at least…

… someone’s trying to re-position “Culture” as an interesting product.. (Milan, today). Mind you, I had some spare time one eve, fiancee in standard delay mode, and “waisted” my hours browsing the Kandinsky exhibition at Palazzo Reale, in Milan.. wonderful way to detach from the (sometimes) ugliness of daily routine.. good luck you guys, in your endeavor  during the Big Brother Age!

Just be patient..

Just be patient..

This has been a hard, or even harsh week … As we are all aware, sometimes external occurrences impact heavily on someone’s capability to address issues, build up coherent thinking, let alone analyse properly some tangled information or, as I have tried over here, economics, technology or market issues…

Sometimes things happen around you that leave you astonished, in total bewilderment, and your capacity of being analytical goes bananas.

This is one of those times.. and, as usually happens, it is all about people.

I still cannot make my mind around the fact that the most incredibly stupid people, the most arrogant, the most vulgar and appalling individuals may actually be in any “public” position at all, in any even remotely “decisional” role.

For those amongst you that read this blog frequently, it is quite obvious that I do put a huge importance on the “human factor” in most of the issues, topics or whatever else you want to call what we discuss here. You all know that I truly admire human beings and, at the very same time, I despise some attitudes, ineptitude, blatant silliness or incurable stupidity easily found amongst the so-called elites.

This week has been the zenith of the unbelievable, the Everest of dementia and the elegy of rudeness and arrogance. Some people who, in a decent world, should only sit down and silence in shame for having been unable to do something properly, people that should only beg for pardon for having usurped titles and positions and delivered solely an unjustifiable failure, those inepts have been able to rise to the role of Purifiers, Court and Judge…

I won’t write more, I won’t waste more of my time on this, maybe someone reading these lines has got the full picture and knows about all of this, for the others I apologise for my being slightly absent these days but, believe me, when the World goes this way, you just want to switch off and reach for the Reset button.

The network effect… stand up and walk??? (excerpt)

This is a small excerpt from a recent paper I wrote:

The arise of a digital marketplace and the consolidation of a number of factors from a transient influencer position into a systemic conglomerate have strengthen the idea that, along the digital highways, users are linked by “networks” and no longer by “straight lines”. The impact of networks dynamics over interactions is massive.

During the XX century the possibility of the World (mankind, actually) to shrink and thus augmenting the level of interconnection between constituencies, parts, units has grown exponentially due to a number of factors, all somewhat related to the ability of people to “get in touch” and “share knowledge”. To some extent and as a controversial assumption, also the two major conflicts have risen attention over countries, communities, cultures never approached or considered before. After the end of fighting, the world has been all connected by the necessity to recreate a bearable environment where to live, together.

Interestingly enough, all actions that governments, research institutions and scientists made to increase, in the second half of the century, the capability of controlling others’ communications (for strategic purposes), ended up in creating a widely distributed, albeit rough network of connections and information flows. This was ultimately finalized with the creation of Arpanet, the “archaic” version of the modern Internet.

This ecosystem led to a wealth of studies and papers over the “mathematics of networks” and theories designed to explain the inner workings of such a complex, highly mutable and influenceable environment. Without going into details, one of the most interesting aspects of it all is about the degree of interconnection and so called “separation” amongst the parts of the network. Actually the degree of separation adds up to six steps. Six passages will ideally link each of us to anyone on Earth. Despite the potential extremes of the theory and its full acceptance, the main message here is the fact that relationships amongst parts are no longer linear, but assume a mesh format, a net, a neural scheme of dots (us), nodes (junctions amongst dots), hubs (aggregators of nodes) and gateways amongst hubs and the “small worlds” (defined by connections and interests) inhabiting the Web-Planet. 

Interestingly enough, some people agreed on the “resurrection” function of communities and networks (whichever format they took over time) from a status of disruption, crisis, war or any other mankind hindering conditions.

What about today, then?????

