A book has been translated into Italian that narrates the progress of humanity through a series of mathematical equations that explain the reality that surrounds us

Business is also about calculations. Sometimes – almost always – there is a certain dose of risk (which is also often calculated). But that’s not all, because every good entrepreneur (and manager) constantly has to get as precise an idea as possible of what surrounds him, of the path he is undertaking, has to predict what will happen as a consequence of his actions and those of others. Therefore a conscious calculation, which is sometimes also unaware. But it is still a calculation. One that is also used to obtain the appropriate knowledge tools. Also by reading books which are apparently far removed from a businessman’s way of seeing things. This is the case of “Le 17 equazioni che hanno cambiato il mondo” (the 17 equations which have changed the world) written by Ian Stewart.

A rich and fascinating book written by Stewart (fellow of the Royal Society and Professor Emeritus of mathematics at Warwick University), which is in fact the story of human progress told through equations (17 in fact), which have contributed towards making the world what it is today. A way of seeing what surrounds us with a different set of spectacles, an unusual, beautiful and useful one; a set which businessmen (and all things considered all shrewd people) should wear once in a while.

Equations – the author explains – are the life blood of mathematics, of science and technology; in their absence the world as we know it would not exist. They may cause fear or appear enigmatic, but one thing is for certain: they cannot be ignored.  For this reason, everyone should in some way know them more than they are known in reality today. This is because every equation has a strong bond with reality, with the world that surrounds us; and which in fact also surrounds every human enterprise, every factory, every conquest, every project.

Stewart – who is accustomed to writing to be understood -, therefore addresses a difficult topic lightly yet with great accuracy and clarity. Starting with Pythagoras’ theorem, touching on the equations proper of the theories of quantum physics. Newton’s law of universal gravitation, the second law of thermodynamics, relativity, the strange world of quantum effects in the Schrödinger equation, the chaos theory, the formula for the price trend of derivatives on the financial market: these are some of the chapters in a book that is not a brief one (the volume spans over 400 pages), but one which is definitely important to read and re-read. One that is read relatively easily taking into consideration the objective difficulty of the topic. One thing that simplifies comprehension is the method with which the author begins each chapter: a presentation of the equation with an indication of what each individual symbol used means, an explanation of the meaning of the entire equation and the reasons for its importance as well as the usefulness of the equation itself.

So a different and unusual set of spectacles, better to read a complex reality, which is constantly changing but which can be better understood with a method that stays the same at all times.  Stewart’s literary undertaking should be rewarded by careful reading and re-reading.

Le 17 equazioni che hanno cambiato il mondo (The 17 equations that have changed the world)

Ian Stewart

Einaudi, 2017

A thesis presented at Cà Foscari university in Venice investigates the description and measurement of industrial districts, grasping their importance for the growth of companies and their culture

The success of a company depends on a game also played by subjective and intangible elements. Obviously, calculation and instruments, planning and the factory count for a lot. But no entrepreneurial idea, in the long run, has ever been developed without a context that stimulated its accomplishment, without that “climate” which at some point created the right conditions for the “factory” to be able truly to produce good balance sheet results as well as “good human results”.

It is what in modern times is also referred to as territorial capital that often makes the difference. Niccolò Lenisa’s thesis – which was presented at Cà Foscari University in Venice – in fact takes into consideration these intangible aspects (assets), of the territory which make up that extra element for the growth of good businesses. The main objective of the investigation, therefore, is not so much the identification and illustration of these assets, but rather the description of the methods used to detect and measure them. These methods are necessary since the importance of knowing the system in which the company does business continues to apply in order to manage the company properly.

“Territorial capital as an intangible asset for the development of businesses” begins with the reasoning on the need to “analyse the external environment”, to then proceed with an investigation into the concept of territorial capital, emphasising the role the company as responsible for creating value for the territory. Measuring the capital of a territory then involves the identification of the industrial districts, the tangible and intangible characteristics of which are then described. A subsequent passage addresses the methods of measuring intangible capital.  The work ends with the examination of a real case of a close bond between territory, district and business (the industrial district of Prosecco, to be specific).

