Can’t believe…

.. what you can actually do in 88 days, apart from becoming utterly curious…

• You can circumnavigate the Sun, apparently,
• and you can also visit 14 countries around the World (even more, if you come to that..),
• and you may want to write a best seller in 88 days,
• and you can actually change the World in 88 days,
• or you go crazy because those are the days left to your wedding and you are still a fat cow, no, better, slightly overweight,
• you can get you book published (is the one above?) in 88 days,

and few other nice bits of creativity.. Ok, I did it back in1985, does that count for anything???

Gosh.. this is really a stupid post.. mind you, Google did help me out on this!!!!!!!!

European Express leaving on Platform One!!!!

I believe it has been Rifkin that was praising us, European citizen, for the cunning ability we have mastered in balancing a modern, hectic productive lifestyle and the most laidback, culturally rich, friendly and communal living typical of our Continent, all included.

Now, another brick in the wall is set.

I have personally always had something between envy and true admiration for the people traveling aboard the Orient Express, that one pictured in cool, old fashioned novels with a rather sharp, witty and, alas, slightly overweighted detective.. Today it seems that a bunch of European railways operators are creating the pan European elegy to slow-living, this is to say they created a partnership as to increase the usage of trains over chip flights, pleading over the improved experience of traveling by train across Europe.

To be honest, I had to go over to Innsbruck last month, and given the messy air connections, I decided to get over to Austria by train.. From Milan to Innsbruck took me something around six hours but:

I ran over the Eastern Italian countryside, along Garda Lake, through Verona and up over to the Alps, which have been crossed amidst the latest Winter snow and the earliest flowers of Spring, sat along two really nice blond girls (I did act as a perfect gentleman, reading and minding my own business, but the lateral sight was lovely!!!), get off in lovely Innsbruck, straight into the center, thus able to sit down and sip a nice beer in a matter of minutes. (Me)

Now, that was nice.

When I was at Liceo, Italians (but not only..!!!!) where all interested in leaving high school and going backpacking across Europe in Interail (by train!), so now is about time to go back in time and us, affirmed professionals, can enjoy the trip and, yeaaaa, getting the freaking points and nice rewards like we were flying!!! I am 40 and this is the occasion to take away some years, a good helping of rushy mood and start believing that I am not just a productive machine but a human being with some knowledge others may want to leverage! And nevermind the always-on connections, what about the sometimes-off connections????

“To be or not to be”.. Who??

I have been wandering countless times about my acting skills, for a couple of reasons: first, I had a few personal occasion (aka girlfriends) to rehearse with and, secondly, I believe I did a marvelous show at a conference some time ago, it was a large theater in Marrakesh that a vendor did rent for a convention.. great stuff..

However, and despite the fact I did enjoy both situations, I believe stepping in front of people may actually be a daunting task for most people.. all eyes on you, you feel like every word weights a ton whilst coming out of our shaky lips, and that bloody spot right on your forehead, hum, what about it????

Need no worry, now!! You can be the Brad Pitt of cyberspace, the De Niro of avatars, and by Jove you will be having your lifetime chance with Paul Verhoeven (ok, this appeals to your “basic instincts” then…)!!! The man will hold auditions on SecondLife….

I have always hated, truly, madly, deeply all reality shows, since I thought those were just a step towards unreality of acting, a showing off for the sake of some mindless mass of people .. now we are actually considering to step quite beyond that event’s horizon I believed was Big Brother, to have virtual actors in a virtual world….

I am puzzled..

But I also believe this is the sign of the changing times, and media most varied will cater for a different need set of a different mankind…

Change happens, someone said (more than once) that also s#@t happens, but that is another story…

So, what do we really need? Escapism from reality, really really that????

Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an “escape” from the perceived unpleasant aspects of daily stress. It can also be used as a term to define the actions people do to try to help feelings of depression or general sadness.

Drugs did (do) the same… how come?

Hide and seek????

We are billions on line, pages are billions and billions, everything is in the “billion” mark.. so, given that you cannot find your people, let’s say, in your cell phonebook since you created absolutely silly albeit untraceable way of disguise them (particularly “those” … friend…), nevermind finding someone barely known over the Web…

Cheer up!!! Spock is here!!! Great name, mind you… (A madman from outerspace with pointed ears??? Getting confused.. elfs are not living in forest and such anymore?? gosh.. bad acid…) HOWEVER, point is that if the worst come to the worst, we may need an elf help also for avatars????

