My wife is not a regular reader of my blog, so I can get away with the title of today's post. Given the large amount of nerd-speak that I post here on a regular basis (which my wife often refers to as "speaking in tongues"), I thought I would follow in the footsteps of David K. Spencer and do a "Casual Friday" post.
I'm not talking about engagement in the marriage sense.
I'm talking about engagement in EMC-sponsored extra-curricular activities.
Like talk radio shows.
One of the themes I've experienced at EMC, especially lately, is the continual stream of creative opportunities provided by EMC executives to their employees. I would describe these opportunities using words like "unexpected", "unique", "attractive", "different", "challenging", and dare I say it, "fun".
Before I list these opportunities, I have to say that I really don't have time to do any of them. It's currently crunch time for my software team. However, I've stated before that EMC executives don't present these opportunities without reason. They're watching to see who can "step up without slowing down". This translates to "don't sign up for this if you can't still get your job done".
Get Your Job Done. That's another common slogan around here. Sometime I don't eat lunch with my pals as much as I'd like. The work day starts pretty early for me. But I can't pass up some of the things being offered.
Check it out....
Visual Talk Radio
Whoever heard of a company holding a talk radio show for employees? I haven't. I was asked to be a guest on the show along with 'Zilla. The VP of Cool was our host. I drove down south to Hopkinton before lunch and drove like a madman back north when we were done. What was my experience doing the show? I haven't had that much fun at work since..... come to think of it I don't believe I've EVER had that much fun at work. It was short, sweet, and hilarious, and I was back at my desk that afternoon reading specs and shaking my head asking: "Did that really just happen"?
Innovation Conference 2008
After the great experience I had at EMC's Innovation Conference 2007, I volunteered to help organize this year's event. We meet for one hour every two weeks. On Wednesday of this week EMC CTO Jeff Nick announced the "call for ideas" to the entire corporation. EMC will have to sort through all of the employee ideas by August and select thirty for the contest in October. We decided to use social media techniques to engage EMC employees as our "advisory board". There's a rather lively discussion about the "tag line" for this year's event. Employees were encouraged to propose tag lines. I submitted "Nerdfest 2008". This was met with polite laughter during our meeting. (in other words that will NOT be our tagline this year).
Coding Challenge
My business unit (I work in Rich Napolitano's organization) has a collaborative website for proposing new ideas. The best ideas submitted into this website get reviewed by a variety of CTOs. Approved ideas then get aired out in front of Rich and his staff. Last March I proposed a coding challenge. The idea actually came out of my work with the Innovation Conference organizers. The thought was that individual business units within EMC could not only propose ideas, but actually bring ideas as running code. Rich and his team approved. More on this in future posts!
There's More
Internal and external blogging.
Social media measurements with visual graphing.
Interviews with authors writing upcoming books.
Co-hosting a radio show (what!?).
I'd like to tell you more about all of these things, but I can't! (for now).
Gotta get my job done......
Have a good weekend,
Steve
Comments