Inspire…

From almost going to Jail to working with Chinese customers I have had my hands full! Every single week brings new experiences I have never seen before. I have also been trying to travel every single weekend during my stint in Europe, though exhausting, it has also been extremely enjoyable.

So I finally got the access code for the building here in NI Italy which allows me to come to work during non local business hours for my meetings with Corporate. Well, when you type the code in you also have to follow the instructions… in Italian. Granted, I’m getting better at Italian and I can order my own meal at dinner, but when you have to answer 4 questions on this little LCD screen within 15 seconds things get a little nerve racking. Needless to say, I DIDN’T finish answering the questions fast enough and sure enough a 120 dB alarm system started blaring in my ear until I felt Nauseated. If that wasn’t enough, the carabinieri (police) showed up trying to ask who I was … in Italian. Anyways, that was one of my unexpected experiences over a weekend and it ended up getting straightened out after I got a hold of someone I work with.

(note: As Spears put in his disclaimer, some of these paragraphs contain several acronyms and terminology that has been know to induce narcolepsy in nonemployees of NI… so I’ll try to elaborate )

Obviously, customer support in Italy is primarily in Italian so my ability to communicate directly to customers is minimal. Therefore, part of my customer support role has been focused on training Applications Engineers (AEs), Internal Sales Representatives (ISRs), and Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) on our specialty products as well as being the primary contact for District Sales Managers (DSMs) in Italy. I now have sympathy for Todder and Kis as the platinum team managers when they have to answer hundreds of calls from FSEs and DSMs who are in need of a Proof of Concept (POC) for their “Top Account”… I’m not sure how Todder and Kis feel, but I am noticing that every single customer is a “Top Account”. J Some of the coolest POCs that NI Italy is working on involve Ducati, Ferrari, Perilli tire, and FIAT

For those of you who might have sat next to me while I was on the phone at corporate or attended the AE awards when Todder poorly attempted to imitate my “Thermocouple Thursday” introduction, then you might understand the importance of the table below. I have recently explained the power of “Thermocouple Thursday” to the Italian AEs and we have come up with the Italian conversion for you viewing pleasure.

Modular Instruments Martedi

Measurement Studio Mercoledi

GPIB Giovedi

VLM Venerdi  

I have also tried to answer an Italian Discussion post using the knowledge I have learned from my teacher and the help of the Google translator. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t understand the importance of inverting adverbs and nouns when it translates so when I asked my fellow Italian AEs to check out my post they said I sounded like I was a robot… Well, Robot or not, at all costs Support Customers and Develop Leaders baby! 

(check out the forth post)

Chiudere l’esecuzione automatica

AE conference is just around the corner and it looks like we will have 3 AEs coming from Italy. Giuseppe Nardeli, Marco Lencioni, Filippo Persia (note: only NIers can see these links) so when they get there I would like all of you to give them a big Texan “Howdy Partner” and also let them know that we don’t ride a horse to work… except Jeramie ( haha)  Oh, and yes Rebecca I will introduce you to my Italian friends.

Then, just last week I had another realization of NI’s Global presence. One of our AEs here got a call from a customer who could only speak Chinese and was trying to get some help on a system level project that incorporated multiple NI product lines. It turned out that an Italian customer purchased a system from China that was built by one of our Alliance Members in China. The Italian customer needed help setting up his system so one of the engineers from China flew to Italy to help their customer set up the system. Then he needed more help so he called NI Italy for additional support and this is when we had a chance to contact the AEs at NI Shanghai and the problem was resolved. Talk about Dominating DAQ in China.. Well done NI Shanghai, thanks for the seamless support!

Hope everyone is doing well and look forward to seeing you in January!