You never know….

Get a life!! Balanced, please..

This is the exact example about what I was just writing about in the “Little Me” post.. they KNOW HOW to do it!!!

I am not actually saying that they are not, or that all the other great insights into “how to become the next billionaire playing with Flurries” (btw, it is in Italian..) are utter rubbish, faaaar from me, but.. how come that something that has been “business-dignified” since a few months (say) has already been so unbelievably powerful as to create a wealth of experts???

Sounds to me that, so far, someone with a great imagination, a quite above average lateral thinking, and with a good helping of mass psychology attitude, has been able to play nicely and create something interesting, diverting from the usual business logic and leveraging the “untangible effect” that, to be honest, has made capitalism such a great thing (quite hilarious, this one!!!), transforming mere “would be nice but can afford it” needs into “will die without” paranoia… Needs have been artificially made up to sustain a society that was already “content”, discrepancies have been enlarged to multiply the power of “intangibles” and increase their allure over the masses….

Now, it seems that “you won’t really do without” being eSomething.. that is silly, to say the least.. not everyone will need to sell stuff “out of a bad acid trip” in SecondLife, search for the Perfect One in mySpace or play Helmut Newton on Flickr.. outside there is a marvellous sunshine, and Milan, the grottiest European “it-is-a-must” city ever, is almost nice…

Someone said that when you will be able to strike a balance in your life, you should be able to find real happiness, in yourself and with your “surroundings”… does that include my secondlife or do I have to search for a brand new equilibrium???

“Little me”…

There is a “little me” that is always looking through slightly open doors, and he is trying to understand what marvelous things are hiding behind. This “little me” constantly looks forward to moving, exploring, and searching and, after all that, he sits down and appreciates how the entire world is a living organism, ever-changing.

Some irreversible evolutionary steps took place before his eyes, today he knows that there is another little opening in front of him and, lurking inside, “little me” can see another mutation of the world he is living in.

The most challenging thing is actually to understand whether the opening is a long, maybe winding road, but a journey worthwhile its perils or, to his discontent, simply a crack in an already established, pretty solid reality.

There he goes, then, pushing the door wide open to see an immense landscape of unforeseen marvels, and the traveling is joyful and surprising.

“little me” meets with the most incredible beings, some of them remind him of past encounters, others are coming out directly from a book yet unwritten, pure distilled fantasy.

He gazes around, in bewilderment, unable to choose a direction since too many paths are lying in front of him. Then, suddenly, “little me” sits down again, buying time to the frenzy of the discovery, he closes his eyes and, to his surprise, everything dances also in the silky darkness behind his eyes.

A sudden smile, as he understands that discovery is an inner thing, nevermind the colors outside. Now, just now, is about time to start the real wondering about…

 

Do we really need all this evangelists, shepherds, gatekeepers of the New Arcadia or, better, since it is a discovery, we should act driven by intelligence, curiosity and bravery? Do not let anyone guide your “second life” in eSociety, you have already let someone a bit too far into your “first” one.. !!

PostScriptum: I guess I got a bit fed up with all these people telling everyone else about what to do even in a freaking large, everchanging, unbelievably fragmented cyberworld.. for Whatever’s sake, sometimes entropy and serendipity swap places…. this one is not a post that will make into the history of blogging, but sometimes you also need to let it go, don’t you??

Did I make myself clear??

This is the new trend in corporate communication strategy!!!

Wired published an article about the potential of “opening” the company dirty clothes box to the public and the effect this may have over company positioning and customer “retention”..

You may have already guessed that I am strongly about men being generally mean, particularly when there is a money matter, so.. did US had to take a strong stand against lies, freaking lies?? From Enron to Iraq we have witnessed a massive flow of blunders.. a system can bear up until a certain point, after which there is a confidence collapse and systemic reactions may become uncontrollable.

Nonetheless, it is rather nice to see top managers (albeit it may actually be their comm department.. ) use stuff and tricks belonging to a new universe to sort out issues that are sprouting from ol’ fashioned  company troubles…

Or, conversely, is it the fact that the World outside is today able to spot a lie, putting together a strong, global conscience via blogs, wikis, social networks et alia, thus forcing even the most reluctant to mold over this state of things?

The Internet has inverted the social physics of information.

