First the industrial revolution, then the digital revolution, with manufacturing caught in the middle, a manufacturing made of factories, offices, and a culture of production that arises, evolves and changes shape, but maintains the essence of the nature of the entrepreneur as one who brings together aspects of production, organises them, and generates wealth. Understanding what has happened in the past and what is happening now can help us to understand what to expect for tomorrow, particularly when we shift from the general to the particular, to practical situations, to the everyday life of a business and those who work there.

This is what we find in “Integrata, intelligente, digitale: il futuro della manifattura” (Integrated, intelligent, digital: the future of manufacturing), a collection of seven studies (by nine authors) of industry in the region of Lombardy and of Italian industry generally, which recently appeared in “Imprese & Città”, the magazine of the Milan chamber of commerce (Autumn 2014 edition).

The series of studies is tied together by a common thread that starts from an observation we find in the first few pages of the presentation: “Finding a way out of the crisis will depend on the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs able to find innovative responses to the challenges of our times: new areas of business, new products being offered, new organisational models, and new styles of consumption.”

The reasoning revolves around the union of tradition and innovation, old workers and new, factories and digital laboratories, and hinges, once again, on the entrepreneur and entrepreneurial spirit.

The focal points of the studies include: the digital revolution of manufacturing, the relationship between research and manufacturing, the challenge of “Made in China”, the relationship between workers and “new waves of technology”, and the interplay of designers, craftsmen, and “makers”. This brings us to 3D printing and the relationship between factories and “smart manufacturing”, as well as to the industrial “tragedies” of modern times. Naturally, the authors also cover exports, the new organisation of labour, bureaucracy, competition, and innovation, but true value added lies in finding together – in a single field – diverse approaches that come together and make each other more whole. Underlying all of this is a conviction regarding the “systemic effect” of technological innovation.

Also interesting and significant is a work by Mauro Magatti (sociologist and economist at Università Cattolica in Milan), “Considerazioni intempestive per una nuova generazione di imprenditori” (Untimely considerations for a new generation of entrepreneurs), which provides a roadmap to follow as laid out by the content of each individual study. A new journey through today’s culture of enterprise that we would all do well to read.

Integrata, intelligente, digitale: il futuro della manifattura

Various authors

Imprese & Città, no. 04/2014 – Magazine of the Milan Chamber of Commerce (Guerini & Associati)

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Pirelli has a close relationship with music, both today, with concerts in the Settimo Torinese factory (an event that is now in its third edition with the performance of Beethoven’s First and Seventh Symphonies), as well as hosting the rehearsals of the Italian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Salvatore Accardo and giving support to the Verdi Orchestra, and in the past, in the heart of the 1950s – a time of great cultural innovation and transformation in Italy and throughout Europe – working together with the avant-garde composer, John Cage.

An extraordinary figure in American music, many will remember him as the composer of the revolutionary 4’33”, a piece that features no deliberate sound, while, in Italy, many will remember him for his appearances on the game show Lascia o Raddoppia? with Mike Bongiorno as an expert in mushrooms, where he also performed his concerto per caffettiere (concert for coffee maker), but there can be no doubt that he was one who innovated and who left his mark in the world.

The year was 1954, and John Cage, a music theorist from Los Angeles and one of the leading figures of avant-garde music and of 20th-century culture generally, was a virtual unknown in Italy. His music was mainly seen as eccentric and even “scandalous”.  During his first European tour, he was called to perform at the Pirelli Cultural Centre, which was one of the leading hotspots of urban culture at that time. It was to be his first appearance before an Italian public, and it was a bold move by both Pirelli and Gino Negri, who was then the curator of music for the Pirelli Cultural Centre, and was a decision pushed for by the composer Luiciano Berio. The date was 5 November, at Brusada – where the centre was located before it moved to the Pirelli Tower in 1960 – when John Cage and his ever-present travel companion, David Tudor, performed their concert for “prepared pianos”, i.e. with screws, spoons, clothes pins, bamboo reeds, clock gears, marbles and other objects attached to the cords of the two pianos to produce all new types of sound. The concert was presented by the musicologist Riccardo Malpiero, and the programme included works by John Cage, Morton Feldmann, Christian Wolff and Earle Brown.  The audience, made up of some of the city’s most knowledgeable music lovers, were stunned, and the debate began. Thus this extraordinary musical event opened the doors to Cage and his ensuing experiences in Italy.