Innovation and success are increasingly reliant on the ability to work collaboratively, and this is also true between start-ups and established companies

Work together to win (a potentially better and easier approach). This suggestion might seem prosaic and somewhat obvious, but looking at the facts, it is not actually something that can just be taken for granted. A matter of corporate parochialism, perhaps. Whatever it may be, the result is a kind of jealous possessiveness of our own things, a lack of ability to share and communicate what we are doing; maybe even a lack of interest in what other people are doing. In any case, the path of collaboration for common growth and development is still yet to be taken by many production organisations. But we have to try. And we should also read “La duplice alleanza. Aziende e startup per l’innovazione” (The dual alliance. Companies and start-ups for innovation) written by Marta Basso, one of the most popular voices in the millennial generation on the subject of work.

The book begins with a statement: on the one hand, business incubators and accelerators are growing and multiplying, while on the other, governments are seeking to create new areas of innovation; in addition to this, existing companies need to innovate and open a dialogue with new organisations. Caught in the midst of all this are young aspiring entrepreneurs and “old” businessmen, or at any rate, a workforce that is seeking employment, and which must grapple with technological innovation and the mechanisms of generational change.

So what do we do at this point? Marta Basso suggests that a process of collaboration between start-ups and companies is the most appropriate way forward, and the best means for promoting development. And this applies to our country too. Indeed, it appears that this is the hidden challenge that lies behind the fabric of the Italian economy, a challenge that has only begun to come to light in recent years. However, if we cannot resolve this issue, there is the risk that the majority of companies and skills will lose their relevance before the phenomenon can be stemmed. Which brings us to the “prescription” proposed by Marta Basso, explained in a short yet dense book. It begins with an analysis of the current situation between start-ups, companies, people and regions, and then moves on to look at a series of Italian case studies and the steps taken by various figures: investors, managers, entrepreneurs and directors of incubator companies. What emerges is a moving snapshot of a complex and challenging reality, which has many resources to deploy but which needs to be thoroughly understood.  And the approach is not only theoretical: indeed, around half of the book is dedicated to a methodology for collaboration (Seed up), which is both the result of experience and a combination of other working methods.

Marta Basso, who was CEO for a month as part of Adecco Group Italy’s One Month scheme in 2017, has written a book that should certainly be read carefully. It is not a management “bible”, and perhaps it will not make history with regard to the relations between companies and start-ups, but it does contain a number of positive challenges, as well as numerous passages providing a different perspective on a complex and constantly evolving issue. To be read from cover to cover.

La duplice alleanza. Aziende e startup per l’innovazione (The dual alliance. Companies and start-ups for innovation)
Marta Basso
Franco Angeli, 2019

A tale of the “globotics revolution” has just been published in Italy: a snapshot of the consequences of new technologies, and how to live alongside them

Brother robot, sister machine. Not science fiction, but not exactly reality either. However, it remains an inescapable fact that digitalisation and automation – as well as artificial intelligence and robotics – are fast becoming fundamental elements of manufacturing, and indeed of our everyday lives. In the face of this, we need to equip ourselves culturally, so that we don’t get carried away with enthusiasm, or, on the flip side, overdramatise the situation. In regard to this, reading The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work, written by Richard Baldwin and recently published in Italy, could prove to be a useful exercise, precisely because it enables us to maintain the sense of balance needed when addressing the “robot issue”.

The author – who is professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute of Geneva – begins with the premise that automation, artificial intelligence and robotics are reshaping our lives at an overwhelming pace, and that we must seek to gain an understanding of the effects they create, especially with regard to the world of work and production.

In general terms, new technologies will soon enable new talent to spill over directly into the good, stable jobs that have served as the foundation for the prosperity enjoyed by the middle classes in wealthy countries. In other words, people in different parts of the world will soon be able to be “virtually” present in the same office. One of the results of this is the possibility that the lives of millions of skilled workers will be disrupted, in a much more profound way than with either industrialisation or globalisation.