Rather true, isn’t it?

Yet, I would like to see it taking up in Italy!!!! We are as waterproof to transparency as a titanium wall…

Have a nice weekend you all, back on Monday!!!

Nevermind BigBrother show tonight, got webTV!!!!

Have you ever been utterly bored at night, with very little drive to scan over your favs sites, let alone to look at standard TV? So is it satellite the answer?? To scream after your girlfriend since she gobbled down the remote to watch mosterhouse/changewife/bigbroterish kind of stuff????

Cheer up, mate!!! Joost is on its way!!! Brand new stuff, top channels, miscellanea of almost everything at the lightening speed of the super-fast Internet connection!!!!!!!!!

Now, wasn’t it worthwhile waisting all that money over that smashing 17″ screen laptop?? Yep yep, you knew….

I am just wandering whether we will never see the sun light again, with all of this happening on a computer screen near you!!!! BUT, since there is BigBrother show tonight, I better get on this Joost thing email listing.. you never know…!!!!!

UPDATE: ended up playing on PS2.. BUT will get my PC back tomorrow,  and we will see a plethora of adventure in cyberspace! Catch you later..

and the blogosphere..

… is a US feud, with English as the new Esperanto, right? Badly wrong, apparently!!!

As it was pointed out, 37% of posts are actually in Japanese.

Damn.

Now that we Italians were getting a decent command of English (sort of.. kind of optimistic today, the sun shines bright…) better go back to “pizza e mandolino”, then…

Something that I should kind of claim paternity about (circa 2002, got the slides, anyone??!!??) is the idea around building a “killing ecosystem” (this post ) rather than looking after a killing application..  seems to me that you cannot build an “ecosystem”, since you are not God, but you may want to think about some sort of “magnetic” attraction amongst parts, bits, “thingies” that may want (eventually) to interact since you have “facilitated” the interaction… now, old chap, you should also consider that the “laws of attractions” may allow a larger “body” to divert a “thingy” from its present state to another one.. electrons like movements… and you thought you had it sorted out, you fool!!!

Bottom line is that the current (known) environment may loose momentum, importance and some bits simply because someone will create a new “magnetic” object…

Google was one, the Web itself was one…

Do not stop questioning yourself.

Mankind accelerometer

The World is definitely turning virtual???

Check this one out, social networks everywhere! And this one, from CocaCola, is great!! Seems utter madness, trying to sell virtual coke, for virtual people, with a virtual thirst, BUT it is not about the actual good purchase, but about the EXPERIENCE of being there! Clearly enough, nobody is hitting the coke island to buy anything but the experience of being part of something grand, that is happening just now, somewhere.. It is about TRYING things, is about the rise of a new breed of “peopsumers”, half people and half consumer, able to shift hat accordingly..

Trick is to get “peopsumers” to act and share emotions and the experience according to a kind of scheduled, subtly controlled roadmap… otherwise any business will be absolutely lost in a mayhem of unidentified consumers turning into “people” and sharing what people share amongst peers: themselves, feelings and all. And, gracefully thanking God, this wave of sharing is uncontrollable. Thus may hinder any attempt in moving in any virtual environment in a fruitful, business fashion… So what? Just build up roads, paths, agoras, look at them from above and let peopsumers loose!

Summing up… we get social in a “virtual” way, we are able to share and put in common pieces of ourselves, including emotions and judgments, we suddenly become some kind of schizophrenic beings, half person half consumer (of anything including experience and someone’s private) in any given time, and we run loose in lots of different spaces, new territories, kind of free, uncontrolled. Seemingly.

Yesterday I said that capitalism was building up a short term gain upon its own nemesis (the Web), today I would like to stress that it is a long shot to take before we may witness a total people freedom via electronic avenues and ePlaces.. we have just a rather larger set of opportunities to manifest our peopsumerism.. we are a lot, and connections are faster, challenge for business (controllers) is to adapt to the speed and filter the amount of meaning(full/less??) bytes clashing together…. isn’t it like the new Web 2.0 is a sort of mankind accelerometer??? We are all in, and heading at lightspeed one into the other.. who knows how much good will come out of it?? And, furthermore, there will be someone able to make any gain (long term) from it?? Complexity at its best, and working at the edge of chaos!!!

In the meanwhile, someone is calling all this Freedom. Why not?

