This last week has been interesting… My employer, Nuance, has had its annual sales kickoff at the Gaylord Palms Hotel in Kissimmee, Florida. This is primarily for the benefit of the sales team, (it could be argued that every member of a company is part of the sales team, but in this context I am referring to the sales people themselves), the company also takes its Sales Engineers and marketing people.

The problem for us Europeans is that we never really get onto American time, and consequently seem to be in this weird world for a number of days where we are neither on European time nor on American time! Of course we don’t help ourselves by” networking” at the bar most nights! We even spent one night at Seaworld, which I enjoyed thoroughly especially as we have open access to a couple of the rides. One of my colleagues and I went round the Kracken ride 9 times in total… it seemed to make sense at the time, although I must say I was feeling a little seasick at the end!

I work as a sales engineer in the mobility, consumer services and imaging divisions, specialising in our imaging products and my particular favourite Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I work in a role that supports all of our sales people in their sales endeavours and help them persuade our customers that technically our products are the best, (which of course they are!).

At the end of a week of lectures and discussions about products and strategy, we have a gala dinner at which the sales team get rewarded for achieving their quota targets. People that are in supporting roles such as sales engineering or marketing can also get recognised. And, this year I was recognised for my contribution! The benefit of being recognised is that next January, my wife and I will be going off to Hawaii for a week — hurray!