Baldwin describes this process as a globotics revolution, or to echo the title of the book, an upheaval. In the face of such an upheaval, then, we must ensure that we are prepared, particularly from a cultural perspective. Baldwin then seeks to answer a number of questions, including what measures can be taken by individuals and by governments, how we can prevent the very foundations of prosperity from being shaken to their core, and what strategies we could use to adapt.

The path that lies ahead is far from smooth. However, the author of The Globotics Upheaval provides us with a potential – and general – answer to these questions: there are some essential skills that no machine can duplicate – skills like creativity and independent thinking.

The whole book consists of around 300 highly readable pages, beginning with an account of what has already happened before moving on to explore the characteristics of the “globotics upheaval”: namely, digitalisation, automation and “telemigration.”

The passage about Amelia is an entertaining tale worthy of science fiction: “She works at the online and telephone help desk of Swedish bank SEB. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, as one might expect, she has a confident attitude and a captivating smile. Surprisingly, Amelia also works in London for the Borough of Enfield, and for UBS in Zurich. Ah, I forgot to say – Amelia can also learn a three-hundred-page manual in thirty seconds, speaks twenty languages and can handle thousands of calls simultaneously. Amelia is a white-collar robot.” In addition, the last few lines of the book also bear repeating: “It is essential that we realise that the pace of progress is not dictated by an abstract law of nature. We can control the speed of transformation, we have the tools to do so. It’s up to us to choose.”

The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work (Rivoluzione globotica. Globalizzazione, robotica e futuro del lavoro in Italy)
Richard Baldwin
Il Mulino, 2020

“The shape of a mass-produced object has precise origins, responding to specific needs, and it has a particular purpose, so it can have adequate aesthetic qualities.” These are the words of the designer and architect Marcello Nizzoli in an article entitled “The factory and the artist”, published in Pirelli magazine in 1954. The article examined a subject that, in the second half of the twentieth century, became of prime importance in the cultural debate concerning the role of the artist in the design of objects produced by industry. Could an everyday object somehow become a work of contemporary art? This was when what we now refer to as “industrial design” was beginning to take shape.

That same year, Bruno Munari’s advertising poster for Pirelli Coria soles became part of the permanent collection of MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Catalogued as object no. 527.1954 in the Architecture and Design department of MoMA, the poster had been designed by Munari for display at the Milan Trade Fair of this line of soles, which were “neither rubber nor leather, but rather a mixture of the two: light, flexible, adherent, waterproof. And, especially, extremely long-lasting”. The “labyrinth” invented by the designer – a graphic itinerary full of obstacles easily overcome by footprints naturally protected by a Coria sole, was an invitation to “walk with progress”. MoMA took note.

A few years later, in 1959, it was Roberto Menghi’s turn: the Milanese designer, who had created a line of plastic containers produced by Pirelli’s Azienda Monza, took his polyethylene jerrycan to the packaging fair organised by the American museum.  Olive green, extremely practical, and easy to handle, as well as safe, “Menghi’s jerrycan” was certified by the experts at MoMA as an icon of Italian 1950s industrial design.

The history of the New York museum is also linked to another great Italian designer, Massimo Vignelli. Born in Milan in 1931, Vignelli moved to New York with his wife and assistant Lella Valle in 1964. That year also saw the famous advertisement for Pirelli bicycle tyres that Vignelli created with the photographer Aldo Ballo and that, in the version with a pink background, is now part of MoMA’s permanent collection.

But the concept of design is broad and cuts across boundaries, beyond just objects and printed advertisements. This is why the archives at MoMA also contain Pirelli’s film commercial The Tortoise and the Hare. Directed by Hugh Hudson in 1966 with the Cammell Hudson and Brownjohn Associates production company for the British Pirelli Ltd, the medium-length film was awarded at the time for the lyricism of its advertising message. But one brilliant detail, created by the acknowledged talent of Robert Brownjohn in composing the front credits of films, did not escape MoMA. This was the use of moving vehicles, the sides of concrete mixers, trailers of heavy goods vehicles, bulldozer buckets, and the bodies of vans to form a sort of jig-saw puzzle of moving blackboards on which to write the names of the actors and personalities of the film. Here was the journey and the promise of mobility offered by the Pirelli Cinturato. In front of a road map of Italy, also a lithograph of the preparatory study for this minor masterpiece is also catalogued as no. 1100.2011, in the Architecture and Design section of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

