Research that has become a thesis explores the ways in which know-how can be passed on

Business traditions turn into a culture to be handed down and teachings that help establish new companies. This is what can often be achieved when we manage to weave a thread that brings together past and present while looking to the future. And it is what Andrey Felipe Sgorla relates with his research, which now forms a thesis presented at the University of Siena’s Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences.

“Bottle-Fermented Craftsmanship: Business Practices Linked to Passion, Work and the Local Area” is in fact a piece of research that addresses the topic of building new forms of work. Its starting point is the experience of craft brewers, seeking to understanding the relationship between learning, professional pathways and entrepreneurship in the context of the craft economy. This example can tell us much in general terms about the need to create job opportunities in an economic and social system in difficulty.

The development and growth of microbreweries, explains Sgorla, are an opportunity for

entrepreneurship in the craft sector, as they provide a growth area for

entrepreneurs seeking to create and promote high-quality products,

while leveraging local resources and contributing to the economic dynamism

of local areas. More generally, this case study makes it possible to study the process of

incorporating specialised knowledge, skills and expertise that takes place

through working practices. And all without neglecting the opportunity to understand the path to learning a previously unknown trade, of exploring a conjoining aspect of the local economy and its link with the area. In addition to all this, as the author is at pains to point out, the experience of craft brewers is part of a global phenomenon of individuals deciding to invest in new craft professions and give a fresh direction to their lives – a choice guided by autonomy, flexibility, pleasure and passion for their

work. And, on closer inspection, these are all important characteristics for anyone wanting to go into business.

Andrey Felipe Sgorla, however, looks at brewers and how they pass on their knowledge, starting from an exploration of contemporary craftsmanship before taking an in-depth look at the themes of training, professionalism and entrepreneurship. Subsequently, the research delves into both craftsmanship and the topic of know-how, before looking at the themes of collaborative innovation and storytelling. And it is precisely from narrating know-how that the potential for handing down trades that then become business opportunities begins to take shape.

Andrey Felipe Sgorla’s research is an example of how you can draw general guidelines from a particular case study.

L’artigianato fermentato in bottiglia: pratiche di imprenditorialità legate alla passione, al lavoro e al territorio (Bottle-Fermented Craftsmanship: Business Practices Linked to Passion, Work and the Local Area)

Andrey Felipe Sgorla

Thesis, University of Siena, Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, PhD in Learning and Innovation in Society and Work, “XXXVI°CICLO”, 2024

Will the future belong to cities or villages? This is a recurring question in the predictions of futurologists. It inspires analyses into the economy and society, urban and architectural projects – and even the forthcoming International Exhibition at the Triennale di Milano on the fate of cities. So, will we live in gigantic agglomerations with millions of inhabitants or in the quiet of small villages? Will we have no other choice?

Anyone, however, who looks carefully at the prospects for sustainable, environmental and social development cannot fail to reflect on a unique Italian condition. Namely, the possibility of combining the social and economic dynamism of large cities with the quality of life of small and medium-sized towns and historic villages, thus combining economic growth with social cohesion, the attractiveness and competitiveness of economically productive areas with the civility of positive relationships and the civic sense of welcoming communities.

To gain a better understanding, you can try to study the geographical maps – on paper or digitally – that tell the story of that large area that stretches, horizontally, from Piedmont to the North East and, vertically, from the Alps to Emilia and the part of Tuscany on the Tyrrhenian coast, with its two main outlets to the Mediterranean located at Genoa and Trieste. This is the ‘A1/A4 region‘ if we want to call it by the name of the motorways that run through it (a nice definition coined by Dario Di Vico, a perceptive economic journalist, in Il Corriere della Sera). Or, to give it another definition, the mega-region that is one of Europe’s richest and most productive, ideal for strengthening relations between the continent and the Mediterranean area opening onto Africa.