Some “finger food”…

Some little things to nibble around (from “La Repubblica Affari e Finanza” newpaper)..

• The Italian WiMax seems to be finally something like an opportunity, also for small TLC players;
• Neural architecture has been overshadowed by Cogito, as it seems the closer a machine can get to the Turing hypotesis;
• The new Web is the kingdom of search engines (by the way, got the invitation to Spock beta test, thanks guys!!!)….
• … plus few more amenities over Google, advertising, Citizendium (Wikipedia under control), on line travel agencies and the rest….

Decision time: is all this stuff occupying space (Web and on paper) or again is a small fragmented forecast of a future of even-more hyperconnectivity, hyperintelligence and the rest of us behind all that, trying to find our way out??

Shepherds, do not forget it…

SL just too “human”????

Just a quick update on our virtual counterparts and what is happening in SL (SL?? you don’t know what SL is?? Shame on you!!! SecondLife!!! Can’t believe you’re so retrò..)

So, lot’s of nice things happen, and quite a good helping of the naughty ones..

I am wandering whether this is all about statistics, more people online, weirdos in an xy percentage, or also quite simply because the anonymity of an avatar allows anyone to be anything, and do anything..

Will that last? Will it survive its transposition from plainly virtual to trashily anthropical?

What about using this @#§*$& tech…

It cannot be possible, given the ecosystem outside, given the cultural shift, given the tech expenditure, the workflows, the software, the organisation, given all of the above and all you may think of, that you have always to meet people for a fifteen minute meeting. It happened, guess it was last year, that I had a client in Rome, slightly apprehensive about the engagement we had put together. He called me to organise a meeting at their premises, flew over to Rome, just to hear he couldn’t attend because of some unplanned occurrences. Fine, it happens, no worries, and I love Rome at Springtime, but that hiccup was expensive, time consuming and, most of all, absolutely fruitless.

We could have used a strong videoconf facility.

And, as it seems, it saves a lot of money and pollution. I have to admit I enjoy meeting clients, discussing issues, sorting out problems together in an advertising-like sessions, and at the same time I hate wasting my time, someone’s money and attention to the God of Stupidity. Where’s the point, business-wise, to always meet, meet, discuss, meet again, discuss even further, when some issues may be tackled effectively over alternative communication highways?

Also, for a corporation such as BT, it accounted for a £238 million saving… every little helps…

I leave to you all comments and thoughts about the communication needs of people, the necessity to have multi sensorial interactions, the ability to spot body language signals that necessitate of face to face interaction.. as far as I am concerned, if we have a better way to do things and to have things done than expensively transporting ourselves across the Planet, fine, let’s use ‘em!!!

And the time we may gain, let’s spend it with whom we truly like!

Let’s put it this way (part Three)

You cannot be a parent simply because you gave birth, as you are not a priest simply because you got the call, you are not someone simply because you exist and you are not human simply because you belong to humanity. I am afraid the ongoing revolution, the new Hercules’ Pillars, Tom’s Mississippi, at the end is just about this: be a Human Being. A Man. And today you have to be that as you cannot hide behind you pledged ignorance, behind the lack of spare time, behind all those silly excuses but ever so useful as a flea market jumper.

The society as it is going to be defined is a call to action, it is a “We want you!”, a bit to everyone, according to possibility and conscience. This is about the one-almost-two billion of connected people, for the rest..let’s hope Tom Sawyer win.

So far, so good, then, got the message out.

And what about the reaction of the current System? It minimises. Quite often pretty much like Louis XVI did on July 14^th 1789, as it seems he wrote on his diary that very day: “No news today”.

It jokes, laughs or write in capital letters (hype) about those part of the revolution that are less painful, less disrupting to its being a system and “people believe that it is undoubtedly true” as Borges said.

