Month: August 2007

Tomorrow is the last day of preconference. It’s been really sweet with people here, talking to old friends and meeting new ones. But of course the most important thing is my CC Marketing work, and ain’t that turning out to be something to increase my rep! I’ve met with the AI representatives in charge of the accounts I’ll be responsible for – Microsoft and InBev – and I can tell it’s gonna be interesting. In fact, one of the people in the “Microsoft Top Ten” – who was once a President of AIESEC International – will be here, and so I’ll be responsible for him. Plus I’ll learn how to pour and draft beer the InBev way, a useful skill.

I am also thankfully no longer in charge of ER storage, which was proving to be a big time-sucker.

Also, because of my mad Engrish skillz, I will be the emcee for the Opening Ceremony in front of 1000+ people. Considering that the previous IC Opening Ceremony had a sharp-looking Polish top celebrity as its emcee, I reckon this will increase my rep profile as well.

Izmir traineeship fell through. One final possibility in Panama, and if it ain’t that, Ecuador and GT re-application here I come!

A coupla hectic days, as things have suddenly been piled on where there was almost nothing before. Yesterday we were schooled in the Turkish way of marketing by some members from another team while our team leader was on a site tour with the VP Marketing, and then when we tried to explain this to her when she came back she got very stressed. Yesterday also started the planning process when we allocated roles to everyone, and I like the fool I am volunteered for more things than I should have. After many, many hours of nitpicking details and smoothing things out though, I think I have a schedule that will mean no sleep but an amazing amount of practical experience. The best part is the partners I’m managing – Microsoft and InBev! This means I get to network with a company that actually means something for my major, AND I’m with everyone’s favorite AIESEC global partner, InBev, which means that, damn, I HAVE to be at the parties every night. I just wonder where I’ll fit in sleeping, eating, and enjoying the conference halfway like a delegate – and when I’ll network with AIESECers. I also played a little soccer last night after our meeting ran over, but I’m so out of shape and haven’t played in a year and a half so I quit after one half. I was tired anyway!

Today I designed our storage system and worked with the Special Events team on making Global Village palatable to the externals. I also had some phone conversations with the US Embassy and Consulate, who are going to provide the US booth at Global Village with sweet materials and even two people who speak Turkish! Having a good GV table is always something to be proud of. Pretty much everyone in the CC went to the nargile cafe tonight for a couple of hours which was nice.

I learned yesterday that AIESEC LC Istanbul has a couple hundred thousand Euros in their bank account, owns its own house, and most amazingly, has a quota of 75 incoming and 75 outgoing exchanges per year. In LC Ankara, it’s 52 and 52. When I asked if they were all locally raised and managed – not taken over by the MC national team – they said, “of course they are local!” At this I was ready to write a long letter to AIESEC US on the spot decrying our current trends of centralizing exchange and STILL being behind Turkey in exchange numbers, but then I realized that they are already in the Leadership Team Meeting and so it wouldn’t make an impact. If they’re not doing their job now, an email from a guy far away won’t do it either.

Tomorrow things will continue to be stressful. I’m working hard on securing this Izmir technical traineeship, and if it goes through, then I can just relax until I go back to GT – no more worries! But it’s up to GT if they’ll let me use it as credit. I hope they make the right decision.

Here’s hoping I’m alive at the end of the day tomorrow to write something!

Yesterday was a lighter day thankfully, it wouldn’t have been cool to ramp right up into work after the day in Istanbul. The Marketing team did some work and then we went to the pool. I was tired and didn’t want to take a shower or go all the way up to the dorm to change into swim trunks, so I just laid out poolside. But then, the scheming Tiffany and her Turkish minions picked me up with my shorts and underwear on and threw me into the pool – which she facilitated by innocently asking to borrow my camera (at least she had concern for its value). So that was unfortunate, since I was in a peaceful, restful state before. Also it sucked because I was very low on some necessary clean clothes, and when we went today with a Turkish guy to figure out how to do laundry downstairs the guy who deals with it did not tell us we needed to bring him detergent – so I won’t have clean socks or pantaloons until tomorrow evening. But life goes on.

Last night was the CC Global Village. Our sound system wasn’t pumping loud, but it was still quite fun. I felt ashamed that I had not brought any foodstuffs or alcohol, but I did not know that the CC would have its own global village before the main IC one. I really got into this herb-toast that the Indians brought, and the Slovakian delegate (whom I met at ITC) had some delicious cookie-things. And of course there was plenty of different kinds of alcohol, from the stomach-dissolving Serbian vodka to the reliable Colombian rum to the translucent Turkish liquor, which I had made the mistake of taking a shot in the bodega in Valencia, and so when I saw and smelled it bad memories rushed in and I knew to stay away. The room was extremely hot though, since it was small and they can’t turn on the AC and all we could do was open the windows but we were all laughing and dancing anyway.