The area is polycentric. It has a wide range of urban dimensions but all are linked by intense social, economic and cultural flows, with a highly attractive metropolis – the so-called ‘greater Milan’ – five cities of significant size in Turin, Bologna, Florence, Genoa and Venice-Mestre, a series of medium to medium-large cities – Brescia and Bergamo, Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Parma and Piacenza – and a dense network of other urban areas full of history and solid economic and cultural roots (Pavia, Trento and Udine, to name but a few). In between, there are small towns and historic villages in the Apennines and along the coasts, with very varied and often well-integrated economic systems. A unique area of its kind, in Europe.

The agricultural hills of the Langhe and Treviso areas; the ‘Motor Valley’ of Emilia; the mechatronics and aerospace hubs in Varese, Gallarate and Busto Arsizio; the textile areas between Como and Biella; the mechanical and furnishing industries in Brianza; the shipbuilding and chemical industries; the centres of specialisation for metalworking and the packaging industry in Emilia; and so on and so forth: a portfolio of industrial excellence that has helped Italy become the world’s fifth largest exporter, to the tune of 670 billion euros in 2023.

An economic and financial giant, thanks to the growing influence of banks? Not only that.

Our maps testify to the presence of numerous universities, several of which (Milan, Turin and Bologna, above all) sit at the top of international rankings; to high-level research centres for the life sciences, including pharmaceuticals, healthcare and good nutrition; to world-class culture, including music and theatre, visual arts, science, high-tech publishing and literary activities; and to tourism. So, places and flows. People and ideas in motion. A civilisation of machines and relationships. A world with a taste for its roots and a global outlook. An area that is easily recognised in Carlo Maria Cipolla’s essential definition, when he speaks of ‘Italians accustomed, since the Middle Ages, to producing, in the shadow of bell towers, beautiful things that please the world’.

High-speed rail has been a real game-changer for the flow of people over the past ten years: you can live in Turin or Bologna and, with just an hour’s journey (the usual metropolitan time in Paris, London or New York), work in Milan, or vice versa. You can live in a village in the Po Valley and be connected to the rest of Europe, the US or China. You can feel part of an urban population and at the same time enjoy the silence of hillside villages. This is a changing world. A world that balances the metropolis with small villages. And it’s something that only this Italian area in question can provide.

So, does that mean everything is all right? Are we all happy? Of course not. Because flows of people – if they are to enable not only economic productivity but also boost the quality of life – need infrastructure that is both tangible and intangible. That means efficient transport, and not only for high-speed trains (the shortcomings and inefficiencies of the Ferrovie Nord railway lines in Lombardy are increasingly the reason for protests by tens of thousands of commuters). It means services. And fast and stable digital connections (a decent 5G network that matches the socio-economic situation described above is still a long way away). These are all unsatisfactory elements. Investments driven by the NRRP should provide some solutions, although doubts and delays are growing.

The economy is dynamic, rapid and productive. The way local authorities are structured lags behind. The law on metropolitan areas, which has never been fully implemented, is some way off from providing local political solutions and services in line with the new urban and social mobility. And there is an almost complete lack of general political choices around health, schooling (a fundamental part of cultural and civic integration and training) and assistance for weak and fragile individuals and social groups.

We must ‘combine development and social cohesion in medium-sized cities’, warns Aldo Bonomi, a sociologist focused on ‘molecular capitalism’ and the dynamics of the ‘infinite city’ (Il Sole24Ore, 26 March). Of course. But ‘civic infrastructure‘ and ‘collaborative networks’ are lacking. Services, to be precise. And good governance of the area, unshackled from neo-municipalism and the closed idea of suffocating identities, hostile to the essential cultures of plural, open and welcoming identities. Indeed, just as the Italian history of the ‘thousand bell towers’ teaches us.

This, then, is the challenge: to support economic sustainably, something that many companies have come to appreciate is not merely a marketing and communication choice, but a real competitive asset. And build new and better community values. Including by trying to govern those phenomena that are altering life in our cities: the devastating effects of mass tourism, the radical negative changes in property values, with Airbnb rents that are destroying historic town centres and drastically reducing the chances of certain middle-aged or young couples of finding a home (la Repubblica, 31 March), and the intolerable rise in the cost of living.