Busy with an NGO project

Sorry.. being busy to sort out the next steps for this NGO consulting project I am running. It is one most interesting thing, or at the very least is worthwhile, for it is the first time I have to help out someone that is not already filthy rich…

Cannot say a lot about it, confidentiality, but there are few things that hit me whilst reading their information pack.

The first, and most disturbing one, is the fact that if you put together all the orphans, plus all abused children, plus all those involved in underage labour, plus all the others in some distress, you can easily have an entire Europe made by children in needs. Could you figure that out?? The ENTIRE EUROPE MADE OF CHILDREN IN NEEDS!!! WTF…..

End of story.

This is the legacy we leave behind?? Nice inheritance for the World of the next decades, this mess and a planet in gangrene.. a strong proof of wisdom and foresight we gave out, nevermind the intelligence needed to send bytes faster and faster through stupid coloured cables buried into a ditch nearby a road…

Globalisation? A superior World Coscience?? Please, more likely a smelly World necrosis….

When I am faced with this kind of things, I have honestly to force myself to look at “things” as a product of human intelligence. We could open up a debate, endless flows of regrets and sorrowful words, point is we are scraping the barrel of “good excuses” or, better still, we are strategically killing ourselves, since we maintain a far too large difference between the poor and the rich… and, given what we are all saying, that the Web will unite masses of people, don’t you find that we, the capitalists, are actually making money on the weapons that will definetely eliminate us??? Ah, sorry, forgot, if the worst come to the worst we tend to bomb around a bit.. how silly of me..

Gosh, if I am pissed off now..

Any good at gardening, anybody??

Things to do in SecondLife: fly, look around for silly flurries hiding well-respected, double breasted suit-like types in real life, run after superbly designed female avatars in less-than- a-tshirt outfits (to discover their real name is Billy Joe Jim Bob..) and, trumpets please, design a French Garden!!!

Yep, really!!!

Seems like someone has got the brilliant idea to involve the Residents into a design contest to “pimp my garden” for the new Jardin Des Halles

It all sounds like those ’70s stuff, fantasy has definitely got the power…

You know what this is all about?? Crowdsourcing!! That actually means that you, as a business, say, use your online community to sort out an issue, create a product design or whatever else you may extrapolate from your brain overvalued activity!! It is a bit like doing grid computing, other that you use people instead of machines, or even better, you use a permutation of “homo-machina” to support your endeavors!! Great, isn’t it???? Despite the fact that it is not such a huge change form the factory, it is just cleaner….

OK, it is not all so terrible, still, it is interesting how sometimes you can see at things from different angles, depending on your level of mean.. collaboration, exploitation, who knows….

However, it amazes me how something that is born out of a game-like structure is becoming an interesting working table for professional, companies and creative people all over the world.

It might be even more interesting to acclaim its rise or to praise its fall, depending on whether there will be another attention driver at the horizon, an attempt of controlling creativity (please remember: Nature now has taken the form of the Web, and there is always a way for Nature to manifest its greatness!!!) or if, quite simply, Mankind will be scared at the end..

Yet, check the Gardener’s Game, we may see something beautiful!!!

Gyro theory….!!!

The PA (or Gyro Theory) follow the theory related to the inertial navigation systems which, in simplify terms, a gyro apparatus maintains the direction of the vector upon which is mounted, adapting the movement to the mutation (predefined or random) of the reference system in which it moves.

For instance, a missile with inertial navigation system is able to maintain its route and speed keeping fixed reference points with the ground and the orography it may encounter along its path.

It is thus possible to extrapolate a reference model of some business environment behaviors apt to pinpoint which is the Point of Anchorage (PA) to the marketplace (the flight plan, in essence), the route and speed to follow, and the likely reaction to mutation within the environment the Business is operating in. It is thus very interesting to understand which may be the PA, that is to say the set of values that underpins the company’s performance and its positioning.

Cleary, the company is not only made around the “PA”, but it keeps its equilibrium via the coordinated movement of “satellite values” that, as the gyro rotor, are actually determining its speed and angle as to respond effectively to each and every mutation, and keeping steady and unchanged the first and utmost principle, the PA in fact.

