Friday, January 30, 2009

Dotcom life

And now I guess it's my turn... I am Daniele, one of the Fulbright BEST fellows!

A brief introduction: I come from a small town near Alessandria, in Northern Italy. I have got a MS degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Politecnico di Torino. I am now attending the last year of PhD in Electronic Engineering, at Politecnico di Torino. My research field is in the optical fibers technology: fiber sensors and lasers, and optical devices in general. I have achieved most of my results for applying signal processing to optics.

But my business experience, that I am acquiring at Santa Clara University, is leading me somewhere else. I will keep this topic in stand-by for a new post...

I am working at Experience Project (www.experienceproject.com), the biggest online anonymous community in US. It is a startup company based in San Francisco, downtown; it takes me about two hours to get to work, and I commute almost everyday... During my internship I will work on strategic issues, for the expansion of community, basically for porting EP to the the smartphone market and entering non-US countries.

Working for a dotcom on market strategy means ranging from the very top level to the very bottom. In a startup, fewresources are allocated for market analysis, and workforce is more focused on programming and keeping the pace with the required rate of innovations. This means that decisions should be often taken in a while, on the basis of data but also of personal perceptions. I have been starting with financial data, market projections, trends and rumors, and following the way down, I have found myself browsing the EP website with an iPod Touch to get the feeling on how comfortable the website is for mobile access.

In the end, working for a community means to put a lot of yourself, your knowledge, your perspectives and your way to participate, in each decision. And keeping finger crossed, because you seldom know which are the real drivers.

Want to know more about Experience Project? Here's a TV show, on air two days ago on ABC television, and called "A view from the bay". Look at Armen, our CEO, interviewed at the show:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=view_from_the_bay/tech_gadgets&id=6629455

And then join us at EP, it's free and anonymous!

Stay tuned,

Daniele

3 comments:

Vincenzo said...

Hello Daniele, my name is Vincenzo Marafioti, i got a II level degree in computer science engineer at polytechnic of Turin and now i am working as researcher in a computer graphic company. I 'd like to apply to next Best mission. Do you have any advice to give to me? Thanks

Daniele Tosi said...

Sure, you can write me at daniele.tosi@polito.it or call me on skype (dan82ddt) and we may talk about it.

Dan

Nick Kurns said...

Hi Vincenzo, I just wanted to echo Daniele's offer and send you my contact info ( nkurns@scu.edu )if you'd like to learn more about the program from the CIE. Would be happy to discuss with you and assist in any way possible. Cheers, Nick