Full Circle

Thought I'd finally get around to telling you what I'm doing to help Global Mamas. I'm quite excited about it because I think it just might add value to the organization after all. I had hoped to use my IT skills to help them out (I doubtfully have other skills that would be useful), but secretly I suspected that it might be hard to really implement something meaningful – me showing up out of the blue for a few months with no background of how they work and what they might need.

However, it was clear within the first week that not only could I help them with things they were desperately needing, I could help them with things they didn't even know they needed. Isn't that just the IT way - “you don't know it yet, but what you really need is...”.

They had a laundry list of things for me but after evaluating all of them, the assignments I ended up taking were: a) work on an application to track orders and inventory and such; b) set up a self-service reporting environment (that was my little addition).

So I dove in and got to work and have been moving forward with it every since. What didn't strike me until I took a moment to reflect on my work was that I managed to quit my job and go thousands of miles in search of something new and different....and found myself doing almost exactly what I was doing before. Well, not completely, but close enough.

After this enlightening moment, I still might question whether I'm really doing something Global Mamas needs, but I certainly don't have to question whether I have chosen the right field of work. Clearly, I gravitate towards it like flies to a large cold bottle of Star beer (that would be the Ghanaian beer in my diet).

In the end I suspect I will give them a little something that helps the business, but they will give me a whole lot of something that I can carry with me forever – a unique perspective on business in the global market for a group of challenged yet dedicated women in one small corner of the world.

-Charlotte