Cities, in order to grow, need cives – citizens who inhabit and live in them in a civic spirit and do not merely ‘use’ them, who frequent public and private places of work, sport, culture and leisure. They animate the flows of people being together. And they think about their future and that of their families in community spaces.

Italy’s history of civil economy, spirit of citizenship and community culture is full of examples and testimonies, from the round and welcoming ‘greater Milan’ to all those small and medium-sized cities and towns in the areas we mentioned above. We must insist on keeping widespread economic development and social inclusion together. Civic virtues persisting. And an aptitude for innovation. The bell’Italia proving, once again, that it knows how to be Italy.

(Photo Getty Images)

The third edition of the Campiello Junior Award came to an end today in the Sala del Ridotto of the Teatro Comunale in Vicenza.

The event devoted to young people and reading drew in a sizeable number of students from schools in the area. It was presented by the journalist Valentina de Poli, the director of Topolino for eleven years, together with the author and director Davide Stefanato. The ceremony was broadcast live on the Premio Campiello YouTube channel.

The 240 young readers on the popular jury, from all across Italy as well as from abroad, voted for their favourite book, ultimately selecting the two winners of this edition:

For the 7-10-year category: Angelo Petrosino, Un bambino,una gatta e un cane, Einaudi Ragazzi

For the 11-14-year category: Daniela Palumbo, La notte più bella, Il Battello a Vapore

Members of the Selection Jury of the Award also attended the event: the writer Pino Boero, president of the Jury; Chiara Lagani, actress and playwright; Michela Possamai, professor at the IUSVE University of Venice and former member of the Advisory Committee of Campiello Giovani, and David Tolin, bookseller and member of the ALIR Board.
Speakers also included Enrico Carraro, president of the Fondazione Il Campiello and of Confindustria Veneto, Mariacristina Gribaudi, chair of the Management Committee of the Premo Campiello and Antonio Calabrò, director of the Pirelli Foundation.

The two winners will receive the award in September during the Campiello 2024 Awards Ceremony.

To relive the event, click here.

Research by the Politecnico di Torino leads to a better understanding of how the effects of Information Technology change according to different production organisations

Information Technology affects companies in different ways. This is a common observation in everyday production systems but it takes on different and more important meanings when validated by the scientific method. On the other hand, moving from the observation to the evidence that validates it allows corporate culture to evolve, taking in new elements and growing in a more solid and complete way. Danilo Pesce and Paolo Neirotti of the Department of Management of the Politecnico di Torino based their reasoning on the impact of IT on companies according to product and sector types, and came up with a new ‘sector taxonomy’, i.e. a different and more effective classification of the effects that IT has according to the sector to which the company belongs and the type of product it makes.

‘The impact of IT-business strategic alignment on firm performance: The evolving role of IT in industries’ – which recently appeared in Information & Management – seeks to extend the traditional analysis on the strategic role of IT (automation, information, transformation) by considering how IT is changing the nature of the product or service in particular industries. Applying a mathematical analysis model, the authors found that in industries where the product/service is digital in nature, the companies that achieve the highest economic returns are those where IT is used to support dual strategies based on the integration of cost leadership and differentiation. In contrast, in other industries – with the exception of those producing raw materials – the companies that achieve higher returns are those that use IT to support differentiation.

In other words, IT is different depending on who applies it. This means that the same technology or the same working method, obtains different results because it is conditioned by the reference sector of the company, the production processes, and the people who work there. The focus, then, is on production cultures, which are far more complicated than a simple flow chart or even a complex mathematical equation. Cultures that change, in fact, for each enterprise. And that must be properly understood. Even when technological innovation appears to be decisive. Complexities of the company that must be analysed carefully, a task for which Pesce and Neirotti’s research can provide valuable help.

