I created a video to show the initial design and layout through construction and final completion that resulted in a huge success at the tradeshow. Filippo, the team leader on this project, did a phenomenal job architecting the software and guaranteeing completion in less than 1 month. The other AEs also did a great job working on specific product lines for interconnectivity. This video only shows a small glimpse of the great efforts put forth by the team…

You might notice that we tried to emulate the hit television series ‘Pimp My Ride’ with a special focus on PAC!

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!

“I have been to the top of the mountain, and I have seen the other side, and it was good.”

                                                                                    - Bevis and Butthead

Cinque Terre once again tops the charts of the most beautiful places to visit. You may have even seen Brook Burk give a “wild on E” at this place! Lets just start with the drive there… Ok remember what I said about suggested speed limits? Has anyone ever gone 170 in a minivan before.. ummm neither have I but lets just say that if I did.. the speedometer would look something like this. (anyone know how fast this is in mph?) hahaha

This is about the time I stuck my hands out the window and used them like ailerons to lift my front two tires off the ground. We fly high, that’s no lie… you know this! (STAR MAN!)

Aight Berto, the next picture is for you… since wine costs about the same amount as water in these small fishing villages of Cinque Terre, I considered replacing water with wine for the weekend. This worked great until I realized it was also a much STRONGER wine than what you get back in the states.

Needless to say, after about two bottles I scratched that plan. Back to water!

One of the coolest lessons learned so far is the ability to work in a small business atmosphere with the financial support of a large corporation. I have tried to do the whole spam email thing here in the morning for chocolate croissants, but when you sit only 2 feet away from the every single AE, you kinda lose the surprise. I also sit very close to CSRs and ISRs where I have learned extensively about what roles they play in the process of technical support. The closeness of this branch or family I should say is incredible. NI Italy has a very similar department structure/segmentation as corporate. If you can imagine taking 60 people here at NI Italy and asking them to maintain the structure of a 3000 employee company, then you are going to be asking for a hand full. Granted, NI Italy does not have an R&D segment yet, but they still provide feedback to R&D and are always looking for continuous improvement. I have also taken some pictures from the upper patio of our office in
Milan. If you look to the North, you can see the Swiss Alps:

And if you look South, you can see part of downtown and the twin towers of Vodafone. If you could imagine combining Sprint, Verizon, and Cingular then you would have Vodafone. Every single cell phone over here uses a sim card you buy from Vodafone that you have to continually recharge every month or so.. kinda obnoxious

And if you look really close at our adjoining neighbors, a group of homeless people have constructed a shack where I have seen some of the strangest behavior.

Speaking of strange behavior, I had an interesting run in with my English to Italian teacher today. Apparently, she was sipping on grandpa’s old cough syrup before she showed up for lessons. Unfortunately, I am more interested in learning Italian than drinking lemonchelos (Italian liquor) with my teacher at 5 o’clock in the afternoon so I will have to find a new teacher.

Other than that, things are running like a finely tuned machine over here. I’m excited about some additional training we have planned next week on LV RT and FPGA. I hope everyone is having fun back in
Austin and can’t wait to see everyone!

Here is a picture of me using the phone….This virtual reality headset brings a whole new meaning to being there for the customer emotionaly and technically!

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Here is a picture of Raffaella and my Spanish roommate Jaime… crazy man!

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Things are rockin over here right now! I have finally kicked that cold and now I’m ready to do some more weekend traveling. Jaime, Igor (my third roommate), and I made some steaks last night (this was the first time since I’ve been here that I didn’t have pizza or pasta for dinner) and they turned out well (pun intended), but they were no competition for The County Line. Italy has us beat in pasta and pizza, but we have sirloin! Something else I’m starting to realize around here is that I would really like a glass of water…. WITH ICE!!! What in the world is up with Europe not using ice? Unless you like coke and pepsi products lukewarm, then you better not drink one.