However, the works of Munari, Menghi, Vignelli and Brownjohn were not the only Pirelli creations to cross the hallowed threshold of the Museum of Modern Art. When the electric Cifra 3 clock made by Solari di Udine, a subsidiary of the Pirelli Group, entered the museum’s permanent collection in 1968, the company house organ Fatti e Notizie commented that the decision rewarded “all that is most significant in the industrial and artistic development of modern civilisation. Being included in the collection is the greatest honour that an object can receive for its design”. The Cifra 3, a direct-reading clock with a system of revolving flaps, had been designed in 1966 by the architect Gino Valle. Solari Cifra clocks, in a range of colours, had become instantly recognisable, partly due to the success of the direct-reading system used on notice boards in stations and airports in every corner of the globe. And MoMA, once again, took note.

A comparison between the Italian and French approaches to the social and economic appraisal of organisations dedicated to production

Principles of corporate social responsibility that must be put into practice, but which must also be demonstrated, and thus officially reported on as well as described. This is a condition that now applies to all organisations that operate in the manufacturing sector, and one that must first be fully understood. “L’évolution historique et théorique de l’information des entreprises: Prémisses pour une perspective généraliste dans l’étude du Reporting” (The theoretical and historical evolution of firm accounting: Premises for a generalist approach to reporting), an article by Giusy Guzzo (Department of Economics, Business and Statistics, University of Palermo) and Fabrizio Rotolo (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan) provides a good overview of the current situation with regard to reporting obligations and opportunities relating to “stories” of responsible business.

Guzzo and Rotolo approach the issue by comparing Italian ragioneria and French comptabilité (both terms mean “accounting” in their respective languages). The authors explain that their goal is to “lay the foundations for a generalist approach to corporate reporting that embraces both financial and non-financial information”.

They go on to explain that “from a historical perspective, the theme of social and environmental responsibility was developed progressively over the course of the twentieth century by both Italian and French research, gaining increasing importance. In an equally gradual manner, the theme of non-financial reporting has been interpreted, on the one hand, as an evolution or extension of financial reporting, and on the other hand, in opposition to this. However, very little attention has been paid to the general concept of reporting as a whole.”

On this basis, therefore, the article begins by retracing the evolution of social and environmental responsibility and non-financial reporting in accounting (which is divided into ragioneria and comptabilité); in the second part, the authors attempt to lay the foundations for the development of the theoretical foundations of a reporting method that represents and communicates the “integral positioning” of companies and “their overall performance, with regard to the various aspects of the company, both financial and non-financial.”

As such, the article develops a kind of comprehensive overview of the theme of the corporate activities that are reported upon in the financial statements: this also represents a qualitative leap in terms of corporate culture.

L’évolution historique et théorique de l’information des entreprises: Prémisses pour une perspective généraliste dans l’étude du Reporting (The theoretical and historical evolution of firm accounting: Premises for a generalist approach to reporting)
Giusy Guzzo, Fabrizio Rotolo
Working Papers, Volume III, 2019

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How does one build a good “future factory” by defining development strategies in times of crisis and change? Let’s start with the crisis. Economic data shows that industry turnover in Italy has slowed sharply, with a drop of 0.3% in 2019 and an alarming 1.9% reduction in orders.

It’s the first drop since 2015 and a sign of general difficulty in the entire manufacturing system, except for a select few sectors (textiles, pharmaceutical and food) and with alarming conditions for automotive, mechanics and mecatronics. Exports are in marked decline, “not speeding along any more” as indicated in the headline of “Il Sole24Ore” (22 February). The industrial engine has more or less stopped. With annual data released on Friday 21 February, Istat confirms what was already indicated in the strongest manufacturing regions until last autumn, from Lombardy (with alarms in Brianza and Brescia, areas with a strong concentration of industry), to the North East. Everything suggests that 2020 will be another difficult year (backed up by a drop in orders). International trade tensions (from the US-China tariff war to Trump’s White House’s moves against Europe) are one of the key causes.