The impact of IT–business strategic alignment on firm performance: The evolving role of IT in industries

Danilo Pesce, Paolo Neirotti

Information & Management, 60 2023

Publication of a book that reasons on the generational differences to find new tools for business development

‘I am not of the age’, or ‘he is not of the age’. A new topic of debate is increasingly circulating in production organisations, which has taken on an ugly name: ‘ageism’. A matter of age, indeed.  That is, of prejudices that are not class or gender-based, but age-related. Which must be overcome in order not to risk sending into crisis companies that would otherwise have the numbers to grow. Prejudices that, if not overcome, risk blocking that good production culture that makes diversity (including age diversity) one of its secrets for success.

This is where the interest in ‘Il valore non ha età. Persone e organizzazioni oltre il divario generazionale”, (Value has no age. People and organisations beyond the generation gap’) originates. It is the title of a recently published book written by Giulia Tossici, Ilaria Marchioni and Gaia Moretti who combined different experiences to produce an effective synthesis of a complex topic: the topic of generations, age-related biases and stereotypes, all aspects, that is, which are increasingly cropping up in companies, so much so that they have created a call for age management.

The objective of everything is still the same: to foster growth, awareness and mutual understanding between people of different ages, with important repercussions on their motivation, creativity, willingness to collaborate and, consequently, also their productivity when working together. A topic that, with the entry of the very young members of Gen Z into companies and organisations in general, has become even more important and topical.

‘The challenge for everyone,’ the book explains, ‘is to be able to grasp the positive elements of innovation, diversity and demand for change that all this requires organisations to implement. According to the book, companies that meet the challenge will develop a considerable competitive edge.

But how? The key to achieving this, which is described in the book, is the integration and pooling of diversity in increasingly inclusive work environments.

All this is recounted and explained in just under two hundred pages that lead the reader step by step to an understanding of the subject of age and the tools to deal with it. It thus starts with a description of the generational differences and then moves on to give instructions on how to deliberate on the generations in the company and then delve into the gender stereotypes that need to be combatted. The book then considers the topic of generational change and thus the intergenerational models that can be put in place.

‘Il valore non ha età’ by Tossici, Marchioni and Moretti may surprise or irritate the reader, but it is certainly worth reading, with care and with an open mind.

Il valore non ha età. Persone e organizzazioni oltre il divario generazionale

Giulia Tossici, Ilaria Marchioni, Gaia Moretti

Egea, 2024

Using ChatGPT and other generative Artificial Intelligence systems to write (but also to build images, prepare speeches, simulate dialogues to be staged). Playing digitally with words. Producing sentences full of meaning. Filling apparently new pages with concepts developed, over time, by philosophers and historians, writers and sociologists, journalists and economists. Reproducing complex analyses in a few seconds and trying to use them to produce effective summaries. All this is attempted because “AI GPT writer” is “the Artificial Intelligence Chatbot that knows everything”, as Apple’s communication emphatically states.

Whether you like it or not, it’s a formidable and awe-inspiring new high-tech tool that we have among us. Its astounding possibilities shock and unsettle us. They trigger fears, including for the future of millions of people who see their jobs threatened. And it naturally poses cultural and moral, social and political, economic and legal questions (how to distinguish true from false? Who owns the intellectual property of a “new” text produced by assembling sentences by various authors recovered in the archives and reworked? And how should the profits generated by such a particular work of ingenuity be distributed?).

This is not the place to answer these many questions (maybe you could ask ChatGPT and see what it says). On the other hand, if anything, it’s an opportunity to try to think about a key issue: rather than demonising generative AI, in a sort of high-tech new Luddism, isn’t it better to understand it, control its results, regulate its processes? In other words, follow the old cultural and ethical lesson that, for a few centuries, has rightly wanted machines to be at the service of man and not the other way round. And manage the new technologies to improve people’s quality of life, avoiding that “domination of technology” that would humiliate humanity (thus trying to avoid the dangers feared by Martin Heidegger and, in terms of Italian economic history, translate into consistent choices and behaviours the pillars of “industrial humanism” dear to Olivetti and Pirelli’s development and business culture).