The author explains: “The social attention of companies allows excellent upkeeping of the conditions of the territory and of biodiversity, which with the lack of appropriate investment could get lost over the years, thereby undermining the local economy. From an economic perspective, the value associated with the brand is very important; the image and reputation which over the years have been associated with the territory and with the product allow companies to be able to generate greater profit since customers, having acknowledged the quality of the product, are prepared to pay a surcharge”. More generally, the author grasps and demonstrates the value of the “bond that is created between the community, the territory and its very economy, which means creating a community of individuals who according to a trust-based relationship work together to achieve objectives and common well-being, by sharing ideas and notions, thus nourishing their own civic sense and countering the negative individualism which leads to difficulties in social relations”.

Territorial capital as an intangible asset for the development of businesses. Detection and measurement methods

Niccolò Lenisa

Thesis – Cà Foscari University, Venice, Honorary Master’s Degree in Economic and Business Development

2016

“Lifelong learning” is the cover heading of “The Economist”. The illustration is a sequence of figures who represent the various ages, from the child reading a book to the boy with an iPad, from the workman battling with hi-tech designs to the young man travelling with a printed paper guide-book, from the technician in front of his computer to the old man holding something which might be a book but might also be a tablet for digital reading. They are reading and studying, however. “Lifelong learning”, learning something new throughout their entire lives. The sub-heading is very clear. “How to survive in the age of automation”. Inside, apart from the editorial (studying and learning is indispensable but does not necessarily guarantee any reduction in inequalities…), there are eleven pages of investigations.  Everything is worth reading, carefully (“lifelong learning”, by the way, is also keeping oneself informed, is it not?).

Reading, studying, learning. A challenge for the workplace and for one’s personal and social role in life. A challenge for the use of language (we already discussed this in last week’s blog, in relation to the use of the subjunctive and to the difference in strength and power “between those who use 100 words and those who use 1000”).  Nowadays it is worth really paying attention to the meaning of words which are well understood and well-utilised. This will allow us to manage how they evolve.

The initial focus is on the economy. On the understanding and awareness of phenomena. Can we take, for example, the “Great Crisis” which blew up around a decade ago and whose effects we are still observing? At its roots there is still a poor use of words. A “failure of language”. This is explained by Arjun Appadurai, a professor of anthropology at New York University, in a book recently released by the publisher Cortina and entitled “Banking on words – the failure of language in the age of derivative finance” (to which Massimo Giannini made reference in La Repubblica newspaper, on 2nd January). That failure hinges on the word “derivative”.  An insurance certificate linked to agriculture and to meteorological vagaries, at its origins (a good product, in fact, as an insurance policy for farmers) which, however, becomes something completely different in the age of financial greed: a whirling paper vortex, almost always aimed at ignorant savers, persuaded by rapacious speculators, to buy “promises” of sumptuous profits. “Junk bonds”, as someone, in a rare moment of sincerity in Wall Street, had called certain financial products of an obscure type and which, in the end, spelled certain failure.

In this world where paper only produces more paper, the markets deal in pieces of paper which only very distantly relate to a real asset from which they derive their existence, “derivative” finance is separated from the real economy, betraying itself, and its basic function of financing companies and economic development. It becomes pretence and deceit.

The market too becomes separated from itself, moving from a place of exchanges into a “chain letter”.  And millions of families, who were taken in by the promises of derivative riches (as in so many other cases through history where someone believed in the illusions about the philosopher’s stone which turned everything into gold, from speculation about tulip bulbs and the myriads of toxic financial experiments…) found themselves out on the street. Homeless. Jobless. This was the Great Crisis. People ruined by the “charismatic nature of derivatives” and by the deceit “of a market transformed into an absolute ontology”. “A semantic swindle”, remarks Appadurai. An interplay of words and economic graphics which are indistinguishable “from the schemes of astrologers, parapsychologists and readers of Tarot cards”. This, then, is the “failure of language”. With eager finance characterised not “by intelligence but by sophisticated stupidity” (the definition is by John Kenneth Galbraith) and which finds an audience as a result of the minimal levels of attention paid to it (ignorance of the economy, low level of information provided) on the part of those who are charmed by it and especially in view of the responsibility of a policy which for too long had chosen not to discipline the markets with efficiency, simplicity and transparency and to check on what was being foisted upon very rash savers and investors.