Shifting strategic weight across satellite values impacts and profoundly modify the overall company behavior. It is thus mandatory to know perfectly well the movements of the environment, the strength and applicability of the PA and, if at all possible, the PA sets of the likely competition. There we are…. gyro approach to the markeplace in a time of turbulence… ready to roll???? Keep asking…

By the way, do not look around, the theory is mine, but the inspiration comes from here (needless to explain for the few ones in the know)!!!!!!!!

Shattered…but happy!!!

Gosh.. Monday morning…

I am actually a bit shattered, since I spent the entire weekend on the beach and I am now giving back the Planet all the heat I have accumulated in Liguria’s beaches!! Ok, do not get angry, just jocking!!! (Mind you, I am really boiling now..).

Most important thing, we managed to finally go and register our trademark, the new initiative will have a logo and a name!!

What is it going to be??? Oh, well, some outdoor wear, and the entire spectrum of activities that are coming out from it.. Name??? Not yet, wait until I can post the logo!!

Mind you, all the people reading these pages will have a preferential inroad into an exclusive, numbered, one-shot tshirts production! You may also want to sell it back on EBay, I don’t mind.. Leave me a message, your size and colours, will try to accommodate!

The entire feeling has been pretty weird, I thought about this for a long, long time, I have got the idea about the logo, got the gut feeling about it, and suddenly all accelerated into a logo, a brand that me and my friend Max had to register to springboard the initiative. When we finally received all the documentation, when the logo and the trademark was finally registered, a part of me sat down, relaxed. I did it.

Ok, this is just a small, maybe insignificant step towards nothing, but I finally did something I planned to do for myself, something that was pestering me every night, something that was there to sprout!

Now we will see.. it may end up in nothing, it may end up into a new venture to follow, whatever, but this “whatever” is mine, I created it!!!! Which is great!!!

I will come back today with something more interesting, meaningful, something you all can leverage in your job, life or else, but for now let me enjoy this feeling and watch out, there may be a three letter logo coming to a shop nearby….

Elegy of Wilfing… do come along!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 This one is superb!! From TimesOnLine:

— Up to 10 million people are addicted to the internet in China. The Government has banned under18s from internet cafés and no new ones may open this year

— Internet addicts in China face drug therapy, acupuncture and mild electric shocks when treated at a military-style boot camp clinic that costs about £650 a month

— In Britain the Priory Clinic said that increasing numbers were suffering addictions to eBay. Some spent thousands on the auction website and said that they would rather be bidding than dating

— A 12-step recovery programme, mimicking that set up by Alcoholics Anonymous, has been drawn up for e-mail addicts

This utter mess was able to generate also a new saying, WILFING, which stands for “What I was looking for”, on top of a generation of lunatics and a bunch of filthy rich psychotherapists……

Have we recently got a bit lost into the randomness of the Web??? Are we getting lost with the 2.0 thing??? Or, what the heck, are we finally hitting the “information overload” someone was blurbing about some time ago???

Given that the Web is increasingly social, we are now relying on social tools to address and focus our attention (delicious, flickr, upcoming, anyone else google included)? The surfers are going crazy to exit the maze with something meaningful, but someone else is organising knowledge path for us…we need shepherds, hopefully not a Good Shepherd (just to quote….), yet we rely on someone’s will to share and light up paths for us.. to get beyond Wilfing are we in dare need of others??? Is the shephed a new Co in San Francisco bay area or, rather, is our community of friends?? Will we rely on the Tribe to sort ourselves out?? Maybe yes, given the increasingly importance of “referrals”.. but this is another story..

Gosh, this web thing is getting so socially complicated… how about some wine and a game of Briscola at the bar down the corner? Now THAT is socialising!!!!!!!!!!!! (provide you know what Briscola is…)

Time to go, almost, and tomorrow I will be swimming, diving and my pc will go to the doctor.. new RAM, new graphics.. new possibilities?????

2.0.. and people

This one, which you may know already, is great!! An old chinese proverb says:

If you want 1 year of prosperity grow grain.

If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees.

If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.

Is this whole thing about 2.0 a subtle way of Nature (which now I guess it may also include technology? For the sake of argument and to the happiness of some transhumanistic..) to let people grow? It is the natural antibody of present Mankind to survive to its own unbelievable mistakes????

Public officers…

said that Monday is a nice day to start a new adventure, so we have to postpone Krugs openings et alia..  Something new is coming into town, you better get ready!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With Internet, God gave us back the Free Will!!! Nice, but..

