I had a quick stroll in the courtyard and had a chat about it. She was touched by that too.

After the event, I rode the train (and a bus) back to the JA with some of the JA staff members. Feli offered me a ride in a car with her, but I decided to ride with the staff and get to know them better. They were all excited that I wanted to travel with them. Aldana paid for my train/bus tickets. They briefed me in how to ride the train and bus in Argentina and how to protect my valuables. I think they were nervous that I was going to lose the bags of JA presentation materials. Aldana was particularly nice and we talked quite a bit about our families and priorities in life. I'm always surprised by how much some of these people open up when you ask questions and show some interest. I absolutely love it. If you know me well enough, you already know that I am all about having deep connections with people I like. These are 20 something kids but they can be my best friends. And I have hardly witnessed so much passion and maturity in anyone of that age. It's inspiring even for an old fart like me. Some of the students mobbed me because they wanted to know what to study to become engineers and scientists. They asked questions about how I ended up from Bangladesh to San Francisco. One kid came over and asked tons of questions on nearly everything. Luckily Nico was there to help translate. At the end of the conversation, he wanted to record a simple English conversation with me for him English teacher. It was quite funny actually. 

On Saturday, we woke up early and went to a local organization called Fundacio Si for some volunteer work. We were joined by some of the local SAP employees. In addition to its various other programs, Fundacion Si also prepares food for the homeless that their volunteers then distribute by hand every night. The program itself is not just about providing food but to establish connections and making sure that the people they serve know that there are others who care about them. We were told that the recipients would not go hungry without the food they receive. The food is one of the few ways the volunteers can reach out to the homeless and provide them with the counseling they need. When we showed up at the center, we were welcomed by one of the staff and a few other volunteers. We received a quick demo on how to make empanadas. Then we went to work. We chopped veggies, cooked the filling, opened many cans of tuna, made the filling, and then actually folded the empanadas. The only item we did not do was making the masa (the wrapper). Obviously I was hopeless at making empanadas. On the other hand, Caro and Mariana (one of our SAP BA colleagues) totally kicked our butts in making empanadas. You can see Mariana's mad empanada-making skills on my FB page. 

Saturday was also Rosemary's birthday. Rosemary is from Sydney, Australia and is part of our sabbatical cohort. We celebrated her birthday in style at a famous parilla (grill) right next to the hotel. It was fun. Check out the photo of my dinner plate on FB. After dinner, we went out for a nightcap nearby. 

We did some sightseeing on Sunday. It was a rainy day but we walked a lot. I'll post some photos on FB soon.

We went to another school on Tuesday. It was another Catholic school for girls. We wanted to talk to a class that went through a JA program (called "The Advantages of Staying in School") last year. It was really good to get some student feedback. We also talked to the principal and the secretary (that means she runs the school and the principal is the face of the administration). They were both very nice. The conversations were quite engaging. Again, most of the students are from underprivileged families from the nearby slums. Vipul got mobbed by a bunch of teenagers. They wanted to know more about India and wanted him to write words in Hindi for them. Selfies were involved.

So that's it. As for our own project work, we have not made much progress. We finally have our revised scope of work. We also started deconstructing one of the programs and putting the student journey map together. We had the weekly review session last night and I got the feeling that we are really behind compared to the other teams. :-(

A few life events also bumming me out completely. I need to make a few big decisions in the coming weeks/months and I'm totally stressed. I really wanted this trip to be free from distractions and was hoping that I could limit all interactions not involving my sabbatical to a minimum. That failed miserably. Oh well.

Information Overload

In case you did not notice, I have not updated this blog since last Monday (April 4). I don't have a valid excuse except that I was overwhelmed a bit and figured the blog could wait. If we are connected on Facebook, you probably already know of a few things we have been doing in Buenos Aires.

I believe I mentioned on my last post that we were a bit overwhelmed on Monday with all the information we received. In case I did not mention it, we were a bit overwhelmed with all the information we received. We spent Tuesday morning at the hotel and reviewed all the materials we collected and did a brain dump session. Then we headed over to the office. We spent some time reviewing our materials with Matias. In the afternoon, Rodrigo and Caro from Pyxera Global stopped by the JA office and spent some time with us to see how we were working. While they were there, the founder of JA Argentina, Eduardo Marty, stopped by for a chat. Eduardo is a very interesting person. He studied in Grove City College in PA. I think that was over 25 years ago. He took quite an interest in me when he found out that I went to a state school in PA as well and studies economics. Eduardo did not hesitate to tell us that he is a firm believer of free market economy. He also has a photograph of himself with Milton Friedman in his office. He wanted to know my reading list because I mostly read non-fictions. I need to send it over to him. I think he might like the Angus Dutton. ;-)

We have our weekly group meeting with Pyxera Global on Tuesday evenings. We all met as a group at the hotel and talked about our projects. I think I talked a bit too much - primarily because I was struggling with the scope of work we were given and we had a looming deadline over our heads to finalize the scope of work by Friday, April 8. We got some guidance from Rodrigo, Caro, and the other teams but it felt like we were really behind all the other teams.