Appadurai places the emphasis heavily on the value of words. And he writes about the need to achieve a “radical transformation of the architecture of our social thinking” and therefore “to rethink from the very foundations the vocabulary which we utilise to speak about human society”. To reconstruct that language which had failed. To give back value and sense to words.

We live off words, actually. And words have a soul. And wings. They announce things. They remind us of things. They define the world. They are not made of the same substance as dreams. But they weigh so heavily, on the history and on the destiny of humanity, that they can move and perhaps change things which have been said.

It would also be worthwhile for the financiers and economists, leaving aside in their “public utterances” their abstruse technical terminology (behind which, as Appadurai also documents, deceit is often hidden…) to return to the true value of the words they use. By re-reading the works of the writers and the poets, for example. By accepting what was said by Paco Ignacio Taibo III: “We write because we believe in the power of the word, in its transforming ability of persuasion; we know that literature is the most efficient weapon of destruction of damaged neurons”. And let us remember Paul Eluard: “There are words which make us live/ And they are innocent words/ The word warmth/ the word trust/ Justice love and the word liberty/ the word son and the word kindness/ Certain names of flowers certain names of fruits/ The word courage the word discover/ And the word brother and the word companion/ And certain names of places and countries/ and certain names of women and of friends…”.

Here they are, some key words, including in economics: Justice, liberty… Trust. And kindness. “Kindness in our words to start again”, remarks Dacia Maraini, an extremely sensitive writer, quoting (in the Corriere della Sera newspaper, on 3rd January) the end-of-year speech by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. And she asks for an improved vocabulary. “Let us re-discover good manners, politeness, courtesy, trustworthiness, understanding, tolerance”. Is it too much to ask of a banker, a financier, an entrepreneur and a manager, to pay closer attention to the cardinal words of civil cohabitation, in addition to the technical terms of the Anglo-Saxon “market-based” jargon?

Because “words are important”, “we need to combat wrong words” and “let us find the right words”, exhorted Nanni Moretti in the film, “Palombella rossa”(“Red Wood Pigeon”).  Declaring that “he who speaks badly thinks badly and lives badly”.  The swindle of financial language and the Great Crisis are confirmations of this. In order to leave them behind with dignity, it is critical to continue to read, to study and to learn. For the whole of our lives.  Hence, through “lifelong learning”.

A doctoral thesis presented at Marche University addresses the relationship between business profitability and industrial districts. 

Good business stems from and grows out of the context in which it is conducted. The human aspects are as important as the technological ones, i.e. the social “climate, the personal stories, the ability to invent as well as to calculate. In other words, the business culture that emerges not just inside of factories and which an attempt has been made to create through business parks. This is not an easy task, but worthwhile when done well.  For this reason, the study “Industrial districts, localising business and profitability” carried out by Dimitri Storai as part of his doctoral research in Economics at Marche University, Department of Economic and Social Science, makes interesting reading.

His work looks at the theoretical and practical aspects underpinning relations between industrial districts and the financial performance and profitability of the businesses working within them.  The key aspect of the research, though, is the tenet on which Storai’s thesis hinges. He believes industrial districts are a people-friendly means of development. They represent a model in which small enterprises, working within a larger network, can overcome the same challenges as large enterprises. Within the model there is also little room for the bitter dynamics that are typical of capitalism in other contexts. It is therefore a model of efficiency and rationality, combined with something else, the effects of which the study explores.

Consequently, Storai states that one of the study’s main objectives is to verify “the impact of business location on business performance. In particular, it aims to explore the connection between the profitability of manufacturing organisations and the area in which they are located by looking at the underlying economic variables.”

Storai starts by looking at the nature and evolution of Italy’s industrial districts then moves on to examining the links between location and profitability. He also points to  business districts in the UK as a case study.

There are three noteworthy conclusions.