In summary: we need to know how to make sophisticated use of words to oversee the product of those who assemble words technologically and we need to have an in-depth knowledge of language to “use” ChatGPT products instead of just lazily receiving them and, therefore, being used by them.

The key issue is: the growing gap between the possibilities offered by AI and the increasingly stilted and impoverished language with which it knows how to name the things of the world less and less effectively. The mind-blowing technologies that we have available, in fact, open the door to new knowledge and demand new intellectual and linguistic syntheses (AI algorithms and systems must be written by combining the multidisciplinary skills of mathematicians, physicists, cyber scientists, statisticians but also philosophers, writers, economists, jurists, sociologists, etc.). But, over time, the language of millions of people has radically narrowed and dried up, our ability to use words has been reduced, the syntax in daily speeches is increasingly schematic, thanks partly to the habit of using social media and mental patterns such as “likes” and emojis, to contain any judgment in the 140 characters of a tweet (even when a more articulated and complex reasoning would be necessary) and in the dryness of a post on Facebook or in the caption of an image pompously called a “story” on Instagram. In short, reducing the richness of reality into the binary code of “friends or enemies”.

It is worth rereading the lesson of a great philosopher like Ludwig Wittgenstein to remember that “the limits of my language are the limits of my world” and therefore understand that not only the power of representing one’s thoughts and values, but also the very substance of one’s freedom lie precisely in the ability to use words properly and build discourses. It is how we value points of view, interests. And how we protect and affirm rights. In the very close link that links freedom of speech and democracy. Conscious and critical public discourse. As well as the development it entails.

To move from philosophy to cinema, it’s worth remembering Nanni Moretti’s famous phrase in “Red Palombella”: “Words are important… Those who speak badly, think badly and live badly”. And, as for literature, Octavio Paz, a great Mexican writer, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1990, wrote: ‘We do not know where evil begins, whether from words or from things, but when words become corrupted and meanings become uncertain, the meaning of our actions and of our works also becomes equally precarious. Things rely on their names and vice versa’. Because, again “a country becomes corrupted when its syntax becomes corrupted”.

Therefore, the growing inability, increasingly widespread among the new generations, to fully use the language, to express themselves with all the richness that vocabulary and syntax allow, cannot but create alarm.

“Today, children no longer know how to write,” Paolo Di Stefano notes in the “Corriere della Sera” (13 March), giving substance to the criticisms and concerns that emerge from the various worlds of culture, professions, journalism and publishing. And noting that “after schools, university studies should further the exercise of reasoning and therefore of writing, but instead oral exams prevail and the so-called ‘closed questions’ (tick a box) require no written processing”. And yet, writing well means reading well and therefore understanding well the reality that we have around us and knowing how to tell a story, explain, criticise, arguing how to change and reconstruct it.

So, a cultural challenge. Social. And civil. Because “conscious citizenship, the prime objective of a mature country, is not expressed through tweets and posts, but through broad (and, why not? complex) reasoning that only the exercise of logical, clear, careful writing – as opposed to cumbersome, confused, approximate writing – can guarantee.”

Going back to writing, is therefore necessary. And so is re-evaluating handwriting, also because it is a technique that condenses thoughts, stimulates synthesis, and better interprets the time for reflection and understanding.

Reasoning is fundamental, for the new generations. Their digital aptitude and their critical intelligence are needed, precisely to deal with all the issues posed by Artificial Intelligence. But they must simultaneously know how to invest the capital of wisdom contained in language carefully, in well-constructed words used in the right way. Because “there are words that make you live…”, as a productive poet, Paul Eluard, wisely knew how to write, rhyming them,… “the word courage the word discover/ the word warmth the word trust/ justice love and the word freedom…”.

(Photo Getty Images)

The history of one of the most important industrial groups explains a lot about the economic nature of the country.