Why making quotes? Because is connection of thoughts, of intellects, of ideas which are still in embryo and in needs of growing and being pushed out, since knowing the different will make a new One. Because, today, to reach the heart of a moltitude’s thoughts, the distilled thinking of hundreds of millions life experiences is as complex as switching on a PC and launching a browser. Here is the new borderline of the unknown.

This is utterly dangerous for the current architecture, the present social structure.

Since most of what has been said could not be true altogether, since there is not just one God, since it is possible to live without the superfluous, since in Iraq women were working as IT engineers, since it is not true that the Argentinean bonds were such a great chance, since it is true that cars can use hydrogen and clean energy, since it is true that a chap somewhere built a solar panel that is ever so light and tenfold less expensive than current ones, since it is true when imagination gets the power the World can change. Because when imagination gets the power the Speed of Light grows.

Quite as clear, a complex system does defend its status with a series of antibodies. Unarguably, the future society(ies) will not have (or could not have) any need at all of a large array of intermediaries, lackeys, pretended experts, that population of lazybones that bureaucratise the planet.

We could find money to finance ideas without hitting a bank, we could find homes without going into those blood-sucking agencies, we could find goods, services, opinions, ideas, movements and all that I may want, directly at the source. We could almost be back to an humongous form of barter, in which also the intellect is a good to share.

Mind you, the French revolution, that completely turned upside down the destiny and the concept of democracy, was stirred by some thousands of half illiterate French peasants, whilst the current movement is made by few hundreds of million of decently educated people, the impact could be above devastating.

There is a little problem nonetheless, a tiny winy triviality, a dog in a church, a dropping in Arcadia: the human nature.

Should the people have better knowledge of others, they would learn how hate them.

said Flaiano, again a quote and I am quite afraid to say I do believe it.

 

Evolution and revolutions have always happened, at any latitude, in times of great inspiration and during the darkest ages of mankind, when culture was the ruler and when ignorance was the queen, from the East to the West, through Time. Great revolutions have always happened.

And, to be fair, things have changed deeply, sometimes radically, yet the unchanged is the human nature, the human being.

Still a “bastard inside”, despite the evidence, constantly gripping his own personal good and satisfaction against the well-being of the many, material and yet with a foot into transcendence, religious and petty, Merchant of Venice and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Perhaps, at the end of it all, the New is only a permutation of what has always been.

So long human beings are alive there will be differences, inequalities and oppositions. Because, as it seems, connectivity amongst differences makes life possible.

Let’s put it this way (part Two)

What the heck, yes, we are somewhat all Tom Sawyer or, at least, we should be more like that.

That is, third statement: diversity and curiosity are strengths, or at the very least do determine the future.

It comes to my mind that unity does not give out any strength, but it builds up a monolith. Useless memento of the past. A burden.

Nevermind that, I do remember that Tom was some one of a kind, he had qualities that in the “pre-sawyer” era were not even recognised as that: a dreamer, creative, rebellious, brave, unusual and ardent, idealistic, morally integer at the end, open and fond of the unknown. He is witty, of the kind of a motley fool, he is convincing. During Middle Age some have been burned to death, of Tom Sawyers. Long time ago one has been crucified, and today are all considered loonies. Some of them may escape from the asylum and become Steve Jobs, but this is another story.

However, there is no Tom Sawyer without a quest, and there is no Tom Sawyer myth without Huck Finn, without the raft on the river, jumps over fences, eyes wide open with marvel.

The society that is germinating is made by Tom Sawyers, but the same Tom is a composite, as Twain himself states in the preface of his… to his… of his parable:

….Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual — he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.

Elegy of Diversity, unity of diversity to create a new specimen. But it all comes to life if there is some awareness, consciousness, or at least freedom to be conscious.

As of today, consciousness of the creation of a new human being specimen, a “half human and half machine” hybrid, is rather poor, simply because the Speed of Darkness overtakes the Speed of Light quite often. Or, to put it in a different way, fear makes you retreat your hand under the blanket. For most people.

