Monday night, Jaime and I were invited to join members of our marketing team; Jen (Direct Marketing at corporate), Nadia (Marketing manager here in Italy), and Elena (Mediterranean marketing manager moving to Texas next month) to dinner at Angalo. This was by far one of the nicest restaurants I have been to. Before we sat down for dinner we were invited down stairs into a wine cellar where we decided on our wine for dinner as well as a 15 minute aperitivo. The apretivo consists of a variety of snacks and drinks that Europeans usally have before dinner. (This is probably why dinner is usally around 11 pm in Europe) Then we migrated upstairs for dinner. This is where I had my first experience with tartufo. (something about mushrooms) It tastes great in small doses on a thin steak, but Nadia feels differently… she would rather drink the sauce. Crazy!
At the office things are moving quickly… we have had a few guests from corporate including Dave Freeman and John Pasquarette. Dave gave a great presentation on Will Stein’s analysis of National Instruments that covered the Test and Measurement segmentation and the major trends it follows. Then, I had another feedback session with Roberto and the AEs discussing our new department restructure. Currently, the cubes here in Italy all have 6 foot walls that inhibit teamwork. So, a new design has been created that will remove all the walls and provide additional space for growth. This will most likely be implemented sometime in mid-December when people are taking vacation. I am also excited to hear how the Corporate AE restructure went? I saw the email Nick sent out about what events happened throughout the night and it sounded more like a keg party than a department move?!?
Another really cool project I’m working on right now is a proof of concept for one of the Northern Italy FSE’s and one of his Alliance Members. It will involve setting up an ideal testing environment for extensive calibration on a cRIO and some thermocouple modules (9211). We have only sat down to discuss the specifications but more details to come…
For some of the day to day support, we are fielding questions from Diadem to Calibration Executive. Now I can really see the power of Diadem… They need to come up with some kind of slogan like “What Diadem does for data storage, is what MS Excel did for accounting” …. Something like that.
Our test bench is looking better and better ever day!
Here is before…
And here is after…
