IBM Design, year 2, a retrospective.

Observe. Reflect. Make. Part 1 of 3

This is the first part of a 3 part series in which I am reflecting on my IBM career so far. The opinions expressed and stories told are mine, and are not reflective of my employer or it’s people within.

It’s weird, 2 years. It certainly doesn’t feel like 2 whole years, 730 days, or 17,520 hours have passed. It feels like so much more.

Why does that happen? Time slows down, and it feels like so much more…it’s a perception of time. If you start to enjoy something, it feels longer. You donate more mental space to it, and it creates more lasting memories…much like my former relationship, it’s full of the good, the bad, the interesting.

The IBM Chapter of my Life.

New York. Honking, subway breeze, the smells of a few million people. I was hustling as a freelancer, trying to get interviews on a consistent basis. I had some good opportunities too, with some fantastic branding, advertising, and innovation agencies, but no one was biting.

But I was ok. I kept my head high, as unlike in previous years, I had income coming in through some lucrative freelance work, and I kept my creativity going because of the incredible individuals at Emense.

I reached out to the SVA for help, and due to the nature of my masters in Branding, there wasn’t much they could do.

My mentor suggested that companies that work at scale would be the place for me, as enterprise companies are certainly more willing to spend money on someone like me.

At the SVA one day, I met a recruiter who was giving a wild tale. IBM was reigniting their design program, and hiring over 1000 designers to do it. I was initially skeptical of this, considering that the company had been performing poorly in the market, and my own experience with in-house left a poor taste in my mouth.

I was promised the opportunity to work on life changing work for people in other countries, that real “humanitarian” work.

Like I wrote, skeptical. But, I handed over a resume, and soon, I found myself talking with a recruiter over the phone. My drive to help humans do human things (this is my current definition of what it is I do, which I’ll unpack later this week) dominated the conversation, as we talked about the systems in place that led to the state of the TSA and the NYC Subway system, and how those are the same problems that enterprise software faces.

I soon found myself on a plane to Texas, the last place in the world I wanted to live.

I was shocked by the amount of transparency the studio gave me. Yes, I was told that there was all sorts of amazing things happening in the studio, that IBM was doing some “real humanitarian work”, but I was also told that we did a lot of work for business, in fact to the point where IBM exists all around us, and if not for IBM, I wouldn’t be the nerdy gamer with laser perfect eyes I am today. Also, the first acronym of business entered my world, SaaS ( Software as a Service), a primary driver of business for the company.

I remember very clearly having a conversation with my now friend, then head of recruiting, Fahad, which ended in this statement from me:

“So everyone loves being told that this job is the best job in the world and that world is full of magic and unicorns, but the reality is that you’re trying to change a global brand in a company of 400,000 individuals, each with their own agendas and feelings. This means that you have a ton of product managers and engineers who aren’t too happy having to now work with a vibrant and youthful population, who just want to burn it all down and bring it back to life. You need people who can stand behind this and help push this agenda. If we are lucky, this takes 5 years, but even that is a liberal estimate.”

And he responded with “You are absolutely correct.”

“Thanks for being honest. This is insane! I’m in.”

I realize that if talking to anyone else in any other company, my comments may have been seen as inflammatory, but at IBM, we treasure a concept called “Wild Ducks”, which relates to the character of an IBM’r as being someone who wants to push the boundaries set in front of them. Someone who doesn’t want the comfortable, the ordinary, the mundane. Someone who lives and breathes the work.

Returning to New York, I realize that I had the position, but I kept vocalizing to everyone that I was going to not have any expectations. And besides, being optimistic kept biting me back so far.

A week later, I was working with my friends at La Maison du Croque Monsieur, a coffee and sandwich shop located at Union Square, when I got the call.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but it felt right. When you arrive to a decision point in your life, the first notion is to understand the systemic impact of said decision, and what that does to everything around you. What it does to your relationships, your friends, your family, your professional networks…to be fair, I didn’t think through all of these. Reflecting back, I’m surprised that the person I was back then said yes. Had he known what was going to happen to him in the next two years, anxiety and nervousness would have gotten the best of him, and he probably would still be in that coffee shop now, hustling.

It was time to go on an adventure.

Next week (or so), I’ll unpack what happened.