An App for That ... Organizing my Life

As I get ready to start my 3rd ITLP rotation at GE Transportation I decided to take a step back and see how I could organize myself better. Some of my friends may laugh and say that I am already organized. I agree but I just love organizing things so why not try and do it better?

I got out my technology which consist of an iPad2, iPhone5 (iOS) and Google Nexus (Andriod OS) tablet. I use each for various tasks but I want them to work seemlessly together. The Apple products naturally work together but the question holds ... how do I integrate Apple and Android?

After some intense market research and user analysis I have come upon a great list of productivity apps that work great across operating systems including Apple iOS, Android, and web browsers (i.e. Chrome and FireFox).

1. Pocket: Surfing the web and find a bunch of great articles or your friend emails you an article but you don't have time to read it? No problem ... put it in your "Pocket"! This app stores the articles offline so you can read them at your leisure. It also boasts a great user interface.
2. Currents: A product of Google that takes news feeds and brings them together so you can surf around different news channels getting the up to date events.
3. Wunderlist: Got a long to do list? Writing it on paper? What happens when you loose the paper? Uh oh! Well now your To-Do list is synced everywhere! Great functionality to have multiple lists and check boxes to have the satisfaction of checking something off your list!
4. Bloglovin': So many blogs so little time! I previously had all the blogs I followed in a single folder in my bookmarks but it was a pain to check when there were new posts. Now this app does it all ... pulls the new posts together for you to read. You can filter on different blogs as well.
5. OneNote: Awesome app to take detailed notes (not to-do lists like Wunderlist) such as planning a party or travel somewhere. You can share the notebook with friends to collaborate. The sections of notebooks allow for a lot of organization.
6. Evernote: I use this for recipe collections and Bible study notes. It's a great way to store more detailed notes (not to-do lists like in Wunderlist) that don't need a certain order like in OneNote. Great tagging, search and sharing capabilities.
7. Duolingo: Want to learn a new language? This is the app for you! It's like playing a fun game! You can challenge your friends, even if they are learning a different language. Trust me just check it out ... Italian, German, French, Spanish and more!
8. Spotify: Best app to stream music via radio stations based on artists or genres.
9. Mint: THE BEST personal finance app out there. Brings in information from your bank accounts, loans, and investments to give you a great overall picture of your financial status. You can create budgets, goals and more!

Let me know what you think! What other productivity apps do you use?

Happy organization and planning!

The learnings of a 1st Rotation ITLP

At the conclusion of each of our rotations we, the ITLPs as well as all the other Leadership Program members, must go through our end of rotation review with our Assignment Leader (AL, manager for that rotation). My AL was the Operations Leader for Transportation, Tony Ferretti. Tony is a great leader. I have learned the difference between a manager and a leader. A manager plans, organizes, and communicates. A leader inspires and motivates. A leader must also have the skills of a manager but a manager may not have the skills of a leader. Tony always pushed me to go outside my comfort zone and take risks. He led me to be a leader - inspiring and motivating my colleagues.

Throughout our final review session, we discussed how we can have continued success in the workplace.

• We need to be able to identify key market areas or stakeholders with gaps and challenges - and determine how IT can improve or fix the issues.
• Senior leadership mentoring is a vital way to learn leadership skills. Take the risk and engage with a senior leader and boldly ask if they will mentor you.
• For future rotations - take the big, scary rotations that go deep into pillar applications so you can really learn about the business.
• Learn from leaders and make notes about what you like and what you don't like. We need to develop our own leadership styles and just like when we were children, we imitate. But at this age we can do so with more choice and poise. We can select the traits of leaders we see that we like and add it to our repertoire.

It is with many thanks to Tony and the entire CTO team and my ITLP program manager Nate Arnold, that I had all these learnings and I can say my first rotation was such an amazing experience.

"Networking is like speed dating, awkward" ... some final thoughts on FOL

Looking back on my Foundations of Leadership (FOL) training experience, I must say that it is one that I will carry with me for the rest of my career and life. As the title suggests, speed networking is in fact, awkward. Throughout the training we were forced to go around the room and talk to people we had not met yet. It was awkward in the moment but looking back, it was well worth it. I now know people in every GE business! Here are some of my final thoughts on FOL, based off of the great quotes I remembered from our various instructors and leaders.

"Beware of CAVE people." CAVE = Citizen's Against Virtually Everything. You cannot please everyone.

"Statisticians have their head in the oven and their feet in their freezer and say on average they feel okay", said our instructor of business acumen and finances on Day 1. It reminds me to do to the obvious, be wary of averages when looking at numbers.