On Wednesday, we got to ride the subway in BA. Lupi was quite worried about our safety. And I believe you already saw the photo of me wearing my backpack in the front. The subway system is a bit outdated (such as no air-con on most trains) but it is fast and damn cheap. A single ticket costs 5 pesos. To give you some idea, the official exchange rate for $1 is approx. 14.50 pesos. As far as the project was concerned, I felt that we were still in deep waters in terms of scope. Each one of us in the team had a different view of what "digitization" meant when in came to the project in hand. Toward the end of the day, we received the JA Americas' and JA Argentina's strategic plan. That was probably the highlight of the day. They both contained a ton of information and I went nuts highlighting the materials. Matias also sat down with us and gave us an overview from his meeting with the JA Innovation Committee meeting. That was helpful too. He also invited us to a meeting with the JA Argentina strategy team on Thursday morning.

We finished the day with having dinner with Rodrigo. It was his birthday. Unfortunately the whole crew couldn't attend. We went to one of his favorite places and had a great meal. 

Well, I might as continue on to Thursday. We started the day with a meeting with JA Argentina strategy team as SC Johnson. The meeting was quite productive and I gathered some valuable information to formulate our revised scope of work. After the meeting, we headed back to the JA office and met with two former students. Sebastian is on his final grade in high school and was part of the "La Compania" (The Company) program last year. Lorena was part of the "La Compania" program last year as well but from a different school. In fact, her team won the program by beating Sebastian's team. She is currently in university studying political science. The discussions with Sebastian and Lorena were very engaging. Both were both quite passionate about what they learned by participating in the JA program. They loved the program. "La Compania" is a 15-week program where they form a business venture of their own with support from a mentor. As part of this business venture, they come up with a business plan, elect a leadership team, raise funds, and sell products for real money. It teaches valuable entrepreneurial skills to high school students and is one of the most popular JA programs. It turned out that both Sebastian's and Lorena's teams were selling the same product (collecting recyclable mason jars and re-purposing them for something else) even though they went to different schools and did not know each other. Both were very honest in providing feedback to us. It helped us understand the struggles JA is going through. We will be bringing them back again.

At the end of the meeting, Matias asked us if we would like to go to his school sometime and talk about our experience. We are waiting for him to get back to us.

I really want to talk about Friday because it was one of my favorite days in BA. But it's too late and I think Friday (and Saturday too) deserves a separate post. Again, I think most of those on FB already have some ideas.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I also had a long conversation with my "buddy" Rob about our project and our struggle (maybe it was just my struggle). He gave some good advice. We also had a very good conversation about teamwork and team dynamics. Even though we all work for SAP and we are all part of "Top Talent," we come from different cultural and organizational backgrounds and we have our own work styles. I think that makes this assignment very challenging because we only get 4 weeks to do our work. My the time we get to know each other, we will be on a plane back home to go back to our regular jobs. While this makes our assignment challenging, it is also a great way to develop ourselves.

Cheers!

Kickoff

Today, April 4, was the first official day of our Social Sabbatical. It is already April 5 and I need to go to bed soon but I will write something up quickly before I doze off.

We went to SAP BA office for the kickoff. Our MD of the LatAm region kicked off the session. We also had the chance to meet the team members from all the NGOs that are participating in the SAP Social Sabbatical program. SAP chose four local NGOs for the program - Socialab, Ensena Argentina, Puerto 18, and Junior Achievement Argentina. There are twelve of us that are part of the Social Sabbatical in Buenos Aires. We have been split into groups of threes to work with one of these NGOs. I think I already mentioned that I will be working with Junior Achievement Argentina along with Fariba and Vipul. We finally got to meet Matias and Felicitas. Matias is the project manager from JA Argentina and Felicitas is the training coordinator. Before showing up in BA, we had a conference call with them and also exchanged a couple of emails. Finally we get to put faces to the voices we heard. We also got to meet our translator/intern Lucia at the kickoff.

