Energy Infrastructure IMLPs dress up for the Senior Bootcamp CelebrationCorporate IMLPs pose for the camera Near the end of final bootcamp, each class has a celebration dinner - complete with an acrobatics show, dragon dancers (with 2 people inside the dragon- one in the front and one as the caboose!), masked dancers, and well, the 87 other IMLPs cheering and taking tons of digital photos to send home to friends and family.

This year was no different- IMLPs from around the globe traveled to Senior Bootcamp in Shanghai, China to take courses, complete projects (Pentaho! Reporting! BI! Computer Networking!) and of course, hang out with each other in a foreign country.

I'll be adding more pictures (crazy things I found, food, fun english translations, and more!)

But for now I leave you, devoted readers of the GE IMLP Blog, with a few fun group business photos from the GE IMLP Senior Bootcamp celebration dinner event in Shanghai.

-Alana Edmunds

Before you read the post below, understand that the next two posts are from the last two weeks of bootcamp This is due to the recent transition from WordPress to Squarespace. This post in particular was written about the start of the 3rd week of bootcamp (around July 27th) Enjoy!

How many IMLP’s does it take to build a fence? Well first we take a look at the As - is process flow map. After carefully analyzing it we proceed to LEAN out any unnecessary processes and increase productivity then using the Valley Stream Maps……

With the second week of IMLP bootcamp over it meant it was time for the involuntary, volunteer community service scheduled for every 6 months for bootcamp. A trip to Green Chimneys (a school for special needs children) was in order to help build a fence, paint, do some gardening and digging, and of course spread the IMLP love.

Well, a short bus ride, and a long wait in traffic brought us to our location where we met with the founder of Green Chimneys for a brief introduction and history of the school. After that Green Chimneys didn’t waste any time putting us to work.  

We were split into three groups: One for the fencing, one for some gardening and digging, and one to some painting. Despite the splinters, rashes, cuts, bruises and tetanus shots, it was actually a lot of fun. Put around 60 Type-A technology personalities into a manual labor situation and some interesting things happen.

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After a week of orientation at GE Capital, it was time to start the next adventure: Junior Bootcamp in Danbury, CT with the other IMLP’s from all GE businesses. A total of 64 new IMLP’s from six GE businesses and across six countries all gathered in a Danbury Hotel.

As expected, we had no time to waste. The group arrived to the hotel on Saturday and bootcamp started the very next day (Sunday) at 9:30am. Here we were welcomed by Greg Druckman, who presented with the four-week schedule that we’ll be following though out the length of our intensive training along with a few stories of bootcamps past.

But while our heads were still spinning, they hit us with a week full of self-development and improvement courses, such as honing out presentation and public speaking skills, proper project management techniques and how to properly handle a project budget. All of this while forming various groups and mixed in with a handful of guest speakers and some homework.

You must be saying…“But how could you do all of this in just one week?”

The answer is with a lot of enthusiasm! As you may have noticed at this point, bootcamp is a pretty rigorous four-week training.

But not everything at bookcamp is about working hard; it’s also about playing hard (and sleeping a lot!).

In the evening, there are a few social activities that take place – from going out, watching movies,  late night trips to McDonalds and even just sitting around sharing stories of our past.

The matter of the fact is that while we are working hard, we're also learning a lot and having fun making new friends - and I don’t think any of us would want it any other way.

Guest Post by Maurice Williams, IMLP