News of the “coronavirus” is adding to this already difficult situation, with heavily negative effects on the entire world economy, starting with China (the International Monetary Fund predicts a reduction in growth to 3.2%, with a drop of 0.1% in 2020 and 0.4% in China, adding that it could be even worse if the infection is not stopped quickly).

The Italian economy will also be affected, given the current spread of the virus, especially in Lombardy and Veneto, the most dynamic manufacturing regions (worth 31% of national GDP and 40% of exports): many economists forecast a recession of between -0.5% and -1%. As time passes, will see the actual effects of worry over a long-lasting crisis.

One thing is certain: in addition to timely measures to face the health emergency and its impact on the economy, in these times of alarming fragility and obvious social and economic tensions, it is important to develop strong, long-term ideas. We need to look ahead, to strengthen the real economic “paradigm shift,” to relaunch the quality of development and the quantity of economic growth: from emergency to recovery.

What are these ideas? They can be found in Assolombarda’s white paper on “the future factory” (following up those on work, tax, credit and energy). This was presented recently by Alberto Dossi, Assolombarda’s vice president for industrial policy and Ferruccio Resta, dean of the Milan Polytechnic (scientific research partner) at the Ansa Forum. As well as contributors of this blog.

The first point reconfirms something that is clear in economic circles, but unfortunately not in the political world or government circles: “Italian manufacturing is a source of competitive advantage for the entire country”, it provides leverage for creating work, widespread wealth and social improvement. It is necessary to defend our industrial capacity, to develop a true “National Industrial Policy Plan”, together with political decision makers and social players who have the skills and knowledge. There should be a “culture of change,” built on innovation, research and training.

We are facing monumental challenges: digital transformation affects the economy and society, not only in terms of production, but also the ethical and cultural issues posed by the growth of Artificial Intelligence (we discussed this at length in last week’s blog); the major issue of environmental and social sustainability, in order to deal with the alarming climatic changes and the ever less tolerable social, gender, opportunity and generational inequalities.

Business is central to these challenges. It plays the leading role. In the “White Paper,” there are no shortage of economic, political and cultural indications for approaching this intense season with a great sense of responsibility, with the ambitious, long-term views of those who want to build a better future. Business is a great “social elevator.”. We need to keep making it work.

How? “People are central to the new factory,” it says. With a focus on “who knows and who knows how it’s done,” knowledge is a fundamental economic and social value, in times of reckless contempt for skills, even in political circles. Respect for safety, both in work processes and in the cybersecurity dimension. Quality of life and work. Long term training, so that the process of change can be managed. Particular attention should be given to young people, to make them aware of the charm of the factory in the digital era and to involve them in production.

To put it briefly, the horizon is a Digital Green Economy, which considers sustainability to be a fundamental competitive asset.

Leadership with strong values and knowledge. Commitment to change according to data driven factory criteria, using the increasing amount of available data as a productive factor, in terms of quality, productivity and competitiveness. Cultural and scientific flexibility to understand and use the data to radically improve our manufacturers. After all, Italian companies are increasingly becoming “nodes” in a network, part of a “productive ecosystem”, a chain of relationships that enables even small and medium ones to keep up with radical, international transformations.

So, what needs to be done? The White Paper insists on the need to “promote innovation in the country system.”. In fact, one can’t imagine that our companies can stand up to the challenge of innovation and competitiveness in the digital economy alone, if the rest of Italy stands still. That’s why a development strategy which invests in the adaptation of infrastructure, both material and immaterial, technological and social (with schools at the forefront) is important. It needs to “support interoperability and the integration of ecosystems and supply chains,” to have an “effective, stable and clear” with regards to regulations and”multi-year industrial policy plans to support the companies of the future.”.

Even in difficult times, full of tension, crises and changes, businesses are playing their part. They are not asking for grants, but for clarity, in order to continue to invest and grow. It’s a cultural and social challenge. One that needs consequential political choices. Assolombarda insists that this is in the interest of the entire Italian system.