There are businesses that have truly made the economic and industrial history of an area and an entire country. Perhaps they’re not “perfect”, but they’re significant, and it’s good to know their history in order to understand the performance of an entire economy and, above all, outline its possible developments. This is why we need to be aware of the evolution of some of Italy’s great industrial names. The Edison group is certainly one of these. This is why the book that Marco Fortis has just published on the Group’s 140 years of history is a must-read (with attention).

Storia del Gruppo Edison: 1883-2023. Le direttrici di sviluppo di una grande impresa industriale (History of the Edison Group: 1883-2023. The development guidelines of a great industrial enterprise) demonstrates its value right from the subtitle, a promise to illustrate the developmental path of a company that has for a long time made a fundamental contribution to the economic growth of Italy. Because the history of Edison is truly fundamental for Italian industry in general, packed as it is with figures of great calibre, times of varying fortunes, transformations, problems and crises, as well as innovations and new challenges, some that have been met successfully and some still to face.

Fortis’ story is compelling, a narrative covering the entire history of the Edison Group from the founding of the company in 1883 until 2023. It also contains some significant sections, such as the profiles of continuity between the “historic Edison” and the current Edison. First comes the history, with the pioneering electrification company of the late 19th century, with the construction of the first power station in Europe in Milan, Santa Radegonda, and the lighting of La Scala. Then come the steps in the last 30 years, with the Edison Group gradually returning to position as a leading national operator in the energy sector, with significant changes in the shareholding structure, in the orientation of the company’s activities and in the redefinition of its industrial strategy. We then come to a “new” Edison that has concentrated its vision and its strategic guidelines for the future increasingly on generating renewable energy, on the geographical diversification of its natural gas supply sources, on commercial activities, on energy and environmental services and in the direction of renewed attention to nuclear energy. This “new” Edison, however, and as we said before, didn’t fail to remember its origins and take inspiration from them in some way.

The approximately 200 pages of the book relate not only the affairs connected with the shareholders, but also those of the “entrepreneurs, engineers and administrators” who animated the company as well as the phases of decline following others of rebirth characterised, as we said, by a kind of common thread uniting past and present.

The meaning and usefulness of Fortis’ book can be found in many passages. To take one example: “Edison belongs to a small number of large private and public groups in strategic sectors with a history stretching over decades, which our country has preserved. For these reasons too, it constitutes an irreplaceable resource.” It’s a resource that must be understood and valued, and therefore described well, as Marco Fortis himself succeeds in doing.

Storia del Gruppo Edison: 1883-2023. Le direttrici di sviluppo di una grande impresa industriale

Marco Fortis

il Mulino, 2024

An effective summary of the applications of Artificial Intelligence to the training needs of organisations has been published.

Learning quickly but above all more effectively (and easily) is an important goal, also in work environments. The goal is also not only to enrich general culture and business culture in particular, but within production organisations to acquire basic knowledge of decisive importance in increasing safety at work and accuracy in jobs and tasks that need to be performed. The process of training can now be explored more easily starting from a better clarification of training needs and the use of artificial intelligence.

Mario Vitolo and Francesco Santopaolo ponder these issues in their recent article in FOR – Rivista per la formazione.

“Analisi del fabbisogno formativo e Intelligenza artificiale” (analysis of training needs and artificial intelligence) seeks to outline the (constructive) relationships between identifying training needs, AI and the tools that digital technologies make available. It is a sort of review of this intersection as it currently stands, serving as a foundation for further investigation.

The position of the authors is that if e-learning has added flexibility to training and learning, artificial intelligence “will play a significant role in supporting analysis of training demand and defining needs in organisational contexts, providing a valuable contribution at all stages of the process.” In other words, Vitolo and Santopaolo see AI as a kind of accelerator for the process of identifying gaps and areas for improvement in organisations. This goal can be achieved through various routes, from the use of more traditional methods to ones focusing on advanced procedures. But there’s more to it than that.