So, we still are at that point of interconnection, collision of diversity in which we do see all aspects, quite real indeed (a sort of an Internet Tao???!?!), pertaining to the negative side, the frightening one, the utterly unacceptable. You see all deviances, and stigmatise behaviours, and we all crucify the new monsters. And, during this Circo Massimo display, we may tend to lose perspective over the fact that all is rapidly changing.

New human tribes are built, and they meet and clash at the edge of a wood that exists only in an AnotherWhen (as Tiziano Sclavi said in a dreamy DylanDog comics), they know each other and exchange information on the best path to take, where are the fundamental on-line goods to sustain existence, and create new frontier outposts of such improbable names that would have made Sergio Leone and John Ford cringe: Google, Flickr, YouTube and others scattered who knows where.

In short, we work at the edge of chaos, that hyper-creative space with loose but present rules nonetheless (otherwise we would have chaos which is paralysis of creation because of a casual hyper-kinetic status), in which several small worlds emerge, and bridges amongst worlds are defined, and in which you wait. With your eyes set to the horizon.

It is almost like clouds clashing into each other in a clear sky, apparently in a casual order and yet following a well define canvass, a weave of hidden energies, manifest winds and invisible streams that allows the single pieces of vapour to form shapes, compositions, watery theories ready to release wander, fear, darkness and burst of lights. Always and everywhere following the idea of an Atto Unico. A solo. Identifiable in its orchestrations and notes, but still unknown in its conclusive melody.

And all of this is called Speed of Light, if the little human being is a Tom Sawyer, or Speed of Darkness if he is a “quaquaraquà” (for definition check for Leonardo Sciascia English translation of “Il giorno della civetta”..)

Mankind, and we fill our mouth saying that beautiful word made by the wind, I divide it into five categories: men, half men, wimps, and (with respect) buggers and then the quaquaraquà….very few men, few half men, and I would happily stop here as far as mankind is about… But no, you go deeper down, to the wimps, which are like toddlers believing they are grownups, monkeys imitating the adults… and even deeper down: the buggers, who are becoming an army….and at the end of it all the quaquaraquà: they should live like ducks in a puddle, since their life has no more meaning and expressivity of that one of ducks… You, who probably are going to frame me on this papers like a Christ, you are a man… You too, said the captain, with a whiff of emotion…

One Mother and one Father

On the other hand, it is nice and soothing to know (albeit we knew already) that we have all one Mother and one Father, since some stronger-than-other genetic information made it through the “n” permutations possible and are common to all human beings … and to the happiness of the stupidest people on Earth, those infos came from the very heart of Africa!!!

I love, I truly adore the way stupidity of a certain part of mankind is always put on display.

We all share a planet, most of our culture is permeated and riddled by ever so many different and yet common inputs, and furthermore we really are all brothers and sisters….

Soppy statement for a Monday morning and with an hectic week ahead? Nevermind, it is a nice feeling nonetheless.. and a good reminder for all those bloated buggers around…

I leave it up to you to drill down into the news..do it!

Let’s put it this way (part One)

Let’s put it this way: I am not really convinced that unity is strength…. Quite often unity magnifies the negative that is embedded into the single components…Right, this is quite true if we put “unity” and “strength” under an umbrella of positive expectations.

The Anglo-Saxons would now use that powerful lexical picklock, “so what”, that could really be so aggressive, so hostile, so ultimate..

So what you mean? So what this all has to do with us?

It has to do with us a lot, indeed. Because we are so deeply convinced that all is happening these days, during the last say couple of years, within the global social structure in “good”, intrinsically powerful, ineluctably revolutionary.

We are all interconnected. We are building up a super-conscience (superior, to be precise) upon which structure, found, fuse, mould the future of mankind. Which, whoops, is made by..men.

Let’s start with saying that, should a Light Speed exist, it also exist a Darkness Speed. And quite often the latter is much faster within human conscience, despite any physics law.

