I’m in Hannover this week at the annual global gathering of manufacturing, power and much more companies. Met a guy on the train from Frankfurt airport to Hannover from America who says he comes every year. He said he always gets at least one new idea. He can’t understand short-sighted general management these days that prevents people from attending trade fairs. Just a couple of new ideas will more than pay for the expense.

There are many press conferences. Several overlap with each other. A journalist could sit all day and listen. But that wouldn’t be fun.

I posted my interview with Sudipta Bhattacharya Friday evening, so I have yet to get feedback from the supposedly disgruntled employees who are so negative about things Invensys. Interestingly, though, I had at least two conversations with widely different people about the Jim Pinto Invensys “Weblogs.”

Out of perverse curiosity–how many of you think that many of those are now contributed by competitors? They are all anonymous–and I’ve ranted about anonomous contributors before. Jim says, “they are afraid they’ll be fired for speaking out.” But there is a certain disingenuousness about that, too. They should be speaking out internally. Or, sometimes you’ve lost the political battle within the organization and either you have to go along with the leadership or you have to leave. Happens all the time. (Been there.)

Anyway, stay tuned for any news from Germany. Most of the companies I have appointments with are German-speaking companies. I’m beginning to wonder how “international” this fair has become. There are really only two halls for automation this year, although I have appointments in two other halls. We’ll see how big and energized the automation market is in 2011. Guess I’ll find out in a few hours. With any luck I’ll have photos and videos posted around the Web.