"Sitting is the 21st century smoking". Remember to keep yourself healthy when you are working hard!

"Non words, um uh, are like fat calories". So true! When speaking in public we revert to non words when we are nervous or need to fill a void, as some people (as in me) crave sweets.

"Most of the time we don't communicate. We just take turns talking." We need to remember to truly listen. A characteristic of a successful leader is one who listens to those around them.

Thank you to all that stayed tuned in for my FOL reviews. Next up are some learnings from my 1st ITLP rotation!

FOL Day 5: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you know the answer to that question? What do you want to be when you grow up? Well that is what we discussed on Friday, the last day of Foundations of Leadership training at Crotonville - GE's corporate university training center.

Richard Simpson led a discussion about shaping our careers. He said you should try and describe your leadership style in 3 words. His words were demanding, focused, and energetic. After some thought ...

My leadership style is: passionate, organized, and results-driven.

Next Richard discussed values. We had already discussed the GE Growth Values, so now we were discussing our personal values. I was very surprised when Richard explained that his number one value was his faith!! I was so excited. He is a superbly successful GE executive and he said his values were faith, family, and work, in that order. It was refreshing to hear that because there are many people in this world that put work first in their life and can make it an idol as they pursue success in a worldly sense.

Continuing with the theme of values for the rest of the day, we did an exercise to visualize our personal values. We were given a deck of cards that had values written on them. Through a process of making piles, ranking, dropping and combining we identified our top 5 values. Mine were:

1. Faith
2. Family
3. Health
4. Service
5. Friends

Our instructor then asked for volunteers to share their top value. It was interesting to hear the variety of responses. I boldly raised my hand and shared that faith was number one value. Others that shared did not list faith as their number one but voiced answers such as family, challenge, health, loyalty, and achievement, to name a few.

Team bonding...

Throughout FOL we had many fun games. On this last day we were challenge to create a chair that would hold the tallest person on our team ... out of balloons and masking tape! Then the teams competed to see which team's chair lasted at least 10 seconds without popping any balloons. We successfully lasted the full 10 seconds! Here are two photos; lowering our teammate onto the balloons and then tensely holding our breath during the 10 seconds!

FOL Day 4: Team Challenge of Epic Proportions

Our 4th day at Foundations of Leadership training at the GE Crotonville learning center, was all about team development. Most of us had learned about the Stages of Team Development; Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Concluding & Renewing, so the lesson was a refresher from when we last reviewed it in our college courses. We were then tasked with identifying where our team fell in the categories and why. My team decided we were in the Performing stage because we were team centered, we had fierce team loyalty (as evident in our cheering each other on during the team challenges), and we encouraged each other.

Jeff Burns is the director at the GE Crotonville training center. Jeff came to talk to us about developing our careers. Some words of advice that stuck with me were that we should aim towards being that "exceeds expectations" employee. He also proposed an interesting view of a successful career. When you to combine building your abilities, capturing what you want to learn, and meeting  the organizational needs, you will grow yourself as a leader.

The EPIC Challenge:

After lunch the teams were given a packet - and challenged with completing the tasks within the concealed packet in 3 hours. Ready, set, GO! The expressive side of all my team members came out and we ran to the break out room to start working immediately. As we are running I am opening the packet and listing off the things we had to complete:

"Ah-ha" moments of the week for all team members, networking worksheets for all team members, poster that represented our team, social styles map of our team, logo and advertisement for FOL, GRPI analysis of our team, an egg drop and commercial to sell the egg drop, poem about FOL, debrief worksheets of this exercise

Boy oh boy does time fly, but our team flowed through the activities smoothly. We each gravitated towards activities where we could utilize our skillsets and help the team. Our team was only 1 of a few teams that completed all the activities. One team in particular that did not finish all the activities explained how they really wanted to work together as a team on everything. It was interesting to see how different team view the tasks. Below, for your amusement, is the poem about FOL that I wrote:

Growing in GE
Here at Crotonville beginning our journeys
Who knew we would enter in so many tourneys
External focus we expand each day
Using knowledge of market industry along the way
Clear thinking we grow individually
Communicating complex information effectively
Imagination and Courage we embrace all the time
Advocating for change even if we mime
Inclusiveness we exude as a team
Proactively helping others with out a scream
Expertise we deepen throughout our jobs
Seeking opportunities to impact without being snobs
Foundations of Leadership a time we will miss
Most importantly Jim Swims was pure bliss

I hope you have been enjoying the updates about FOL. The final installment, FOL Day 5 will be posted soon! Stay tuned!