So, here we have a couple of interesting items: unity is not always strength (the Positive one, something like Star Wars force..) and also that Light Speed in somewhat overtaken by Darkness Speed, nevermind Alfie Einstein.

Then, what is happening is what? A revolution? An evolution? An ineluctability? A mankind lack of style? All of the above. But there is further, slightly more important stuff to consider.

The cultural approach, the mediatic masterplan, the cultural reduction of the Internet phenomena and electronic society as of today stems, perhaps, from an approach and analytical angle totally askew: it is not about praising interconnectivity to unite in a superior Whole, but should be an Elegy of Diversity!

To face a different reality, fight the unknown, redefine old boundaries or cross and forget the old ones is one of the most frightening occurrences for any given human being, social group or organised living structure.

Today, the billion and half (and growing) human beings connected to the Net are actually doing exactly that, every given day whichever God puts on Earth: exasperate the concept of “boundaries”.

A faceless mass trails Westwards, curious and terrorised at the very same time, pushed forward by that force, that pulse that makes you peek through half open doors, that makes you turn the dark corner, that very pulse that pushed me when I was a toddler to put my hand out from the secure harbour of a blanket and down into the dark chasm between the bed frame and the wall, dwelling and hideaway of obscure presences or golden rewards. Nothing like that, nothing to be found but a little piece of myself, recovered and polished.

Curious we are, we enlarge boundaries, ready to retreat, to trench on when the discovery is potentially not the materialisation of the expected. And the union of a billion of searches provokes nonetheless, by chance, pure luck or collision, a new picture of reality, of the social structure, of the very future ahead of us. And this happens because not all sailors, not all internauts, not all Argonauts and above and beyond all this not all the Tom Sawyer’s of our time are retreating like wet nestlings under the protective wings of the Past.

Have you seen my brain anywhere?

I have got some bookmarks pointing at crypto technology, I had been involved in analysing and assessing the security infrastructure of some large banks and telecoms, I had people discussing about triple DES, steganography, and other amazing ways of protecting information, companies, secrets, my mum’s recipe for apricot jam, then.. again.. the b@#§%y, desperately stupid humans!!!

THEY LOSE THEIR LAPTOPS!!!! Do come along…

As it has been said in a number of post, it all comes down to the human factor and, apart for the extremes of blatant silliness such as the above, we could also add “thanks God for that!” Still.. the number of stolen laptops is increasing (+18% or something) so, after all, humans are not all stupid, they are victims of baaaaad people, also.. wrong!!

“Although laptop thefts are often an opportunist crime, with thieves striking when the victim’s back is turned or their bag unguarded, security experts are warning that as criminals become more aware of the value of data on poorly protected laptops – which often exceeds any value there may be in selling the device second-hand – more targeted attacks could take place. “

Sensitive information, industrial secrets, market data, whatever, is all in someone’s hands. Nevermind that Mr. Someone hasn’t switched on the brain, on top of the Blackberry… So, most of times, all our nicely put, elegantly organised thoughts around technology impact, evolution, solutions, virtual worlds and so forth may actually be absolutely self-reassuring, auto-referential if we do not put into the equation the Human Variable, which is a totally unpredictable, movable feast! If it weren’t for humans, the World would be such a great place and civilisation could go a long way… cheer up!! We are not perfect as technology would like us to be!!! Or, at least, we are stupid/silly enough and happy about it (see our skills???)!

2.0 and LITO Living Information Technology Organism

The ecosystem outside is everchanging. And this is a fact. The social structure, its nodes and hubs is changing, mutating, constantly. And this is also a fact.

Our life and its components are increasingly interconnected by computers, software, wires and this is another fact. And we love to cache and share part of ourselves with the World. Fact, again.

So, to say the least, what we have here is a complex, evolving system. Alive. Half human and half machine? Not quite, or maybe yes.

Companies such as Microsoft have tagged their new “software” as Live Software, others are creating “living” sites such as these.