AI can add the results from training to training needs analysis, a more effective and rapid check that seems to represent the real contribution that AI can make to a delicate phase in the growth of businesses: staff training and training updates.

It’s a captivating scenario – one that Vitolo and Santopaolo have the merit of summarising – which nonetheless must not distract from the complexity and delicacy of the subject addressed: human culture (applied to production).

Analisi del fabbisogno formativo e Intelligenza artificiale
Mario Vitolo, Francesco Santopaolo
FOR – Rivista per la formazione, Fascicolo 2023/3

In economic policy jargon, you might hear about “foot voting” or “voting with your feet”, not a criticism of ill-considered voting but an expression of how an individual dissatisfied with the policy of a given public administration can demonstrate their opposition, their preferences, by emigrating elsewhere. The phrase, central to the studies of American economist Charles Tiebout, was often used by US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to recommend competitive tax policy between US states in the race to reduce taxes in order to attract people and investment. Prominent economists such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman had written about it, and contemporary Italian debate on differentiated regional autonomy is also influenced by this liberal-liberalist approach.

For example, Italians from southern cities who choose treatment in Milan, but also Turin or Bologna “vote with their feet”, in search of better services in the public and private hospitals of the North (but with costs borne by the southern regions, with their run-down yet expensive healthcare). Everyone from Milan who would rather go and live in Pavia, Magenta, Corbetta or Monza than suffer intolerable increases in the cost of living votes with their feet. Pensioners who preferred to change their residence to Tunisia and Portugal (and now, after the Portuguese reforms, they’re looking at Greece or even San Marino) to get a substantial reduction in the tax burden on their incomes vote with their feet. Also voting with their feet, with great effort and suffering from the separation, are those who abandon their ill-served municipalities and choose other, towns and cities with better infrastructure: 49.3% of Italian municipalities have a negative variation in population, with peaks of 89.3% in Basilicata, compared to just 15.2% in Trentino, an autonomous province that is well governed in terms of quality of life (“Italy’s depopulated inland municipalities: inhabitants flee, over-80s remain”, headlines IlSole24Ore, 17 March).

The companies that leave Italy and choose to invest in other countries also vote with their feet (the economic news provides ample evidence).

Above all, the 1.8 million young Italians (32% of the 25–34 age group) who have left Italy in the last 20 years to seek better working and living conditions elsewhere according to Censis voted with their feet, as do others of their age who continue to do so. This is demonstrated, among other things, by a report conducted by Astraricerche for ManagerItalia and Kilpatrick and published by Il Sole24Ore (13 March), according to which among expatriate business executives, only 22.8% want to return to Italy (it was 43.6% in a similar survey ten years ago) and all the rest are happy to stay abroad (33.7% with particular conviction) because in our country “there is a lack of valid professional opportunities with respect to my needs” or “because Italy is in decline and will never be able to recover” or “because there is no meritocracy”.

This volume of “votes with feet”, due to the quality of healthcare, tax burden, quality of life or opportunities for individuals and families to grow, should represent loud alarm bells regarding the risks of decline to avoid, imbalances to correct and reforms to begin implementing. Yet there’s little trace of it in our public debate, an irresponsible shortcoming.

Looking to the future, the most shocking figures concern young people.

Italy is right in the middle of a demographic winter, and the fertility rate of each woman is just 1.24, among the lowest in the world and in any case far from the replacement rate of 2.1% (i.e. 2.1 children per woman would be needed to keep the population from decreasing). In 2023, fewer than 400,000 children were born for the first time (in 2008 there were 600,000; in 1964, just after the height of the economic boom, there were 1 million).

For more than 30 years, in short, this ageing country has recorded more deaths than births (746,000 in 2020). “An Italy without children”, summarises Il Foglio (11 March).

Not only is the demographic weight of the coming generation decreasing, but many are leaving, worsening the overall picture. And fewer young people, long-term, means less productivity, less innovation, greater burden on the public coffers (on our taxes, consequently on our debt) due to burdens on the social security and health systems.