I am currently reading an immense amount of info about the new electronic society that is building up.. I say building up since there is still a massive divide, which takes different forms such as broadband availability (an ITU reports states that:

As of the end of 2005, some 166 economies had launched fixedline broadband services)

(mind you, would like to see who’s going to pay for Bb connections instead of food…), or also language (most of the Web is “foreign”, than meaning English is an esperanto-like language), or culture…

Nevermind that, point is that currently everything is shared with everyone.. social networking is giving a boost to complexity theory and takes out from some dusty rooms people that are arguing about separation, analytical algorithms, about social culture expansion, about globalisation of markets and wills…

There is also an interesting side, which has been pointed out (I believe amongst others..) by Business Week in its April, 16th release:

Web Attack
Nastiness online can erupt and go global overnight, and “no comment” doesn’t cut it anymore.

True.

Everyone is “entitled” to have a saying about any potential issue (I am part of that, seemingly…) which is nice and good, as stated we got back some free will on whether accept the pre-cooked food that media are giving us or looking for other explanations, inputs, ideas, whatever.. we are no longer alone in feelings, we are definitely part of a larger party, whichever is the interest or the party itself.. we are no longer misfits!! Lovely.

On the other hand, we may want to argue that the Web is, by its nature, difficult to control in terms of quality (Wikipedia docet) and relies a lot on a “common good” attitude (is that anarchical in its highest format??) which, coming down to human beings, is kind of a scarce commodity..

Are we already at the point to discuss whether free speech is just too much to cope for the World itself? Or it is rather the fact that, when you do open up to “social” there is an humble approach to take in consideration, since you may want to learn from a plethora of sources, comments, feedbacks, and thus the “outguessing the market” is not remotely a viable options any longer?

That is the most important Digital Divide to consider: someone is able to learn from others, someone is convinced to know best… are we back to listening to the “Snake” or we are really able to make the most out of history, knowledge scattered into millions of different brains (connected, as of today), do we really want to start “thinking” again, or we rather have our brains lobotomized? Being in Internet did not bring money to the millions into every company accounts in the early days, being “social” will not inject intelligence into everyone’s mind…

check this one out..

Meta…

I was reading some Joi Ito stuff, and suddenly… Wikipedia said that:

Meta (from Greek: μετά = “after”, “beyond”, “with”), is a prefix used in English in order to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter. The Greek meta is equivalent to the Latin post.

In epistemology, the prefix meta- is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced it, when, what format the data are in and so on).

So… is it not that we are all living a sort of MetaLife???

Think about that.. we constantly hint about the way we are, the things we love, the thoughts inhabiting our synapsis, we constantly give out MetaLife bits…which is kind of nice, but that encompass that the overall culture about “first impression” has to be somewhat revised? Sounds silly, point taken, but altogether damn right..

I have to build up interest from MetaLife hints, I have to guess what is behind or beyond the Meta, I have to keep myself interested whilst living into a sort of Continuous Partial Attention…

Does it then come as a surprise that “speed” and “velocity” are mandatory factors, and is it also understandable that “slow” is coming back as a revolutionary item? I believe we all have the tendency to speed up decisions based upon small, sometimes way too small indications, hints.. metaliving our lives..

F#@$… that’s scary.. yet interesting.. how about then the relationship with 2.0 evolutions? What about the support of broadband, social networks, mobile communications and the lot???

Are we all going crazy, or superficial, or incredibly thorough since we may end up with a never-experienced-before level of meta information about anything and anyone (thus nobody could mess up with you all)? Or, to someone more likely, we will push harder to shut it down all, get a bottle of Ornellaia and sit down for the entire night with a person we may like, eventually, talking and experiencing proximity?? How weird is that????

About us..

Wow!!!

Found that a little, exclusive bunch of very intelligent and remarkably tasteful people are actually reading my writings… fair point is that a blog should have this purpose, however it is always nice to find that there is a community interested in what you do, say or write…

So, now I have some kind of responsibility!! Great!! Now what? Do we want to move from here to SecondLife and open up something like The Club of Flying Words?? might do that, actually…

OK, news then… if everything is going to plan (which usually does not..) tomorrow at this exact time (and with the help of some complacent public officers..) my dream company will receive the dignity of a logo, a purpose, a life, a mission!!!!! Will let you know, isn’t it always nice when something new happens??

