Straight from the source

Entries in houston (3)

Monday

Nov162009

Rotation Halfway Point: Alana and Houston Skyline

Monday, November 16, 2009 at 1:00PM

Alana and the Houston Skyline It's hard to believe that it's the halfway point of my rotation (already- where does the time go?)

On IMLP, we follow a process related to how we track our progress on the project via an internal goals system.

The thing is, updates are due tomorrow, and mine aren't done (I know... I know...).

One of my IMLP friends at Corporate updated his Facebook status last night about the goal tracking tool, and there were quite a few comments and people "liking" it. (Even though we work for different businesses, we use many of the same tools).

One aspect of the program that I can't seem to shake is a feeling I get whenever I log into the goal tracking system.

I'm always asking myself: "Wow. Did I really do all of that in 3 months?"

The IMLP program is challenging (ask anyone) but looking back at my current rotation - where I started vs. where I am now - sometimes I have to pinch myself about the work that I've done and the value I've added to the project and the team.

Alana E. |

6 Months in Houston, Texas: It's Hot.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 1:00PM

1) The state is huge.

262,000 square miles.

2) There are a lot of people living in Texas.

24.33 million people.

3) It's hot here.

90 degrees in October!

For my third rotation, I migrated South (again) for the winter months to work for the GE Oil & Gas business in Houston, Texas, and more specifically, the drilling & productions systems sub-business.

Houston is filled with Energy companies - I'm originally from Ohio and have never seen so many companies focused on energy in one city - but I'm getting used to it, as I see the Marathon Oil Tower on my drive to work.

My current rotation is scoped as "technical" - which is one requirement for us Energy IMLPs to "graduate" from the program (along with completing our greenbelt project and the bootcamps we've mentioned in previous posts).

I'm focusing on leading a web application development project for global resource scheduling for the Oil & Gas business. It will allow for increased visibility into daily operations of the GE Oil & Gas field personnel- who work to install, maintain, and fix our products in use by our customers around the world. It's a project where the benefits are not something that one has to explain - just talk to someone who works in the field service industry and they'll tell you.

As a project lead, my responsibilites vary from vendor management, architecture design, interface design, presentational speaking, functional requirements gathering and budget management to name a few.

Since this is a global project, I speak to groups of people from 3-4 different countries on a daily basis- Italy, India, and the UK to name a few.

So, even though I'm in Texas and I was out by the pool last weekend while many of my friends were dealing with the first snows of the season, I'm operating on "global time."

Alana E. |

IMLP Blog: Behind the Scenes.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 10:26AM

Behind the Scenes... Thanks to flickr's StephenMitchell for this photo!Hey, it's Alana- your friendly blog editor.

Although you may not be able to tell just by reading this blog or one particular post, there's a lot going on behind the scenes...

The IMLP Blog "went live" in August of 2008 (so we're coming up on our 1 year birthday) and was the first leadership program blog of it's kind here at GE (We're pretty proud of it!).

The premise behind the blog is to provide you (the reader) some background on what life is like as a member of the Information Management Leadership Program directly from those who are currently experiencing it (interns too!). So, as IMLPs, we write in this blog as a side gig (in addition to managing systems projects).

Every six months, members of the IMLP program take on a new project and learn to work directly with a new team... and sometimes this takes place in a different city, state, or country.

Take June 2009 for example. Right now, those in their 4th (and final) rotation of the program are interviewing for off-program jobs, while 2nd/3rd rotationers are waiting to hear about their next assignments, and 1st rotationers are getting ready to kickoff the program at the end of this month before heading to Junior Bootcamp for the month of July.

So, let us know how we're doing. Send me an e-mail directly (I'm nice, I promise), leave us a comment, or bookmark our site to keep up-to-date on the life happenings of an IMLP.