Inferno 2018

Each year, a call is put out to IBM graduates to enter Inferno – a competition that aims to identify young talent in the business and celebrate their achievements. This year called for a 5 minute or 1500 word submission, showcasing your achievements in your first year at IBM. I entered the competition with a video taken on a sailing trip that I did (available here). While the audio quality wasn’t fantastic, I was fortunate enough to be selected as one of the top ten submissions, and then later, one of the four 2018 winners. 

The three other winners were all from different business units; Ashni Bakshi (Sales), Eric Lee (GBS) and Andrew Ding (GTS). This was great, as it gave each of us exposure into other areas of IBM over the three days that we spent together – something that we hadn’t been able to do previously. It was also fantastic sharing the experience with these three graduates, as even though we all had very different backgrounds and stories to share, we also had a lot of things in common (as we found out through our SCARF results).

After finding out that we had been selected as winners, we started receiving details of what the celebrations would involve. This was especially exciting after receiving an itinerary that looked as great as this: 

The trip arrived and passed in a blur! We all felt thoroughly wined and dined by the end of the three days. Eating inside the Opera house and meeting a Masterchef contestant were particularly surreal moments. What's more, all of the food was incredible, and there wasn’t a single night that we go back to the hotel feeling stuffed. 

The first day was kicked off with a climb of the Sydney Harbour Bridge – something that none of us had done before. This was a great icebreaker for the group, as there’s nothing like climbing over 8 lanes of traffic, 134 m into the air, to get conversation going. It was an extra special experience as it was the bridges’ 86th birthday! After the bridge climb, we headed to the next major Australian icon – the Opera house. Here we had an incredible meal as the sun went down, and got to know each other a bit more. 

The second day was all about us – self-reflection and career mentoring. We headed into the IBM office where we met with Nicole Elsely. We did a SCARF analysis, discussed our learning styles, learnt about motivators in the workplace and discovered the importance of starting with the ‘why’. Throughout the day we added our thoughts to our ‘All about me’ chart, and at the very end we presented what we had learnt about ourselves. I really enjoyed this, as we started to see the ways we were all similar and different to one another, despite having completely different backgrounds. This facilitated fantastic support and advice sharing within the group, as we began to understand each other’s passions in a way that is hard to communicate through casual conversation.

The third and final day was meant to begin with a helicopter tour of Sydney, but this was rained out. Instead, we decided to do a bit of team building, and try an escape room together (the hardest one!). We worked together really well, splitting up and rotating through puzzles when we got stuck, and collaborating on puzzles that we couldn't wrap our heads around. In the end, we got out with 2 minutes and 14 seconds to spare!

We then travelled from the escape room to the executive lunch. We had Brenda Spencer, Jill Bye, Peter Grassi and Kylie McLean in attendance, and over a 6 course lunch and a few hours, we got some very valuable time to talk. We learnt about their experiences in IBM and got some advice on our own careers and developing our own brand. We also got to hear about some of the initiatives being worked on in the company, and what being an executive involves. And of course, we had thought about the questions we wanted to ask, so we did a bit of probing of our own. To top it all off, we were each given an iPad mini as a surprise Inferno prize.

Many of the words of wisdom from the executives will stick with me for many years to come, but my primary takeaway was the advice “if you want it, go and make it happen”. This is advice I will be trying to use wherever I can - from participating in lab initiatives, to deciding how to develop my own career. 

With the lunch over, Inferno had ended. I will absolutely be encouraging all future graduates to enter Inferno - the wealth of knowledge shared with us over the three days was invaluable, and unlike anything I'd been exposed to before. Thank you to Jill, Brenda, Kylie and Peter for taking the time to share their advice with us. A huge thank you and congratulations to Ashni, Andrew and Eric for their great company. Thank you to Cristina Villamayor for all of her hard work in organising the event and to Jillian Bye, Kylie McLean, Peter Grassi and Brenda Spencer for their support of the program. It was a truly unforgettable experience, and I feel very fortunate to work for a company that puts such an emphasis on supporting its graduates.