I'm fighting a losing battle at the moment. Not just with my waistline, but with my diary. It seems that every time I think we're slowing down for Christmas, we get yet another customer calling up and asking for more of my time. I'm actually quite pleased to be able to go and talk to people about their encryption and key management issues, and the nearer we get to Christmas, the more wining and dining seems to be involved, so I can't exactly complain.
On the flip side of this, being on the technical side of operations in EMEA, I also get more involved in support calls than I should - because I genuinely care that any company I am involved with appears to give a good service, and because our support team wakes up around 4pm our time - not ideal. I am responsible for the technical service we deliver as a whole after all. We currently back off first-line support to a distributor who are not delivering to the level which I require. As a result I am relegated to a support function when I should be out drumming up technical interest. Often these days I also end up being farmed out to resellers to explain 'how it works', when this is something else the disti should be picking up by now - or if I'm doing it, I shouldn't be doing the support and the evangelising too. Fortunately after Christmas I am getting someone else on board, and who knows what will happen with the disti if things don't pick up.
Expansion is a luxury, both in terms of stomach and corporation. So, I may get a little flustered, and I appreciate that my output has dropped here recently, but early in the new year this balance should be restored. EMEA's looking busy right now, the UK especially has found deeper pockets for new technologies. I look forward to having time to blog about this more from all over Europe next year... and to ditch the technical support woes.
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