I am in Madrid today. I am in the middle of a push to visit all of our EMEA markets by the end of the calendar year. In most cases I am meeting with the local teams, reviewing the business and understanding where we need to invest from a technical skills perspective. Do we have the right technical skills? Are we serving our customers is the best way possible? Are we balancing our capabilities between the technology and products of today vs. driving adoption for the technologies that will power the future? These are the questions that keep me up at night. Well that and I usually read my email late at night.

Here is my schedule:

• Week of Nov. 13th in California for leadership meeting and Colorado for Customer Engineering Meeting
• Week of Nov. 20th in Birmingham, England for EMEA Operations reviews, in Madrid for Iberia Systems Engineering review
• Week of Nov. 27th in Paris for France Systems Engineering review and my staff meeting
• Week of Dec. 4th in Rome for Italy Systems Engineering review
• Week of Dec. 11th in Stockholm for Central and Northern Europe Systems Engineering review and then to California for a Customer Engineering Programs review and Team CTO meeting
• Week of Dec. 18th in Munich for Germany Systems Engineering Review and Peter Ryan's staff meeting

So in a few weeks time and ten cities, I will be on my way to Austria for a needed holiday break. Some skiing, family time and rest.

Technorati Tags: Customer Engineering, Sun, Travel