We could actually mention that we have a LITO – Living Information Technology Organism. If we try to create “something” that is reacting to mutations, we are also talking about a sensing structure that feels, reacts, reorganises, sends instructions to its terminations, it learns and evolve, constantly. Is alive, then. Constantly upgrading, morphing, merging with the external reality to create another self.

So, it could be the case, for argument’s sake, that there is us in real life, in a physically known dimension and a combined entity with a human mind and an electronic permutation of a body (avatar or not is pointless here) that gives birth and life to dreams, expectations, ideas, contacts, relationships and whatever else. Ready to be moved into the known physical space or not. But nevertheless alive. This is the main differentiator of Web 2.0 environment and the past: 2.0 in a thesaurus could have “alive” in the option list.

UPDATE: by the way, there are no two LITOs alike..

Surfing surfari, green companies and “apologies for the mess we made”… aka how you dare destroying the Planet????

Back from Munich… final delivery of the web 2.0 strategy study I have been writing for the past six weeks.. all fine, apart from the amount of “typical Munich sausages” I ate.. need some pasta..

However, I have been impressed about the forests I saw before landing, the amount of parks, green and the generally cleanliness of the city (mind you, that was maybe just the area, still it was nice to look at..), and thought that this planet is quite a nice place to inhabit.. snow over the Alps, lakes made by green, blue, turquoise waters, the faraway sea..

I thought about a spell of my life when I was living a bit of the California dream, looking at waves, waxing boards and waiting for sunset to go and ride waves… that was cool, it was distilled freedom, it was me being in touch with Mother Earth and Nature..

Mind you, as it seems my surfboard was a polluting factor, an environmental destroyer, bad, baaaad boy…. BusinessWeek tells about a “green” crusade in the surfing world!!!

I found that somewhat weird.

I do appreciate that the use of some materials such as “foam” and its working remains may pollute the planet, and with that incredible amount of business generated by Clark Foam we are witnessing an invasion of surfboards across the Oceans, still.. I like to think that, potentially, there may be other sectors, issues, habits and such hindering our specie.. on the other hand, it is always true that there is a dark side to almost anything..

However there is a huge attention about “being green”… companies of any sort, from utility to IT , are now aware that all their business efforts have contributed to disintegrate the environment and today they pledge for mercy and forgiveness, as a Middle Age sinner, and are willing to pay their due to gain the Starway to Heaven…

I may actually say that I hate crocodile’s tears. And people making money out of all this.

Still.. where’s money, there’s action, so what the heck and do something to clean the house!!!

UPDATE: despite the interest and hype, I heard the Italian government has no incentives or planned ones in the foreseeable  future should you think about investing in “green IT” and the like.. you better check this one out, still, it tells a lot about how high on the agenda is Planet…and the EC is pushing us to reduce CO2 emission to be within Kyoto parameters, as it seems..  gosh..

A connected World…supposedly…

As you are all aware, what we are currently experiencing in the last 24 months is a surge of interconnected clusters of people, scattered worldwide in a mixed geography fashion, but segmented and aggregated by needs, styles, and also digital capability, this meaning number of devices, interconnectivity among devices, and connectivity to the super-layer of the Internet.

The more the connections, the more the users, the contents shared, the links opened, basically more connections more “digital blood” flowing. This also meaning money, economic opportunity and/or shift, knowledge distribution, human rights and all the nicest things you may think about.. there is also the dark side, but for once let it go..

Now, do you remember the WiMax thing??? That “thing” covering around 50 km radius with a nice umbrella of high speed connectivity??? The super WiFi??? Got it??? Cool.