In November and December, the Pirelli Foundation organised two workshops for the Università Cattaneo di Castellanza (LIUC), focusing on the history and management of Pirelli during its 148 years of operation. It is one of the longest-lived Italian companies and one that became international right from the outset. The company now has 19 plants in 12 countries around the world.

More than 80 students from the Family Business Management & Governance master course, and from the three-year Family Business Management & Organization course, had the opportunity to learn about the values that underpin Pirelli’s corporate culture. After an address by the Pirelli Foundation devoted to the evolution of the Group in terms of its production and organisation, and after a presentation of Pirelli’s User Experience & Service Design Manager, which examined the company’s latest digital products, the students visited the Historical Archive and found out about Pirelli’s constant commitment to creativity and innovation. Pirelli’s history of technological research has made the company one of the leading drivers of change in the automotive industry.

Watch the video:

Pensare l’infosfera (‘Thinking about the infosphere’) is the title of the latest book by Luciano Floridi, philosopher and professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at Oxford University, where he is also director of the Digital Ethics Lab. Published by Raffaello Cortina, this work has been under discussion in recent days at three events held at the Teatro Parenti in Milan. Floridi maintains that we are experiencing a ‘fourth revolution’ – after those begun by Copernicus, Darwin and Freud – linked to the spread of the ‘digital’, and the colossus represented by Big Data and artificial intelligence, which are profoundly expanding the dimensions of information and communication technology as experienced until now, and as applied to economic and social processes. Accordingly, Floridi explains that ‘the infosphere represents a new way of living alongside one another, in all areas of life – from education to business, from politics to culture, and from trade to health and entertainment – and poses a series of challenges that are as yet unknown, rendering the 20th century an obsolete world.’ The infosphere is presented as a ‘new space’, about which ‘we should be asking ourselves: “How are we building it?” and “Are we building it right?”‘

Digital thinking and technology. A reflection on the meaning and value of things, actions, choices. The development of new ideas that reflect the changing times. Floridi is very clear: ‘The digital revolution has various effects on our personal autonomy; our freedom and our ability to make choices is increasingly dependent on data. And our exceptional nature is also beginning to be called into question. As human beings, we have long set ourselves apart from other species through our self-determination and intelligence, but both of these elements are now under attack. Netflix’s algorithm tells us: “Watch this film, you’ll love it.” And we don’t play chess against computers any more, because we know they’ll win. Philosophy can help us in rethinking our uniqueness‘ (La Repubblica, 6 February: ‘We need a Socrates of the digital age’).

In a controversial time of great change, in order to find our feet in the face of the questions and choices that rapid technological evolution presents us with, the need for a new humanistic awareness is clearly evident. And philosophers are back in the spotlight, as are the relationships between politics and business, cultures and challenges linked to security and to life sciences in the global world, where the need for original geographers to redraw the maps that can guide us on our journey into the future is greater than ever. Philosophers and geographers for the new world. Poets and men of letters, because nothing can tell of the splendour and darkness of the hearts of men like literature (Shakespeare was the master of this art). Not forgetting historians, of course, to hone and refine the tools we need to clarify the relationship between past and future; here, the words of the great contemporary artist Jannis Kounellis, among others, spring to mind: ‘The problem is not that of antiquity, but that of modernity. And modernity does not exist without antiquity. We find it in everything.’

If these are reflections that intersect the worlds of culture, education and of economics and science, we cannot help but view with some concern the choices made by students and their families with regard to secondary education enrolment: the licei [Italian high schools] remain in the lead, with 59% (for the academic year 2020–2021), which is decent progress from the 53.5% of the previous year, but with a marked preference for the so-called ‘light’ scientific licei, in which Latin is not taught. The data refer to the Italian region of Lombardy (La Repubblica, 10 February), and specifically, these figures bear testament to the increasing percentage of young people who are opting to study more hours of science, computer science, sports-related or economic and legal subjects instead of Latin and philosophy.

Why? This reflects a more contemporary approach to schooling, and one that is better suited to our technological times, as well as being more useful for finding a job, the study explains. This perception, shared by young people and their families, is also linked to a trend that is gaining weight in economic and business circles: people need to be trained and given the right tools to respond to the demands of the labour market. We need scientific and technological skills, young people with a training background that enables them to enter the digital world, and technicians prepared for ‘Industry 4.0’, the digital evolution of our sophisticated manufacturing system.