This morning I woke up exhausted even though I got seven hours of sleep – probably because I only got four the night before. Today was a very busy day, and we had it full from the 9 AM plenary. I wanted to take a nap all day long, but I never got to – I was falling asleep in the evening full team meeting. We got a lot done though, and things are progressing well. The marketing team is coming together pretty well in a teambuilding sense, but the first real evidence of a full-CC connection only started to be felt at the full team meeting tonight when the Indians showed the official video from IC 2005 in Agra, India. Afterwards, Turgay, the Transportation team leader, said how the whole reality of what we were going to accomplish hit him as he watched the video and he wanted to be prouder of his achievement at the end of this IC than anything he’d ever done. If ITC taught me anything, it’s that a strong, connected team is the most surefire element in producing a great result for these things – even more than high skill. I anticipate things will escalate quickly from here.

Tomorrow there’s a CC soccer game in which I am participating. Except for one Friday evening with AIESEC GT, I’ve not really played since the end of high school – those non-Americans are going to school me!

I did not post yesterday because nothing interesting happened, other than we called companies to try to get partnership or in-kinds. We won’t know until Monday if any of it worked. We smoked shisha for a long time on Friday night and there was supposed to be a party afterwards, and there kind of was but I never caught it.

Today was cool. Had to wake up right early to get on the bus with the gang to go into town, the tourist part of Istanbul. We saw the Basilica Cistern, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and went haggling at the Grand Bazaar. The first three were the usual tourist bit, and the Blue Mosque was the first functional mosque I’ve ever been in. I had to remove my shoes and the women who were wearing shorts had to get these shawls and such to put over their legs and their heads, and we went in and saw it and there were about 10 people praying. The Hagia Sophia is no longer functional as a mosque or a church, just a museum, but it was pretty sweet except for the large amount of scaffolding in the middle for restoration work. After Blue Mosque we ate at a place right next to the Pudding Shop, the place for people on the “hippie trail” to meet in Istanbul on their way to Kathmandu back in the day.

At the Grand Bazaar we split up in fragments and walked around, and I found a few places where I could get some sweet shirts of an “exotic” variety to a very boring American person. Between the four of us we decided we wanted five shirts, and although the dude told us the price was 20YTL (about $15.71) per shirt, we eventually beat him down to 62YTL for all five (about $48.71, so just under $10 per shirt). One of the Turkish CC members with us told us that the seller was trying to enlist his help against us – talk about good marketing skills, if we can beat a Turkish bazaar dealer! Later the four of us who got the shirts – myself, Will from the UK, Ivan from Serbia, and Andrei from Romania, were sitting outside at a cafe terrace when this guy came up and pushed some small rugs on us. I had considered getting a quality rug earlier, but it would be too expensive and any one I could remotely afford would have been to heavy to carry around in my bags to carry home. So I was just screwing around with the guy who initially wanted EUR50 per rug of two rugs, but I got him down to 20YTL for one. We figured he had stolen the rugs. He was still hawking them at the entrance to one part of the bazaar. We ate late at the university and just sat outside and drank for a little bit. It’s late now and tomorrow we have a full day.

I did not sleep well last night. The windows have to be left open here, since they don’t put on the air conditioning in the summer – too much power consumption – and first it was thunder and lightning, then the barking of the dogs (this university has an interesting dog situation, whereby its owner does not like to see stray dogs so he takes them in and there are many dogs on the campus), and then I finally slept until about 5 AM when the call to prayer for Muslims echoed eerily over the hills. Even in my exhausted state I had to think, “what if I had to hear that every morning?” And after that Manveer, my roomate, snored too much for me to return to sleep. I guess it’s just him bringing the karma back on me for all my snoring violations in the past.

The opening plenary was pretty good, with Ajda, the CCP, giving us an overview of the history of the road to IC 2007 in Turkey. We were introduced to the team leaders, including a very perky Canadian who will be the HR/Agenda Team Leader and therefore will be speaking to us in a perky Canadian way for 60% of our plenaries. After plenary we broke into teams – Marketing took the two Communications teamsters under its wing and Svetlana, our awesome Team Leader, went over our tasks and duties leading up to IC and during IC, which begins August 21 (and is completely logically labelled “Day 0” of the conference by AIESEC International). There are many difficult tasks ahead, especially for me who chose to be the ER Database manager, which means I’m accountable for getting the externals all checked into their hotels, making sure the payment happens, and making sure they get checked out too. This is made no simpler by AI’s contract with them, which states that they can sign up for the conference up to the day it begins. We’ll see how good of a crisis manager I am.

Most of the day was spent training for these duties and finishing our team presentation. For lunch the main campus eatery was full so some of us went upstairs to the “fast food” line and I had my first in-Turkey doner kebap. It was good, but I doubt it was strictly authentic. At dinner I got into one of those great conversations that only happens at international conferences with two Turks, a person from the PRC, someone from Taiwan, and someone from South Korea. We ranged from the Turkish elections to Turkey and the EU to PRC vs. Taiwan to the educational systems to the place of religion in our countries. It lasted at least an hour and a half. I came back up to the room at nine and fell asleep accidentally, and now while everyone else is in the chill-out area I am having jetlag whipping at my heels. There was probably more I wished to write about but it’s lost in the haze of half-sleep. Tomorrow will be a fuller day. We go into Istanbul on Saturday just for hanging out and doing whatever, and on Sunday we tour the venues at which IC will take place. So we’re working for the weekend, if you will.