FOL Day 3 Cont'd: Pictionary with the VP

Continuing on with the 3rd day of GE's Foundations of Leadership training ...

After marveling over our tape art and thinking if we should have gone into careers as artists we came to our senses and moved on to our next lesson - Presentation Skills.

Previously I have taken a presentation skills class when I first started at GE as part of the ITLP Bootcamp curriculum. That class was three days long. This class at FOL was 4.5 hours long. I had a feeling it was going to be quite intense.

We focused on 3 main areas: eye contact, pausing, and gestures. The class was structured so that each part built on the last. We started with eye contact by doing an exercise where you can talk about anything but you have to hold eye contact with some one for 5 consecutive seconds before moving your eyes. It was hard! Then we added in the pause in between moving our eyes to the next person. Then we added gestures. -- All the while being videotaped so we could watch and analyze ourselves afterwards -- Compared to my first GE presentation skills class, this was a good refresher but it could have been spread between two days.

You were probably wondering about the title of this blog, "Pictionary with the VP". Well this particular Wednesday night after dinner, a group of us went over to do some networking at the Green House. The Green House is an eco-friendly building with solar panels on top! Inside it is a bar with two pool tables, ping pong table, card table, guitar hero, piano, actual guitars, and board games! A group of us started playing Pictionary. After a few rounds it started getting intense. We were naturally all competitive. Then in walks Richard Simpson, a Vice President and Officer of the GE Company and leader of Global Supply Chain for Transportation. I said hello and invited him to join us in the game. I had met him that morning over breakfast. He joined my team. Richard and my team became quite the champs.  

The first round Richard joined he was the drawer. Some how I guessed the answer in about 20 seconds. It was "dune-buggy". How did I get that?? When was the last time I saw an image of a dune buggy or even said the phrase?? Anyways after that Richard was amazing and my team and I were giving high fives all around. Richard played several more rounds before heading out for the night.

After Pictionary, Julie and Mayank (two other Transportation ITLPs) and myself met one of the CIOs of Aviation. This was really cool because Mayank is actually taking a rotation with Aviation next! We also caught up with Ehren Powell the CIO of Global Services for Transportation.

FOL definitely provided some unique opportunities to meet senior leadership of the GE company.

More FOL adventures to come ... with FOL Day 4

FOL Day 3: Tape Art

Did you say tape??

Have you ever thought, "I feel like drawing with tape all over this blank wall!!". No? Well, neither had I ... until Foundations of Leadership training Day 3.

The class was split in two, each half going to separate activities for the morning and afternoon. Jim Swims' (aka my team, Team 7) morning started off, yet again with amazing food and lattes - but even more interesting was the clown. He wasn't dressed in a clown costume so we didn't know his true form until he told us. We learned to get comfortable with ourselves by all standing in the classroom following the hand and body motions of the clown in front. Then we partnered up to do what was called the leader-follower activity. One person leads and the other person follows and then you switch. You stand in front of each other and the leader does things like move their hands up and down and make facial expressions, while the follower mimics the actions. The next part is the seemingly tricky part ... you both lead and follow at the same time!! Think it can get crazier?? It did. We then closed our eyes and kept moving. Our instructor said stop and we opened our eyes to see if we matched our partner.

You may be wondering at this point, "Why is a clown leading exercises in a class about leadership?". Well it showed me that you can be a leader and a follower at the same time, and that there is a time to be a follower and a time to be a leader.

This activity lead right into a large pile of painter's tape. The group simply titled Tape Art, joined the clown instructor and invited us to let our creative sides. We split into two groups: Amiables & Expressives and Drivers & Analyticals. We were tasked with drawing GE. The Amiables and Expressives were drawing 20th century GE while the Drivers and Analyticals were drawing 21st century GE. We were then let loose. There were about 15 Drivers and Analyticals and over 25 Amiables and Expressives (largely Expressives). There was minimal planning and lots of taping ... everyone ebbing and flowing from leader to follower.

After 1.5 hours we switched with the other half of the FOL class that was at another activity. They followed suit with the clown activities then continued the tape art ... bringing 20th and 21st century GE together. Check out the images below!

Stay tuned to learn what happened in the afternoon and evening in ... FOL Day 3 continued!!

FOL Day 2: Expressive

Morning:

The second day of Foundations of Leadership training at the Crotonville training site started off with a hearty breakfast of oatmeal, banana, and peanut butter of course.