One part of my branch assignment responsibilities involve training other AEs on our products. Right now we have planned out the training program for October that includes our five core products, modular instruments, LV RT, LV FPGA, and hopefully some IMAQ/Motion. It’s interesting that they have named LV, GPIB, CVI, FP, and DAQ the “battery ram” products just as we call them “core” products. So you can imagine when I sat down with Roberto to plan out the training, he mentioned “battery ram” and I thought it was a product I had never supported?!?…uh.. yeah, I support battery ram, isn’t that the ASIC of HSDIO? Haha

Also, another side project I’m working on right now with Fabio, Raffaella, and Filippo is setting up a test bench in one of the extra cubes. I’m hoping to implement something similar to what Jesse Ormston did for MI. The test bench will be composed of an 18 slot PXI chassis with a dual boot controller (Win, RT). The cards will range from E series legacy to the most advanced RF 5660 downconverter. We will be using the bench for performing tests ranging from reading single transducers to decrypting demodulated I-Q constellation plots received from geosynchronous satellites…Yeah… this is the time when you make the sound that Tim the tool man Taylor makes on Home Improvement when he installs the benford 9000!….haha, yea that one. (That goes out to you Mr. Macho Man Randy Savage! )

Oh yeah, I have also signed up for a class to learn Italian for the next 2 months. So for 4 hours a week I will be honing in on my ability to speak the language of ____. Well, you can fill in the rest.

I Hope everyone is doing well back in America and if you get the chance feel free to mail me a movie in English… Its getting harder and harder to watch Italian television, its kinda like trying to understand your sister when she’s excited to tell you something. ( I luv ya sis! )

Jordo

When we returned from lunch Raffaella discovered her first CAR, and we worked on finding a solution. Hopefully, we can find a way of implementing a CAR database for branch AEs so continuous improvement is more efficient.

After work, Jaime and I went shopping at the same grocery store as when I couldn’t find the milk and as soon as I walked in they all smiled…. They KNEW me! Jaime is putting me through LV cooking I & II. He says I’m going to fail. :) probably so! The picture below is my favorite coffee shop that I stop at every morning for my caffe con latte.

Around 9:30 I met with Roberto, the AE manager, where we discussed the logistics of the department. We currently have 5 AEs; Marco, Giuseppe, Filippo, Raffaella, and Fabio. Jaime is also an AE who is visiting from Spain. We also have three ISRs, two CSRs, and everyone is on the same floor. So if you need to pick something up from the RMA coordinator, you can just turn your head and yell. haha

Lunch time was near so practically everyone in the office stopped what they were doing and packed up for lunch. We all met down in the lobby and headed out to lunch together. We walked down  the street to “Bon Appetito”. It was a cafeteria style serving with all the pasta and pizza you could order! After lunch, we came back to the office for our routine coffee break at the espresso machine. Everyone gathers around and Filippo pays for everyone. Haha (j/j he paid this time but everyone switches off)

Towards the end of the day I met another Filippo, ASM for Italy, who actually used to be Giuseppe Cirigioni’s ASM when he was a DSM… this reminds me, I need to get some old stories on Giuseppe. J I also met Luigie, who is the certified teaching instructor (CTI) for NI Italy.

I ended up staying at the office till around 7:30 getting used to my new location which included learning how to type on an Italian keyboard. The punctuation is completely different! For example, if you hit shift + 9, then you get a question mark. Craziness! I ended up getting home around 8ish and crashed till Friday morning.

Thanks for checking out my Blog! I have created this site to help stay connected with everyone back at Corporate while I’m on my branch assignment in Italy.  I have been interested in a branch assignment in some capacity since I started in the ELP last July (2005). From building Demos for NI Week this year and becoming the hardware lead for last years global AE conference have really shown me that this position is an incredible role in which I plan to accomplish three interesting goals: mentor and coach AEs, work directly with branch AEs to drive product knowledge, and provide feedback for NIC to drive global awareness. With this in mind, I will continually be updating this page with current events, branch news, pictures, and videos.

Regards,

Jordo