Nia - Austin Intern
Spring 2003

Meet Nia - Extreme Blue Class of 2003

In the spring of 2003, Nia participated in the Extreme Blue™ internship at Austin. Recipient of the prestigious Modern Day Technology Leader Award, she's now working full time as a software engineer with the IBM Systems and Technology Group. Nia took a moment to share her experience about the Extreme Blue program and how it's impacted her current role at IBM.

How was the Extreme Blue experience for you?

Extreme Blue was an extraordinary growth opportunity, which empowered teams to add definition to vague technical concepts, produce functioning prototypes, and develop strategies for utilizing the technology to drive revenue and influence across IBM. Our team chose to focus on an internal adoption of the hypervisor technology, as opposed to external product delivery. Our business case focused on using the technology to competitively price on demand hosting solutions geared toward the SMB market.

What were your expectations about the internship?

I expected the program to be challenging and stretch our team creatively, and it certainly delivered on both of those goals.

What important lessons did you learn?

The Extreme Blue experience confirmed that IBM is a technology company at the core. We produce innovative, leading-edge technical solutions, but we couple that with strategic business plans to ultimately drive revenue and provide customer value. Most importantly, this project reinforced that amazing work is accomplished through effective teaming. For numerous reasons, our project required a creative solution to allow for continued development and exploitation inside IBM without directly releasing the technology as an external consumer product. I served as the business-technical strategist on the team, which was a wonderful opportunity to learn how to analyze a technical solution from a business perspective. As we identified several project stakeholders from across the Corporation, this experience was an opportunity to realize that technology can be shared across service organizations that have direct impact with consumers.

How did you relate to your mentors?

Each team is assigned a business mentor and a technical mentor. Our team technical mentor was involved with daily team activity. I met with our business mentor weekly to review project status and discuss theories which the team was developing. I still meet with both of my team mentors approximately once per quarter. The amount of participation between the teams and mentors varies for each team project. Additionally, we met with our project technical sponsor and project executive sponsor several times throughout the course of the program.

Was the exposure to business and technical leaders a valuable networking tool for you?

Exposure to any business or technical leader in this corporation is a valuable experience. Being able to engage in conversation is an opportunity to acquire a fresh perspective from well seasoned individuals. It's an opportunity to learn from their wisdom--learn how to analyze problems, assess situations quickly, and leverage the knowledge and experience of peer organizations. It's also an opportunity for the Extreme Blue teams to transcend clear, data-driven messages, while providing a potentially new perspective. This exposure is an invaluable opportunity for learning to take place and information to be shared, which is ultimately what Extreme Blue is all about.

How does the Extreme Blue internship compare to other internship programs you've been involved with?

Extreme Blue is very unique in the amount of ownership and responsibility given to the teams. In the Austin lab, we fondly referred to the project delivery phases as "storm-norm-perform." In a very short amount of time, the teams had to define their technical and business targets during the "storming" phase. The "norming" phase required teams to develop their technical prototypes and business cases. The final "performing" phase required teams to pitch their final results, and, if the teams encouraged continued development post-Extreme Blue, solicit organizations to support the technology at the conclusion of their projects.

The Extreme Blue program is also unique because there is a finite amount of time in which teams must evolve their projects from mere ideas to tangible final products. It also emphasizes both business and technology, proving that the two are very much interdependent. This is an important realization for students and professionals to acquire. The Extreme Blue experience also enables early career professionals to mentor students through a revolutionary partnership. It is our professional duty to present the business of engineering and innovation in a positive light. I'm confident the interns on our project walked away with a greater appreciation and awareness of the business planning that is required when working with technology. Great technology without a consumer base or tangible business application (and vice versa) is not a practical scenario.

Were you impressed with your Extreme Blue peers?

I was impressed with all of my Extreme Blue colleagues. The lab environment nurtured and promoted cross-team collaboration and ideas generation. I collaborated with the business strategists from the other teams on a regular basis. I relied on their MBA backgrounds to help me develop theories and analyze market intelligence data. It was invigorating to go to the lab each day and be infused with the creative, open atmosphere. It is an energy that you don't see on a daily basis in traditional IBM culture. That's not to imply our existing culture isn't lively or enthusiastic because it certainly is. However, there is a certain sense of creative and expressive freedom that is allowed to flourish in the Extreme Blue program with boundaries that are not as prominent in our respective organizations. In this lab environment, the sky is the limit. Teams are in control of their own destiny, but they have a supportive network too.