As it seems from recent events and articles on italian business daily newspaper, Sole 24 Ore, we are heading towards a protected licenses award mechanism. All major telcos will have the opportunity to play with their financial muscles in a upward bidding process… which means that all small, local operators will not have any possibility to win a licence, that potentially will have to rent out capacity from incumbents and will thus not fully bypass the “last mile” of the incumbent. So much for broadband for all…

Then, considering that WiMax might actually be in direct competition with UMTS wireless connectivity and its high speed evolution HSDPA, should the licences be awarded to incumbent(s), it may actually happen that the less-costly WiMax licence could freeze in someone’s safe until UMTS and Bros. got repaid in full…

That is not a nice scenario, isn’t it?? Let’s hope we (we??) understand the importance of augmenting the nodes of the network…

Why?

Just read.. the UK is going to have three magnificent submarines, each with nuclear engines, 97 meters long, around a hundred people on board, totally self-sufficient for 25 years, it can launch nuclear missiles at 1.400 miles… cost?? 2,33 billion, guess British pounds, but Dollars or Euros would not make much difference… it adds up to 7 billion, give or take, say in Euros..

• With 20 Euros you give vaccines to a child: 350 million sorted out
• With 1.200 Euros you support a full scale medical precinct: almost 6 million built
• With 336 Euros you adopt a child (child sponsor: almost 21 million will have care.

Then…. why?

Give me a good one now. No excuses, please.

Nevermind eSociety, just take care of the real one, to begin with.

UPDATE: forgot to mention.. the submarine has been named “Astute”… it sounds like Wile Coyote, astute……you can either laugh or seriously think about the application of lobotomy in some occasions…

Us and Them

It is lunchtime, outside Milan is back to 27° and I have no intention to walk around just to waste some time.. so, got a nice “panino” and a fruit juice from a bar nearby and got back to read some newspapers on line..

Something was “flashing” on my radar screen… on Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, one of the most important and read, its website has a link to a letter of an Italian citizen, living in Rome, that is going bananas because, despite being a “left party” voter, is getting increasingly racist. And this is due to the plethora of daily small and massive crime acts perpetrated by foreign citizen, or people, or whatever you are more comfortable in using.

This makes the pair, today, with the election of a right wing champion at French presidential elections, Monsieur Sarkozy. A stronger France.

The Web is packed full with infos on a new virtual society booming allover the place, we happily talk about the possibility of networking amongst people from any part of the globe.. seems to me that the old joke of an Italian standup comedian is absolutely hot these days:

” I can connect to the speed of light with, say, an aborigine in the middle of Australia. Question is: me and you, aborigine, what the fuck we have to talk about????”

Lots of laughter, cheers from the audience, hands clapping … but tremendously true!!!

We do not know each other, we have not got in our DNA a culture that is curious enough to look at differences as something to learn about and not to fear.. thing is, history says that people get in touch because of dare needs, or more recently because of war and conquer. One of our politician said the Islamic culture is a lesser one….forgetting that when we were playing with swords Arabs were creating math .. however, point is we, generally, don’t care, like or give a toss about anyone but ourselves. And, as it seems, we are desperately ignorant!!!!!

We are not pure, we would like to think we are, but unfortunately we are not.

Yet, there is something else coming into play. Respect.

Both ways.

Us, respect people that are leaving their country to look for a better life, them, respect the new home someone is opening for them. Then, stupids and crooks are everywhere and as such should be treated, nevermind colours, languages or religions. It is that simple.

Dostoewskij wrote about Crime and Punishment. It that simple, really, it is about physics of human relationship: action and reaction. It is that simple.

People that are stating they become racists because of all the bad stuff happenings everyday, they should add they are racists against stupidity, brutality, crime and ignorance. Which is a fair thing to say. Nevermind the origin.

Then, I will still enjoy the best “panino” on the street, done by a guy from Ecuador running the bar downstairs!!!

..beg your pardon…

… but this will be a hectic week, to say the least.. finish off the Web 2.0 analysis and strategic recommendations for a client, tomorrow I will chair a panel at a conference about the new role of CIO, this will be Milan. Have to summarize and prepare a workshop for a client, next Monday in Munich… Will try to keep you posted…

Just a quick one.. on O’Reilly Radar, this was on:

A new “digital divide” today between those who know how to think about search and those who don’t; those who know where the current hot information is being shared, and those who don’t.