Most importantly, the author explains that, “the data presented in my doctoral thesis shows how location can still play an important role in the profitability of manufacturing enterprises.” But the relationship is not as simple and automatic as it might appear. Indeed, Storia explains that “many different factors are at play in the effect territory has on business performance. Moreover, the type of territorial resources sought depends on the type of organisation.” Storai doesn’t stop there. He also highlights how “understanding the factors which can boost business performance, from the point of view of the local area, is key to policies put in place to ensure the area is, and continues to be, attractive to business, thereby safeguarding the livelihoods of the local population.

The result of a complex interplay of both objective and subjective factors, the picture that emerges of the relationships between organisations and the areas hosting them is a complex one with multiple explanations. Dimitri Storai’s work is a useful way of adding to one’s knowledge of the Italian manufacturing fabric.

Distretti industriali, localizzazione d’impresa e profittabilità

Dimitri Storai

PhD Thesis  – Marche University, Department of Economic and Social Science, Economics PhD Programme.

2016

The history of “things” which have changed our lives and marked a change in direction in individual, social and manufacturing culture, all packed into a book.

Culture is also shaped by small things. Indicators of something bigger yet not elitist. Things that change, shape our life and end up defining an era, a way of seeing and interpreting things, of perceiving work, leisure, relationships, both personal and social.  Things which are varyingly referred to as universal culture, business culture, culture of the masses or of single layers of society. Looking back on the objects which marked the evolution of said culture can be a useful exercise. It does us all good. Because “things” give an insight not only into ways of living and working, they also illustrate how development, progress and growth were framed. That’s why the very recently published “I migliori oggetti della nostra vita” [lit. The best objects of our life] by Marta Boneschi makes such an interesting read.

The book takes the reader on a journey through the things which changed our lives over the past one hundred years, since the second world war in particular, and emerged as the major milestones of the era. The premise is a very simple one: life in the 20th century changed more than in any other century. Many of the values, behaviour, lifestyles, and objects which had been ours for centuries were all banished to the loft. Radical change indeed, but underpinned by objects, apparently only small things, which very quickly entered our lives and became an everyday part of it.

We have antibiotics to cure our ills, running water, central heating, frigidaires and minipimers, the book tells us. We have trains, bikes, scooters and cars, both to travel in and holiday with, and then there’s cinema, radio and television.  We also have objects which have engendered new habits, like mobile phones and smartphones, not to mention computers and the web.

Marta Boneschi – journalist first and foremost and also historian, with a talent for accurate but light-hearted narration – has put together a well thought out catalogue of the things which have made us what we are. And which, in turn, shaped the culture we know today, in both images and words. Stories of everyday objects (like kitchen utensils, medicines, washing machines, sewing machines, plastic, the radio, telephones, bicycles) flash past, along with tales of other things which brought sweeping changes we’ll all recognise (cars, motorways, television, trains, Vespa scooters) and yet more which “transformed”  habits (advertising, the pill, books, cinema). Many of these products were also the building blocks of Italian manufacturing and will forever be associated with their leading brand names. This is proof of an evolving business culture which is being, to some degree, both recovered and reinvented.  Each and every object is presented in words and images, with passion and precision.

Marta Boneschi’s treatise should not be mistaken, however, merely for a congenial look at the life and times of the modern world.  Behind it lies much more.  It contains a dynamic picture of society – Italy in particular – which has grown new skin and substance in a very short space of time; a world which has mutated its ideals (not always for the better), found new pathways and paradigms of growth (social and economic), and embraced new challenges (both manufacturing and industrial).

“I migliori oggetti della nostra vita” has something for everyone, including those trying to understand modern society and its many ills.

I migliori oggetti della nostra vita

Marta Boneschi

il Mulino, 2016

What if I were to invent, buy, produce, sell? Or if it were necessary that someone go, vote, say, want. The subjunctive is important. Essential even. It conveys, clearly, suggestion, desire, possibility. In the information economy age, language is the backbone, not just of “public discourse”, but also of the most sophisticated research, scientific and economic knowledge. The clear articulation of knowledge is vital. In an age of uncertainty and liquid modernity, the subjunctive is the verb tense of contemporary complexity. Abolishing it, as some would advocate, is the last thing we should be doing. It must be safeguarded. Used. Disseminated. For the sake of quality discourse. And of action.