Here, we are faced with two different sources of tension, both of which are justified to a certain degree.

Italian companies have long complained – and not without good reason – of a widespread lack of technical and technological training. And the figure that appears again and again in every debate is that pertaining to the istituti tecnici superiori (higher technical institutes), which have just over 8,000 students in Italy, a very small number, particularly when compared to the equivalent figure for Germany, which is 800,000. Investing in technical and scientific training, as it is called in the business world, and prioritising traditional technical institutes, higher institutes (like the istituti tecnici superiori ) and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degree courses, which are relatively unpopular in Italy, is essential to increase these numbers.

On the other hand, many people insist on the importance of a revival of classical studies, in order to gain the tools that we need to understand a changing world, with a focus on building knowledge and not just skills. And, faced with the rapid rate at which technologies and professional content become obsolete, in light of the evolution of digital cultures, it is key to train young people to ‘learn to learn’, in the apt words of Francesco Profumo, former rector of Turin Polytechnic and president of Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) before he became Minister of Education.

Is it possible to find a synthesis between these elements? Perhaps it lies in the need for a ‘polytechnic culture’, where humanistic and scientific knowledge converge, and to invest in a long-term approach to education with solid classical roots, including for ITS programmes and those that are open to the evolution of technology and science, as well as classical (i.e. non-scientific) licei. In so doing, we can create engineer-philosophers (as we have often said in this blog) and technicians who are sensitive to questions regarding the meaning behind things and not simply their efficiency and productivity. This can be achieved by focusing on the training of people with an awareness of the ‘usefulness of the useless’, to echo the fitting title of an excellent book by Nuccio Ordine, a man of letters who is also attentive to the themes of philosophy and science.

This brings us back to Floridi’s lesson on ‘care for the ecosystem’, regarding the ethical principles that must underpin our relationship with technology. A new form of humanism, led by conscious, responsible scientists, trained with a healthy dose of critical thinking, instilled from school on.

A thesis addresses the situation and prospects for business services and benefits

Welfare. It’s almost a magical word, a panacea for many of the evils of the current economic and social structures in huge swathes of the ‘developed’ world. A concept full of various meanings and concrete applications, welfare should without doubt be widely adopted, but before that even, it should be studied and understood. Above all because, far from being magical, the path towards welfare is far from smooth, and must be closely connected with the real (and different) conditions it finds itself in every time.

In his thesis, discussed at the University of Rome, Department of Management, doctorate course in Management, Banking and Commodity Sciences, Antonio Di Lorenzo attempts to understand the welfare conditions in Italy, comparing these with the general situation in the country.

‘The crisis of the welfare state, combined with the effects of the economic crisis that began in 2007,’ states Di Lorenzo in the introduction to his work, ‘have served to focus the attention of companies and institutions on the issue of corporate welfare as a potential link between the search for new models to increase the competitiveness of companies and the process of remodelling the public welfare system.’ The issue raised by the author is one that is already widely acknowledged, but never explored in sufficient depth: ‘In Italy, the phenomenon [of welfare] is still only relevant to a limited number of companies, particularly larger ones.’ He goes on to add that ‘the majority of measures still do not fully and effectively meet the new social requirements, and as yet, no adequate models have been developed that engage the entire territory in the creation of networks of services that can be fully integrated into a so-called “second welfare” system, or in other words, a field in which the various players – foundations, associations, trade unions, employers’ associations, companies, etc. – use private resources to develop services that can support and assimilate public welfare, both from a qualitative and quantitative perspective.’

The question Di Lorenzo finds himself facing is ‘How can this be done?’ The solution that he identifies in order to achieve the best possible diffusion of this culture of welfare lies in the creation of networks of companies that can make the best use of the opportunities available (including from a legislative point of view). Accordingly, the study looks at the critical elements and constraints – as well as the potential – of the networks that have been established in order to generate welfare services shared between the companies that are part of it, and seeks to determine whether in reality such a network can function as a tool that can be used to develop corporate welfare at a national level, so that small and medium companies can also benefit.