After the kickoff, we went to the JA BA office in the city center to have our first discussions. The JA BA staff were just as excited as our SAP colleagues to meet us. The office is tiny and there are only 12 staff members there. The people in the office were very welcoming and greeted us with smiles and a kiss on the cheek. I wish all our customers did that!

Felicitas spent quite some time with us explaining how JA BA is organized, how the volunteer and student selection process works, the various programs that are offered, and reviewing some of the training materials. Matias later joined us as well. A lot was shared. Both Matias and Feli went through the JA program as students. They worked for JA for free for a while before becoming staff members. Both are quite passionate about JA and their work. They also have a wealth of knowledge and they are willing to share. Matias is an accountant. Feli is a lawyer. Yet both are doing something quite different. If you are passionate about something, then it really doesn't matter what you study.

We had a late lunch. We went to a shopping mall near the office in torrential downpour. Lu recommended an Argentinian fast food shop called Lomitos. It was good. We went back to the office after lunch and spent another hour re-capping what we heard from them. Someone in the office made us coffee. Lu helped us get a taxi back to the hotel.

As I was getting in the taxi and kissed Lu on the cheek, I realized that I forgot to do that to others when I left the office. 

I worked out at the gym. Before I left SF, I told my buddies that I plan to work out a lot in BA. 

We went to another good restaurant for dinner tonight. I had a salad and sparkling water. I split an order of veal sweetbreads and some Argentinian sausage with Rob and a few others. I kind of missed my roommate Ashley and my buddy Al from SF. The menu had a section of offals. They'd have loved it. 

Sunday Funday

Sunday Funday!

I did not get to post anything yesterday (Sunday) because I was pooped. I'm not in any better shape now but I thought I should catch up. 

We started the say at 9:30. When I showed up for breakfast around 9, it was obvious that most of us were jet-lagged. After a brief intro, we played a game called Human Bingo. The purpose was to quickly find if someone fell under one of the categories in a box and cross off that box. For example, if someone had a dog or if someone was left-handed. Very similar to real bingo but in this case we had to talk to each other quickly and learn more about one another. It woke us up a little. After that, Eliana gave a small presentation on SAP Social Sabbatical and SAP CSR strategy. Eliana is really cool. She is originally from Argentina but lives in Germany with her family. She is in Corporate Audit. She was part of the Social Sabbatical program in Mumbai last year and decided to come back and help the program as a volunteer. She is quite awesome. If you are on my FB, you should have already seen a photo of that session. I plan on including photos on this blog at some point to tie it all together.

After Eliana's presentation, we followed our local consultant Carolina (aka Caro) for a neighborhood tour. Our hotel is in a swanky neighborhood of BA called Palermo. It's a happening place. The hotel itself is not fancy, but my room has more space than my room in SF. That alone makes me very happy. It also costs a fraction of what an international hotel chain would charge for a room. It's a trendy boutique hotel in a trendy neighborhood.

After the neighborhood tour, we came back to the hotel and played a team building game called "Architects & Engineers." It'd hard to explain in a few sentences, but the goal of the game is to build a model of something based on a prototype. The only catch is that the engineers that need to build the model can't see the prototype; only the architects get to see it. The architects only provide verbal instructions and they only meet with the engineers for 1 minute duration without even seeing what the engineers are building. I found that to be very useful and it was also very relevant in our software development world. We have architects that meet with customers and gather requirements but our developers in far-flung places build the actual product. Often what is built is not what is asked for. I'm going to find out the detailed rules of the game (it's also not very difficult to come up with own rules) and use it for a team building exercise on a project. 

Then came lunch. We went to a pretty cool restaurant for steaks. Pyxera Global treated us to lunch. Some of our colleagues from the BA office joined us as well. A couple of them were past alumni of the Social Sabbatical program. Our colleagues in BA are really excited about the Social Sabbatical program coming to Argentina. It is the first time SAP has conducted the program here. They lobbied for it for years. At lunch, I got to meet Noel as well. When the pope was in Philadelphia last year, I was searching for a list of all the people the pope met during his trip there. I was quite irritated by the fact that the pope met with the crazy Kentucky woman Kim Davis in DC. So I wanted to know who else he was meeting in Philly. During my search, I found an article about Noel and her family. They traveled from BA to Philadelphia in a VW van. And when I say her family, it includes 4 kids. One of them is a toddler! They were invited to meet the pope. I think they truly deserved it. I was, on the other hand, totally captivated by their adventurous spirit. I was also jealous. Who wouldn't be? I was really excited to meet her and I told her that I knew all about her trip (because I spent half a day researching about her trip). As we were leaving the table, Noel came over to me and said that she wanted to take a photo with her fan. So Noel, Caro, and I took a photo outside the restaurant. Check out my FB to see the photo. She then walked back to the hotel with us. I had a very engaging conversation with her. I asked Caro that I'd like to spend some time with her again before I leave BA.