But unlike my normal breakfast, I strolled over to the Cafe 56 at the White House for a Caramel Latte, which became my drink of choice for the week! GE knows how to get their employees to focus ... unlimited supply of caffeine!

Today we met our teams for the week. I was in Team 7, which instantly bonded over the first team building activity where we had to make a paper fish (any shape) and a fan with one sheet of flip-chart paper and race the other teams to the finish line! We were competing for "potentially valuable prizes" ... GE string bags, frisbees, and water bottles. Our team name was Jim Swims, and we won the race!

Have you ever taken a personality test before? I have done a few but today we did a simplified test to determine what is called our Social Style. There are 4 types, see the image to the left.

After taking the test, I determined that I was an Expressive with a back-up style of a Driver. I wasn't that surprised, I think I could have guessed that. The next activity was to text several of our friends that were not in class with us and ask them to describe us in one word. It was funny how our instructor Ivan was playing to everyone's Social Styles as he addressed the different groups.

"Analyticals; you are thinking, hmm who should I text. Drivers; ugh, why are we texting, this is not important, what does it matter what my friends think? Amiables; what if no one texts me back? Expressives; Sweet, we get to text in class!! I'm going to text a bunch of people!"

Well as an Expressive would, I did go an text a bunch of people and my list came back as: Intense, Genuine, Organized, Focused, Out-of-the-Box, Effervescent, Sincere, Bubbly, Generous, Passionate, Joyful, and Caring

Needless to say, I was very happy that my friends thought of me this way! :) But of course I have to focus on where my development needs are. I need to learn to not take this too personally. As an Expressive I share my emotions easily. I remember that from my childhood. But when a Driver sends a one word email, it doesn't mean they are angry or snobby, it just means that that is all they needed to communicate and saw no need to extra fluff. My goal is to learn to identify my friends and coworkers Social Styles and aim to communicate in a way they prefer.

Afternoon:

After a plentiful buffet lunch, we returned to our studies. The afternoon focused on GE's Growth Values.

• Clear Thinker
• Expertise
• Inclusiveness
• External Focus
• Imagination & Courage

Richard Simpson, a Vice President and Officer of the company, leader of Global Supply Chain for Transportation, led the discussion on the Growth Values. Of the 5 values, Richard explained that he viewed Expertise as the most important. He urged us to "declare a major" at GE. For him, it was Supply Chain. He has worked in the Supply Chain area for 29 years.

After this discussion I spent some time thinking and realized that my area of expertise and "major" was Project Management. It is my passion and forte in the business world and in my personal life. Ask any of my friends, I am as ridiculously organized outside the office as I am inside. So here I am, "declaring my major" for the world to know ... Project Management it is! Now I only have to catch up to Richards 29 years!

More exciting updates to come ... on FOL Day 3!

FOL Day 1: Cash Money

Foundations of GE Leadership (FOL) is a course a geared towards employees with 1-3 years of service and no direct reports (not managers). It is hosted at Crotonville in Tarrytown, NY. Crotonville is GE's corporate training center aka GE University. The campus feels like a college campus with two educational buildings, the Learning Exchange aka The Pit and the Learning Lab. The images below from left to right are the Cafe 56 at the White House, Green House bar, and the main residential building where the hotel style sleeping rooms are as well as the dining room.

Cafe 56 was like having a Starbucks at your fingertips! All the food and coffee was included in your tuition costs too! ... that was a good thing for my taste buds but not so good for the waist line!

FOL Day 1:

The first session was focused on Finance and Business Acumen. I learned the 5 business drivers: Cash, Profit, Assets, Growth, and People and how these are measured for the business (financial statements). It is imperative that a aspiring leader have a solid foundation in finance. In any and every role you will encounter finance, since every project and program has a budget it must abide by. It is also important to understand how your specific project or program impacts the business overall. It is eye opening to be able to point out where exactly your budget or the amount your project saved is in GE's overall financial health.

At the conclusion of the day we met with our coaching buddies for the week. My buddy was Chris, an FMP (Financial Management Program) at GE Corporate. This was such an awesome pairing! I came into FOL with a desire to deepen my financial understanding and I get paired with an FMP! We discussed the first day and I explained my goals of understanding finance more. Chris encouraged me to listen to the quarterly financial review calls. I have now placed that on my calendar! I will also be attending another training in the near future focusing specifically on finance.

That concludes FOL Day 1 ... Day 2 recap will be coming soon!