Let’s take a closer look, starting from a question raised by political scientist, Angelo Panebianco (“Sette – Corriere della Sera”, 23 December), in an article entitled,  “A country divided by a verb.” His premise was: “The decision, even if purely academic, that we can stop using the subjunctive, and therefore stop teaching it, will actually widen the social divide, not close it.” Class differences are, in fact, “a lot less evident than they used to be.” Aside from appearances (clothing, customs, spending habits) “language habits are probably the biggest marker of social differences. When I hear a young person speak, it doesn’t take me long to work out if he went to a good or mediocre school, and if his family is rich or poor.  If I had to choose between two relatively well qualified people, “I’d hire the one with superior language skills.” Use of the subjunctive can swing such a decision. It can be vital in the labour market too, and for the future of younger generations. An issue once raised by Lorenzo Milani (worth re-reading, fifty years after his death, perhaps in the biography recently published by Mario Lancisi for Laterza, “Processo all’obbedienza” is back on the table.

The risks of a declining use of the subjunctive is, as most will be aware,  a recurring theme in public debate. Facebook is thick with groups defending it. If use of the subjunctive is dwindling, “let’s not make a big deal out of it,” said Francesco Sabatini, a leading exponent of Italy’s Accademia della Crusca (language academy), in his new book, “Lezione di Italiano” (Italian lesson) published by Mondadori. He also added that “we must respect that “language evolves and “try not to take an aristocratic approach.”

So it’s farewell to the “aristocratic” subjunctive, then? Perhaps. If it were to go, Italian would be all the poorer, more vulgar, and robbed of essential nuances of meaning and substance. Not to mention one more very noticeable disadvantage for the poorer, more fragile, less well-read parts of society.

Current trends to make school “easier”, with less demanding subject matter and more lenient testing (abolishing written exams, for instance) are steps in this inauspicious and deleterious direction. Philosopher Nuccio Ordine had this to say:  “Impoverishing public education means penalizing children from the poorest of families (the rich can take their children elsewhere.)  Knowledge needs time, hard-work and perseverance. Haste and blandness are enemies of learning.” (Corriere della Sera, 20 December.) As the abolition of the subjunctive would be. We have to insist if we are to defend it. And use it more. And better.

Language is, therefore, a responsibility. Like power. And also a tool of democracy (the teachings of a linguist the likes of Tullio De Mauro, who passed away a few days ago, and Antonio Gramsci’s analysis of the “political nature of every aspect of language”, are becoming increasingly relevant in this regard.)

There is also another lesson to be born in mind, summed up in the phrase: “A labourer knows 100 words, the owner knows 1000. That’s why he’s the owner.”

It’s been fifty years since the “Letter to a teacher at the Barbiana school” was published. This seminal text on the power of language and the importance of education was written by Catholic priest Lorenzo Milani (a much-loved scholar, adored by De Mauro, who considered him a master, and by the many young pupils who studied with him in his remote village on the Tuscan hills.) The thought expressed continues to be amazingly topical. Average education levels have risen significantly, it’s true. It’s also true that the need for knowledge and skills, in order to respond to the many questions thrown up by our controversial contemporary world (the economy, science, research, the quality of life and the environment), has risen even more.  General levels of culture, though, have not kept pace, and therein lies the main problem.  Language, a tool and testament of culture, has not improved either.

We are faced with a rise in skills, in both nature and depth, but no corresponding rise in critical, conscious knowledge.  This is an issue of fundamental importance. It affects civil life (what purpose is there in being a citizen incapable of “public discourse”, namely participating in political debate and social policy?), economic development, the professional development and quality of the “establishment”, the very foundations of democracy (the danger of populism also lies in the mediocre language, the coarse and loose nature of  dialogue, of its exponents.)

