Final blog. Sob...

I must be considered kid friendly, at least in the eyes of the CSC Program. We were sent to a school yesterday afternoon by the PGJ (Police Department) to talk to the parents of 15-18 year olds about social networks and how to protect their children when they are online. Part of the CSC program requires giving something back to the community of the host country, so this was our assignment. In fairness, it is hard to imagine anyone better for this topic than me. My so-called "friends" hid my iphone at one point last weekend because I use it so much for facebook, twitter, gmail, etc.  It was one of the worse five minutes of my life. I think I may have broken out in hives.


The school was in the outskirts of Queretaro, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it reminded me of my own secondary school in Shannon, Co.Clare, Ireland. One of the teachers commented that he thought schools in the West would have been much more developed. I am sure the tables and chairs in my old school are newer now, but schools are schools wherever you go. And so are good teachers.

Everything was brightly painted red. We did not question this at the time, but we found out later that schools are often repainted when a political party wins an election. Guess what colour the current party in government uses?

Obviously the talk did not start on time... Or finish on time... "Mexican time" is still something I struggle with being such a planner by nature. Start and finish times are just indications here. There were about seventy parents at our talk in the end, but the good thing is that they all seemed very interested in what we had to say. It was a very invested audience. They care about their kids, and are scared by what the Internet might have for them.

The presentation was in Spanish so I had the English translation in my hand.

My main points to the parents really were:
* Social networks are fun, so teenagers are going to use them regardless of what they think.
* Teenagers behave the same way that they do online as they do in real life, so they are going to do things they do not want their parents to know about.
* It was up to the parents to find out how to use those social networks safely. Security settings are important!

There was a glimpse at Latin culture though when we divided the parents into groups to discuss some social network topics. We asked for a volunteer from three groups to speak about their conclusions. The audience was 85% women, but the three volunteers were all men.
 

Unfortunately, it was the last time that we spent with Rodrigo, our wonderful translator. It is hard to imagine a better translator so I hope he gets lots of work out of this. He was fantastic.

Afterwards, we got driven by police officers to the IBM offices after a mix-up with our taxis, and then back to the PGJ where our stakeholders there brought us to a cantina for some goodbye beers. We were very amused to find out that it was a bar where we had already become familiar a few nights previously, but I will leave that story to Amy June to blog. We only stayed for two beers as the Executive Summary presentation had to be completed, but it was a really nice way to end the day.

This is my last blog, as we give a presentation to the Governor tonight (so the expensive Tom Ford aftershave will be opened), and we then leave Queretaro tomorrow. There are a lot of mixed emotions here. We are all very proud of the work we have done and are glad that we have completed our tasks so successfully, but it is a sad feeling to be leaving everyone. We basically took over a hotel for a month so we have really been flatmates as well as colleagues.

All I can really conclude this blog with is that my CSC experience in Mexico has been one of the best months of my life. I have learned so much about people, work, and myself. It's been amazing.

Thanks for coming along with me on this journey via this blog.

Take care,
Gary.

#ibmcsc mexico1