We spent the afternoon sitting at the courtyard and talking about our lives. I'd rather not get into the details because some of them were quite personal. The conversations were engaging and we learned a lot about each other. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I am amazed by our team members, their experience, and their accomplishments.

I finished the day with a great dinner. Our program manager from Pyxera Global, Rodrigo, took five of us to an excellent restaurant. It was a tiny place and the menu changes so frequently that they don't even print menus but write it on chalk boards. I had the best tomato salad. I also had a steak. We also had some great wine. I had trouble sleeping after eating so much red meat in one day.

Monday is the kickoff for our sabbatical.

Day 1 in Buenos Aires

Yes, I made it.

Unfortunately my luggage didn't. Luckily I had a change of clothes in my carry-on and I have fresh clothes to wear. Hopefully United will be able to bring it over tomorrow.

I got to meet most of the other participants. Janice and Vipul arrived late and I will meet them at breakfast in the morning. We had a group lunch and a group dinner. A couple of us went out for a short walk and a drink after dinner. Our hotel is nice and comfortable. Nothing fancy but it has everything that I need. Best of all, the location is excellent. Carolina, our local consultant, took care of everything for us and it was seamless.

I am also amazed by the diversity and experience in our group. It is always humbling to meet the talent we have at SAP. It is a privilege to be able to work with them. 

SAP Argentina gave each one of us a gift bag when we arrived at the hotel. Inside there was a handmade bowl from an organization that provides support to underprivileged teenagers. It included a small card that read: "Our goal is to help teenagers who come from households with many shortcomings and stay outside of the school system to find a meaning in their lives through training, learning and practice the ancient art of pottery. With patience and dedication, we work to rescue their values, self-esteem, love and vitality that each of them has hidden in their heart. Our success is when they understand that someone looks after them, they feel recognized and, finally, recover the idea that life is a game that is worth playing."

We start at 9:30 am tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to it.

What's taking me to Argentina?

No, it's not all fun and games.

In case you were not aware, I am traveling to Buenos Aires to participate in the SAP Social Sabbatical program on behalf of SAP. What exactly is Social Sabbatical, you ask? The SAP Social Sabbatical is a short term assignment for SAP's key talents who work in international, cross functional teams to solve business challenges for the education and social entrepreneurship sector in emerging markets. Based on my annual performance evaluation in 2015, I was invited to apply to this program. (Who says hard work doesn't pay off?) The selection process was rigorous but I was able to get in. I was assigned to the Social Sabbatical program in Buenos Aires in April 2016. My assignment will run from April 4, 2016 to April 29, 2016. I will be traveling to BA with 11 other SAP colleagues from around the world.

What exactly is my assignment? I will be working with my colleagues Fariba and Vipul to help Junior Achievement Argentina (JA Argentina) to come up with a digitization strategy for their training materials in order to reduce its program costs and to reach more students in new geographic areas. Junior Achievement Argentina is an international organization whose aim is to inspire and prepare young people between the ages of 5 and 25 for the working world. This objective is achieved through the implementation of educational programs within three strategic areas: entrepreneurship, financial education and vocational skills. They are primarily funded by large corporate sponsors - SAP being one of them. JA Argentina would like the three of us to analyze their various program challenges and prepare a digitization plan (primarily for their training materials) that can be implemented by JA’s permanent staff. JA made several attempts in recent years to come up with a strategy but lacked a concrete plan of action. JA Argentina’s beneficiaries and donors are now demanding that the organization adopt more modern technologies and have an executable plan. That's where we come in. The project does not have a formal deadline but we will need to come up with a viable strategy for them in the next four weeks and present it to their board for buy-in. I'm sure we have a lot of challenges ahead of us but I'm looking forward to it.

I will try to squeeze in some fun time while in BA. Some of us are traveling to Iguazu Falls one weekend. I will celebrate my 41st birthday there too. At the end of the trip, I will take two weeks off to travel around Argentina and Uruguay.

Yes, there will be photos. 

Stay tuned!

It's about to start

Better late than never, right?

I'm finally setting up a blog to document by Social Sabbatical experience in Buenos Aires. I plan on writing a post on what it is soon. Until then, just be aware that the journey starts tomorrow and I will be posting blurbs and photos for the next 6 weeks. 

Stay tuned!