In culture lie the tenets of power, even today. In the production and control of knowledge, and therefore also in the richness of written and spoken language. In the sophisticated command of language (or better still, of languages) in all its forms and modes. Including the subjunctive, obviously.

An accurate analysis of the role of institutions in the growth of our country and what (a lot) still needs to be done has just been published

A company works better if it is aware of the surrounding scenario. Today too. Especially today, provided one is capable of picking out the most useful and most of all the most reliable information out of the stack of data available. It is the modern transposition of “knowing in order to decide” coined by Luigi Einaudi and which is currently extremely applicable to every shrewd entrepreneur.  Among the useful recent tools to achieve this objective, there is definitely “Perché l’Italia cresce poco” (Why Italy is growing so little) by Alfredo Macchiati who writes as a lecturer of Economic politics at the LUISS institute in Rome, but makes an effort to ensure a wider audience of readers can understand him.

His is an analysis on the actions undertaken in recent years by the institutions and by the political decision-makers with regards the needs of the economy and of manufacturing, and hence growth. The starting point is a statement: the political system which has been established since 1992 has failed to solve the problems of the economy which were inherited from the First Republic, neither has it proven capable of facing any new problems. It is explained that, obviously, some things have been done, but not enough.

For Macchiati, the reasons for the prolonged stagnation that has affected Italy for more than twenty years now should be sought in certain structural features, first and foremost the weakness and, at the same time, the omnipresence of the State. The objective of this book is therefore to examine “more closely the concrete way of operating on the part of institutions”. It is an examination of the context in which all the players of the economy move.

The text starts with an overview of what has happened, and then analyses particular aspects such as justice, taxation, domestic order, private economic institutions and the financial system. Subsequently Macchiati investigates in-depth the period which is referred to as “the critical turning point of 1992-95” and then the season of reforms (some of which “partial” and others “poorly conceived”).

The tenth chapter of the book constitutes the synthesis and the concluding point of the route travelled by Macchiati. So the question is: what does the future of the Italian economy hold? The author identifies certain “impending factors” which have blocked the Country over the last twenty-year period: so-called politics, the presence of interest groups “who have worked as veto powers”, the public administration and the discrepancy between national culture and certain reforms. When faced with these factors, Macchiati sets out certain conditions for growth such as an institutional system of industrial research, the creation of institutions capable of truly ensuring the connection between research and industry, efficient bureaucracy, a reduction in the levels of government in charge of expenditure. And then at least three reforms referred to as being “decisive” in relation to university education, taxation and the South.

What Macchiati writes about the growth of our Country is definitely not marked by an optimism without ifs and buts, it is rather an accurate analysis of the role of each of the main players in the system – the institutions – , which gives nothing away for free but which acknowledges what has been done and what (a lot) still needs to be done. A good read for entrepreneurs and managers too.

Perché l’Italia cresce poco (Why Italy is growing so little)

Alfredo Macchiati

Il Mulino, 2016

Some research focuses on the relations between entrepreneurial characters and the degree of innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises in the South of Italy

To innovate, you need people who are not only capable of innovating, but who want to. This assumption only appears to be banal. In actual fact, it isn’t always easy to find situations that are in any way close to this ideal. There could be a multitude of reasons why, and often objective ones. But understanding better the ties between the personality of the entrepreneur and the degree of innovation in the company is useful for a number of reasons.

An attempt was made by Alberto Marcati (Marketing Lecturer at the LUISS institute in Rome), Gianluigi Guido (Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Lecce), Alessandro M. Peluso (PhD student in Economic and Quantitative Methods for Market Analyses of the University of Lecce). The field of application of the investigation was the system of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the South of Italy. The result is not a very simple text to read, but its contents can be a good read for those who want to find out more about a sector of research into a complex and significant reality.

The basic idea behind the work by the three researchers is clear: “The tendency to innovate and the personality of entrepreneurs – they write – make up psychological parameters that affect the dissemination and the implementation of innovations, whether these are productive, organisational or market-based”.  This interpretation of reality is verified on the SMEs in the South of Italy. “Character” of the entrepreneur and degree of corporate innovation are seen as determining factors which “may represent a discriminating series to survive and develop in the current globalised competitive climate, which is increasingly focused on the strategic value of knowledge”.

