i'm also very thankful because, when i was looking for school; he saw my portfolio and recommended me some schools of car design, and well finnaly i got accepted at the IED Torino.
i'm also posting some usefull tips that i found on his own blog:
Hy friends,this image is a very good introduction to our topic of today: managing your time.To be a freelancer or a manager (in our case in Design) means first of all to learn how to manage your time and so yourself.In some specialized schools it is possible to receive some well done courses on management, so we have the opportunity to learn and understand the importance of managing certain priorities in order to accomplish a demanded result or mission. For example a complicated exam or a portfolio organization before interview.When we start to work as "freelancer" (I own my company) or as designer and later as design manager for someone ( Toyota, Fiat, GM, Honda,...) we learn mainly by experience of working. It is the day by day activity with all the annexed complications and unknown problems we face up discovering the real thing.In my career as design manager I have seen a lot of people getting lost simply because they did not apply some simple rules necessary to follow to accomplish the mission. It is impossible to keep the "artist designer" attitude, this naif way of living our life as designers too close to "utopia land".To be a real freelancer or design manager we must be realistic without loosing our talent and creativity. We start by learning how to manage our time to be disciplinated, to respect some rules that will lead us to a good work and result.I used to tell my students (some time ago...) " be manager of yourself, and you will become a manager". What does it mean?It means to start from our personal life, at what time do we get up? Do we eat healthy? (impossible to be productive with an heavy head), check emails and have an answear for the most important ones in a short time. I hate those that say " I receive a lots of mails have no time to check!" This is a stupid sentence, we will find the time and we will learn to give priorities.In a project we have priorities, too. Read well the briefing, understand the key values of it and find out a strategy to procede in the right direction. Find the time during the day to recheck your emails..you might have received interesting answears for your work.Take care of your networking within the company or suppliers, they could do a lot of good things for you if you keep good relations...Do not put too many meetings concentrated in few hours, better few a day and well distributed during the week, this will give the time to go back on your project for action after decision taking.Organize well your business trips, thanks to internet this is really easy. Take notes always (even sketches of proposed solutions), learn how to make an efficient reporting to give direct simple and clear instructions on what to do next. Learn to keep informed your boss about how you are moving on your strategy to make sure you both agree on it (save your ass!).Do not forget to find time for yourself during which work is "not" the topic , in other words find time to relax and enjoy life! Good luck!
An interview, (in italian) : http://www.castelsangiorgio.com/notizie/news303.htm
and of course the link of his blog: http://lucianobove.blogspot.com/
Ciao salutti a tutti!