The whole article is about Web 2.0 and education.. mind you, as a first step it would be nice to educate people about themselves and the others, then about the Web, then about the Web 2.0, and at the very end about education using other channels on top of schools? teachers? family?

Still, it is a matter of knowing where to go.. back to the “shepherds” concepts of some posts ago…. Something that is pretty scary, or a the very least is “whaat??” is the actual idea of a collective intelligence sprouting from “being sensory enabled”… I am questioning about the collective idea (the majority is not always right, since it may be manipulated by the few..) and the sensor thing is taking into account 1 out of 6.5 billion people.. can’t say that is collective, is partial intelligence. Which is actually born out of common standards, ideas, mental models and such.. thus this may not be called “intelligence” but “herd accepted behavior” , which is boring. Evolution comes from a sparkle of genius and creativity, that cannot be spread all over mankind as a responsibility. Or we are talking something like “grid evolution” for humanity? Lots of small intelligence sparkles unite to create a gigantic light to follow???

Weird.

A new experience (another one, really???? gosh…)

Do you remember those lovely Peanuts strips, with Schroeder wandering around with a huge sign suggesting that Beethoven’s birthday was almost there? OK, then, you’re oldish, then..

Apart from that, Joost is kind of happening soon!! Everyone will then be able to theoretically design its own TV experience, its own entertainment line-up..

In an interview this morning, Yvette Alberdingkthijm, Joost’s EVP, Content Strategy & Acquisition told us that by the end of May 2007, Joost will be available to everyone.

Isn’t that great news???!??! Then what? Satellite TV is no longer a hit, all the “telecoms-going-to-media” companies are stripping assets and going back to sell capacity, advertising has got a new fairground, and most of the World is going back to take English lessons? Or, again, there will be a stint of freedom that soon will become a new business venture to sell to some media powerhouse and cash in promptly?

Ah, in the meanwhile Italy has lost control of its national telecom, Telecom Italia, that has got now some “conquistadores” from Telefonica de Espana at the helm.. which, incidentally, may actually use its presence in Spanish-speaking countries, and also leverage a customer base of Spanish-speaking expats allover the World, and create contents, use media platforms (Telecom has got a TV in its assets or am I wrong…) and create new revs streams.. and … and.. and… it is a tough game, to envision the future in the Seriously Large Companies League..

Still, nevermind that, in a matter of days we are going to experience another hypermedia world in our lounge.. do you believe me when I tell you I am kind of bored of all this? Is this the reason why every now and then some “classical” item crop out, to remind us about the good ol’ days??? See the Leica camera…

Just back, me and Matisse…

Just back… few days off work because of this loooong bank holiday… what I got out from it? A nice tan, lots of carbs that I have to demolish in hard gym sessions and a new busy month ahead..

I had time to evaluate few things (I do generally lie down in the sun, with MP3 on and thoughts wandering..), read a couple of nice interesting articles, again about SecondLife.. this is going to be the hit for 2007 in Italy? I am still puzzled about the idea of a virtual world and a plethora of nice and unchartered territories to explore, and yet it seems that there is a major mistake in all the hype, that is not considering that the majority of people will not even get close to that level of complex interaction, at least not for another generation probably! It is still a stuff that (at least in Italy) does make the press, but there it actually stays!

All the people interacting with virtual worlds are a certain kind of user, that cannot really tagged as “mass”, at the very least tech enthusiast or early adopter… nevermind, we will have a bit of time later to discuss about.. in the meanwhile, SecondLife made art something everchanging, able to mutate at will.. the thing is all about the quality of the will, I guess… you can be anything and anyone you want in virtual worlds but, thanks Whatever, you cannot have skills you do not master in the first of your lives!!!!