The work then explores, on the one hand, the reality of a stratified sample of South Italian entrepreneurs, distinguished according to commodities sector, number of employees and turnover. Then the following are measured: the General Tendency for Innovation (Italian acronym TGI), in other words the degree of aperture towards novelty, and the Specific Tendency for Innovation (Italian acronym TSI), in other words the precocity with which an innovation is introduced in a specific domain. On the other hand, using a model, an attempt is made to understand the relationship between these tendencies and the prevailing features of the personality of the entrepreneurs and the incidence on the intention to implement the innovations by the same.

The results confirm the close relationship between the personality of the entrepreneur and the degree of corporate innovation, but they also put forward other avenues to investigate. So, the relationship between innovation and personality of “the boss” is not that simple. Other features are also at play. And most of all the relations between entrepreneur and innovation are not always this linear and unequivocal. The path to understanding better the profound sense of corporate culture is not always linear either.

Effetti della tendenza all’innovazione e della personalità degli imprenditori delle PMI meridionali sull’intenzione d’innovare: uno studio sperimentale (Effects of the tendency towards innovation and the personality of Southern Italian SME entrepreneurs on the intention to innovate: an experimental study)

Alberto Marcati, Gianluigi Guido, Alessandro M. Peluso

Rivista Economica del Mezzogiorno, 2016

Work and productivity. But also and most of all work as dignity, responsibility, being part of a community. “Fewer e-mails and more personal dialogue”, suggests Brunello Cucinelli, the entrepreneur from Umbria who has turned luxury “made in Italy” clothing into a successful international business based on the key concept of corporate culture. “I defend interaction between people in an office, in a shared workplace. It is through sharing and dialogue that the best ideas come about”, states Carlo Ratti, architect and engineer, director of the Senseable City Lab of the Mit (Massachussets Institute of Technology) in Boston, a key place to study how the new technologies are changing cities (CorriereInnovazione, 2nd December).  To rethink work, in short, you need a kind of new “industrial humanism”, to use an expression that is dear to the Pirelli Foundation elaborations. Or even a new “digital humanism”, tying the opportunities offered by the new digital technologies to the recovery of relations between people: the context of a corporate culture where “community” is closely linked to “competitiveness”, emphasising the common root: “cum”, moving together. With a “dià” (through) “logos” (talking), a dialectic comparison between different people.

Let’s start with Cucinelli: “We have removed e-mails, or rather we have reduced them down to a minimum, to resume using the telephone or direct meetings. You get everything in a phone call, you hear how the other person is feeling, you create a better interconnection between people. When you send a message, on the other hand, you lose the global perception of things, you use a cold tool, and to understand fully and find a common point you end up wasting more time” (Linkiesta, 2nd December). It is an important thought, which many of us have probably had. Without considering that the language of e-mails is by nature assertive and not conversational, and it takes on hi tech neo-bureaucratic tones, generating misunderstandings, flooding an important communication in an over-abundant flow of para-information and often creating scapegoats (“I had e-mailed you about this, didn’t you read it?”…”but you were ccd in the e-mail…”). Better to look at one another straight in the eye for as long as possible. Speaking directly to each other. Trying to find a sincere dialogue. Quality and efficiency of shared work can only benefit from this.

The second observation comes from Ratti: “In the 1990s, there were people who predicted, beside new forms of cities, the disappearance of offices as necessary workplaces. The end of distances was forecast. Nicholas Negroponte thought that technology would reduce the need to meet up. It is true that these days, you can even go and work from the top of Mount Everest. But the question we should ask ourselves is this: why would you want to work from the top of a mountain?”. Negroponte, guru of information technology and an authoritative profession at the same Boston MIT (hence a colleague of Ratti’s) was naturally right. But only in part. Because the new digital technologies end up being truly productive and stimulating for creativity only if they are used as facilitators of inter-personal relations. Not an absolute must in itself. But as a tool. To save time, of course. And to improve access to dialogue by bridging distances. But without claiming that they can replace direct dialogue just as effectively (perhaps using Skype or Facetime).