Data Center Optimization: Rotation 1 Complete

I am coming to the end of my first ITLP (Information Technology Leadership Program) rotation here at GE Transportation (GET). I had a very important review meeting this morning to present the work I have accomplished over the past 6 months. It went very well! Nancy Anderson, the CIO of GET, was able to attend the meeting and was very engaged, asking great questions! The presentation consisted of reviewing the process our team, led by Project Managers Donny and myself,  took to accomplish the Data Center Optimization initiative at the Erie site and the relevant cost savings. We also presented the Data Center Optimization Playbook - a comprehensive document detailing everything a project manager would need to optimize a data center. Everyone in attendance was impressed. At the close of the meeting Donny and I wanted to recognized team members that really made the project successful. We recognized 6 individuals with Bronze Above & Beyond awards. Our manager Tony, CTO Operations Leader, recognized the efforts of Donny and I, and awarded us Silver Above & Beyond awards.

The coolest part about this rotation is that it doesn't end here! Before I officially transition roles, we will be hosting the Data Center Optimization Center of Excellence Workout in the beginning of March. During this workout all team members from Transportation's data centers (Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania  Brazil, Italy, and Mexico) will work together with GE Corporate to share best practices and develop optimization plans for 2013 and beyond.

Also, I am now an unofficially published author! We will be utilizing the Data Center Optimization Playbook to guide site leaders in creating optimization plans for their data centers. The playbook will be distributed to all team members (printed hard copies, as well as electronic soft copies) within Transportation and Corporate will be taking the playbook to other GE businesses as Best Practice Sharing!

The past 6 months have truly been a whirlwind experience. My next rotation has a lot to live up to! I will be joining the IT Controllership team and my new assignment leader (manager) will be James Olender, CIO Engineering & Data Security. More details will be coming soon!

I am off to Chicago, IL next week for ITLP Rotation kick-off activities. Please pray for safe travels!

Rotation is going great!

Quick update:

My rotation in Data Center Optimization is going really well! Work is keeping me busy - but it sure is exciting. I posted an update for my team, of the project's progress and current status and received great feedback from Chris Spriegel the CTO for GE Transportation and Nate Arnold my ITLP manager!!

More updates to come! :)

Starting my first Rotation at GE Transportation

ITLP Junior Bootcamp is over! I have officially completed the first milestone of the Information Technology Leadership Program successfully. During the last day, August 3, awards were handed out and I was recognized for my leadership skills. Out of 103 ITLPs 4 were selected to receive the Team Leadership Award and I was one of them. I attribute my skills to my wonderful and successful mother, Wanda and my Grandpa Baniak and Grandpa Higbee for without their guidance I wouldn't be where I am today. I love you three very much.

I have officially begun my first rotation at GE Transportation. When I came into the plant Monday morning I noticed a huge mural was being painted on one of the sides of a manufacturing building It's not the highest quality because I had to zoom in on my phone. But it is a mining truck and a locomotive with American flags and workers. It's not completed yet though. Pretty neat!

My first rotation is in Data Center Optimization working with data centers in Erie, PA Melbourne, FL Grain Valley, MO and Contagem, Brazil. I will be working remotely with these locations using videoconferencing technologies, teleconferencing and emails but at pivotal points in the projects I will be traveling to the sites. Please keep me in your prayers as I venture to Brazil! (No dates of travel have been confirmed yet)

I'm settling in with my housemate Maggie very well. It's so wonderful to have our own place - we've decorated and hung stuff on the walls too! Cooking together has been a blast but most of all we found a wonderful church, Millcreek Community Church.  http://www.millcreek.org/  We are looking forward to getting "plugged in" at this wonderful church this Fall.

I hope you are all doing well.

More posts to come!

Hello from Detroit

This past month has been quite the experience.

I was lucky enough to take part in a month long training event with 103 other individuals from around the globe. We are a part of GE's Information Technology Leadership Program (ITLP). ITLP is a phenomenal two year leadership development program designed for recent college graduates with a passion for technology and people.

This month of training is called Junior Bootcamp. For a good portion of the month we are working on a case study and developing a solution for our customers. Besides the experience of learning new technical skills, such as the JAVA programming language, I learned to work in a diverse group of people. On my team, I was the only American. My group consisted of four other individuals from Poland, Ireland and India. What a great experience!!

We are giving our final presentations tomorrow morning! Then we will part our ways and go back to our separate businesses (GE has seven business among which the 103 ITLPs are split up), though we will all rejoin together again next summer in Shanghai, China for another round of training, Senior Bootcamp.

... okay, back to practicing our presentation!

View from the office in Detroit.