What will I do next?? Oh, for God’s sake, I do not know now, will see tomorrow when I can have something to look at, the sort-of birth certificate in my hand.. then, emotions will lead strategy.. or is it the other way round??

Have I ever told you about the Gyro Strategy?? No??? Bad, too bad..

Check the posts!!!

Got a bit lost, sorry…

Ok, got a bit lost recently..

A few things happens including: a trip over to Dubai, since some people found interesting what I did in my so-called career, thus wanted me there to have a little chat; a trip over to Innsbruck since I am now helping out (trying my best to..) an NGO to evaluate the new 2.0 reality and opportunity to stir emotions and get money for a good cause..

Plus I did took some days off to go over to Tuscany and meet friends, family and some good ideas, since this 2.0 thing is hoovering above my head.. let you know later..

Yet.. I had to understand pretty quickly what Web 2.0 and the lot actually signify for seemingly a lot of people. Found nice and interesting things..

First and foremost, there is not such a thing as a Web 2.0, since we are simply talking of a customer driven, content based e-working table to “be whatever” and “do whatever” we like, and let others know about it, and interact with it, and buy in or it, and have a saying about it, and live within it and lots of other stuff involving “us and them” .. together…

Ok, this is pretty new….

Now, business… this is a “consumer” world, as it seems… Porter’s five forces have taken a blow and there is a winning vector, which is the consumer, the individual.. ever empowered, able to discuss, decide, compare, define… my (my??? ) managers, or at least most of the people that are surrounding me on a daily basis are still thinking that a company does drive the marketplace.. I would argue that the by-far largest revolution that took us a release up (from 1.0 to 2.0) is the definite empowerment of the individual, multiplied by “n” times, which ultimately defines where Company xy has to head nevermind what..

I have got calls from top-notch marketing managers, from top-notch companies asking about this whole phenomena, someone was still blurbing about “something like ssr rsr… RSS!!!” (leaving me in bewilderment about their being still in the market..) (and more so about these guys still having a salary at the end of the month..), or SecondLife, or “YouPube” (not joking… sadly enough..)…

Now, as plenty of sites, articles (e.g…. pure random choice.. http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Branding/second-life-business/) there is no need to get all excited about this entire new universe if you do not master some basics… web marketing, guerrilla marketing, emotional economy, experience economy and so forth..

I have to admit, to most people, companies and enlightened managers, some of my talking, despite being in a blurry, fuzzy logic style format, are like “tears in the rain” and gives in return an accolade of blank, flat-ECG, vacuous eyes kind of life forms..

It is quite difficult to move in a fast-forward format from consolidated strategic (wow..have I been aggressive with wording here?!?) thinking to a more open, flexible, intangible way of considering the outside world? Is this the reason behind the fact that most companies are either putting far too many expectations onto the “virtual” worlds and environments or turning their back with a shrug? Sounds very much like the early days of the Ol’ Internet, isnt’t it??? For all of you that were around an IT or market strategy job placement back in 1995, say 1997, this sounds all very familiar.. and it also sounds very much like the attitude people and markets had in front of mobile communications…

Nevermind, it is all the same story: outside the Pillars of Hercules, nobody would like to go but the braves (at first…), following the “plus ultra” motto… it is, again, a massive discovery of human beings’ boundaries, discover the unknown, open up possibilities.. the world is shrinking? I do open up another one!

Ok, pub talks to many, but instinct suggests me I am not very far from target… so, should this be true,what is more important? The economic value behind anything or the emotional impact of going “plus ultra”??? Almost six million people, doing weird things on SecondLife and spending money on eStuff that cannot be experienced the way we commonly accept, are saying they want to go further.

It is all more important if the entire phenomena is taken in parallel with the theories supporting the social networking ideas, the net tribes construct, and tagging, and blogging and Whatever let me communicate with my peers, however faraway those may be.

Human beings are social, want to be social, want to leave a mark in life, want to manifest the fact that “Kilroy was here“… let them do it, nicely, and all you remain with is just some silly marketing payoffs, not the awareness of an entire world changing before your eyes.

(Some) people are stupid.

Will come back to this at a later stage, will add a few nice links.. end of transmission, for now..

(BTW Dubai is an amazing place, I believe some bits of the future will be created there, still, it seems very much like a DisneyLand for business people… are all dreams coming true at the end?? doubts, doubts..)