According to Ratti’s observations, we can also take notes and think about “smart working”. This practice is becoming more and more widespread, even in Italy. Stimulated by provisions made by the former Renzi government. Discussed with interesting agreements between companies and trade unions. Experienced positively by workers to try to combine work time with life outside work. And seen as an improvement in the sense of responsibility and a new work culture: the results are assessed, not the respect of the formal hours of presence at the office. All this is true. Yet there is a “but”: creativity, innovation, productivity also stem from direct dialogue, from the habit of exchanging opinions, all activities where the presence of all parties concerned in the same workplace is necessary. And the sense of identity and belonging grows better in conditions of sharing – both intellectual and physical. In short, smart working should be considered within the context of a general reconsideration of work styles and cultures, of the form of workplaces and productive layouts. An innovation with some controversial aspects. To be governed well, and smartly. Especially in seasons where the “economy of knowledge” prevails, where “digital” processes and “sharing economy” cultures are spreading more and more, leading to new inter-relations, and new thoughts.

The third reflection stems from the profound sense of the word “intelligence”, from the etymology that shows it derives from “tying together”. Connecting things, concepts, feelings that were not connected. Participation and community, once again. As well as thoughts that had never been had before. It is the relationship between creativity and “distraction” (Marco Belpoliti, “la Repubblica”, 10th December). The idea comes from Steve Jobs: creativity is the result of an unusual connection, seeing something that nobody had ever seen. To be successful, you don’t need a serial, productive, finalised thought. But rather a wandering thought. “Distraction”, in fact. The movements of intelligence with the curiosity and the keen eyes of the wanderer, of those who travel across a city not according to set routes, but wandering along new, unknown roads, to be discovered with the intelligence of the heart and a taste for emotions (here we are again, this “tying together”). As taught by a great poet, Charles Baudelaire and one of the most restless and innovative intellectuals of the 20th century, Walter Benjamin.

Filling workplaces with genuine dialogue and stimuli for creativity, extravagant thoughts and wandering curiosity?  It is a good dimension of corporate culture. Truly an innovative one.

The coldest season of the year as seen by Pirelli documents and promotional materials conserved in the Historical Archive of the Pirelli Foundation.

Even at the end of the 1930s the first Pirelli winter tyre, Artiglio, was at the centre of product communication. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s photos and advertisements told many other stories: the new BS (Battistrada Separato, Separated Tread) tyre  tests in a Scopinich photoshoot in Cortina d’Ampezzo; the celebrity satire of Riccardo Maniz and Alessandro Mendini and the abstractions of Ilio Negri, Giulio Confalonieri and Bob Noorda in the adverts for winter tyres.

Pirelli also made a range of products for winter; from the 1940s to the 1960s, a series of items made from rubber were produced to “Help the hard life of skiers: jackets, boots with rubber soles, grips and baskets for ski poles, straps for attachments and Superga G3 boots.”And the skiers themselves were the stars of advertising campaigns like that of Ezio Bonini in the 1950s and Zeno Colò for Inverno tyres in 1954.

Among the various documents and materials of our Historical Archive which focused on winter, there is also the ‘Pirelli’ magazine, where the magic of Christmas is told through great names of the era in literature and design: from the toys of Bruno Munari, used to create an ingenious Christmas machine which made snow fall down on the Christmas tree, to the production process of Pigomma games illustrated by Fulvio Bianconi, and from a journey through the Christmas window displays of luxury New York and Paris stores in an article by Albe Steiner on the new Christmas trends in 1955 to the textual illustrations of Andrè François. And then? Christmas according to Umberto Eco: from a letter to his son to a satirical tale on ‘Christmas Consumption’.And that’s not all. In the pages of ‘Pirelli’ magazine you will also find stories of the world of skiing: from racing champions and new lifts to advice on how to become a great skier and avoiding damaging falls.

The relationship between Pirelli and winter sports continues today with the sponsorship of the 2017, 2019 and 2021 Skiing World Championship and the 2017 World Ice Hockey Championships.

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