Di Lorenzo begins by placing the concept of welfare and the various ways this is applied in context; he then goes on to examine the specific features of this concept in Italy, focusing on the situation faced by SMEs and then looking at the characteristics that a network of companies must have in order to provide a positive response to the requirements in question.

Di Lorenzo’s work provides a useful and up-to-date overview of a topic that is widely discussed but still not entirely resolved. The real-life cases that the author examines are also interesting, namely those of Luxottica, Solvay, BNL, Unicredit, Intesa Sanpaolo and Tetra Pak.

Welfare aziendale e reti d’impresa
Antonio Di Lorenzo
Thesis, University of Rome, Department of Management, Doctorate Course in Management, Banking and Commodity Sciences, Cycle XXXI, A.Y. 2018-2019

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The latest report published by the Einaudi Centre outlines the complexity of the situation and the need for clear information.

In an era of fog and dark horizons, we need clear guides in order to avoid getting lost along the way. These guides are of use to everyone, both businesses and individuals: not in order to beat a single path to the future, but rather to provide access to the tools required to understand where we are, and accordingly, which direction and which road we need to take.

This is the meaning you will glean from a reading of ‘Il tempo delle incertezze. XXIV Rapporto sull’economia globale e l’Italia’ (‘The age of uncertainty: 24th report on the global economy and Italy’), edited by Mario Deaglio and published recently by the Einaudi Centre in Turin.

As is usually the case, the report by the Einaudi Centre presents itself as a starting point for a critical re-assessment of the occurrences of the last twelve (very intense) months. Deaglio and his colleagues thus re-examine and analyse the key events concerning Europe and Italy in 2019, as well as focusing their attention on Donald Trump’s America and Xi Jinping’s China, the increased tensions in the Middle East, and on labour, capital, the new faces of capitalism and the impact on the climate of these developments. The series of investigations that constitute this book, therefore, begin with an analysis of the global situation (the overarching feature of which is ‘disorder’), before taking a closer look at the sequence of events that have occurred in the US and the EU and the key traits of capital and labour within this period. They then come back to focus on the relationship between the continents against this backdrop, and end with an in-depth examination of the Italian situation, that of a country totally enmeshed in international events and yet characterised by a number of features that are almost unique.

The book is presented as ‘an attempt to provide a different perspective, looking at the situation from a different angle to that we are accustomed to day to day, providing an alternative reading and reflection upon data and events in a world of shrinking resources and increasing uncertainty, with a view to contributing to the challenging search for new solutions to new (and old) problems.’ This is an accurate description of this work, written by several contributors, which delivers fundamental guidance that applies to everything and everyone. In a situation where uncertainty seems to reign over certainty, what really counts is not only correct information, but also the extent to which this is circulated, and the degree of trust that exists within individual entities.

‘Il tempo delle incertezze’ is a valuable read for all of us (though not necessarily an easy one); it is of particular benefit for those who wish to be more aware of the situation as it stands today, as well as those who – whether entrepreneurs, managers or key figures within institutions – are tasked with making conscious, informed decisions.

Il tempo delle incertezze. XXIV Rapporto sull’economia globale e l’Italia
Mario Deaglio (edited by)
Guerini, 2020

Journeys through words and images

-Monday, 10 February 2020 at 3 p.m., at the Pirelli Foundation
Presentation of the 8th edition of the training course, 2019-20
Followed by:
Consumer culture: a long-term view
Lecture with Marco Meriggi – University of Naples Federico II

-Monday, 17 February 2020 at 3 p.m., at the Pirelli Foundation
A literary history of objects
Lecture with Raimonda Riccini – IUAV University of Venice

In accordance with the Decree of the Council of Ministers dated 8 March 2020, the activities of the Pirelli Foundation are interrupted, therefore the Cinema & History training and refresher course is currently suspended.

We will provide new indications to the registered teachers as soon as possible.

 For more information, you can write to didattica@fondazioneisec.it

 To download the former complete programme, please click here