It is true that the ingenuity of the Italian people still keeps the machinery of production on its feet, as Marco Fortis illustrates, using data to show how “Italy is first in Europe for per capita GDP growth, despite the falling birth rate” (IlSole24Ore, 12 March) and therefore still has innovative and productive energy. But these are situations that can’t be permitted to continue long-term.

And so?

Ambitious, growth-oriented policy decisions are required, to finally make our country attractive not only to our young people, but also to all those who may look to Italy as the place to find better opportunities for work, life, enterprise, inclusion and sustainable development.

Policies for the family, with all the consequences in terms of services and incentives to reconcile work with parenthood. Well-governed immigration policies. And a general commitment, cutting across all political forces, to rebuild a robust social capital of trust, to stimulate a positive development culture. Trust is the key to positive demographic choice. Families and children are built on trust.

This is to be done without playing on fear, but by demonstrating – above all to young people of both sexes – that we’re working on a better future for them.

This was the widespread climate in post-war Italy, the Italy of Reconstruction and Recovery. Despite concerns about the dangers of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet world, social problems and political tensions, people invested, worked, built families and homes for them to live in, improved schools and, in time, launched public health care. They were all aware, albeit with different accents and cultural, economic and political positions, that a country’s development depends on investment, on innovation, on the spread of new technologies, but above all on the role and will of the citizens who go, stay, arrive – who plan, who act.

So people were voting with their feet even then, heading for the places of work where a better Italy was being built.

(Photo Getty Images)

Sixty years ago, when “Swinging London” was at its height, with the Beatles and Mary Quant, Pirelli UK Ltd’s advertising department came up with a groundbreaking promotional idea that would etch itself into the history of contemporary culture and art: the Pirelli Calendar. An icon of corporate communication, a social phenomenon, and, owing to the limited number of copies, a coveted status symbol and cult object for collectors. “The Cal” has left an indelible mark — and continues to do so — on the cultural landscape. Each year, it draws on the greatest international names: not just photographic luminaries like Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and Bruce Weber, but also fashion icons such as Karl Lagerfeld and “pop” artists like Allen Jones.
Each artist has been tasked with exploring and interpreting their own personal vision of womanhood, the iconographic heart of the project. Female beauty has evolved in various ways over the years, and the imagery of the Calendar, which acts as a witness and a mirror of its times, has documented these shifts in taste and fashion, and in social norms.

Launched in 1964, “The Cal” found its winning formula in big-name photographers, top-notch graphic quality, exotic natural settings – from the sunny beaches of Mallorca to the crystalline waters of the Bahamas and the evocative landscapes of Jamaica, coupled with a celebration of feminine beauty, initially captured in bold compositions and close-up shots of faces. The early editions aimed to transport viewers into a realm beyond everyday life, evoking timeless dreamworlds.
As the Calendar evolved, it reflected reality and adapted to the passage of time: after the protests of 1968 and the Women’s Liberation movement, the 1970s brought a radical shift. In 1972, Sarah Moon became the first female photographer to take on the task, infusing her work with a highly personal style, with dreamlike atmospheres, impressionistic suffused lighting, and sepia tones creating a soft vintage effect. Her ethereal images offered a romantic exploration of femininity. 1973 brought another upheaval as Allen Jones, a British pop art celebrity, introduced a more explicit sensuality.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Calendar played with the aesthetic models of the time, with fashion stereotypes and classics of the male imagination, wavering between provocation and hardcore. Graphically, it pushed boundaries with glamorous photography and spectacular visual cues, inspired by the vivid colours of Barry Lategan’s tableaux vivants, Arthur Elgort’s dramatic chiaroscuros of the Olympic Games, and Norman Parkinson’s technical virtuosity. Despite the passing decades and the changes in culture between the present day and the collective fantasies captured in those bygone eras, the Calendar has remained synonymous with continual innovation, the pursuit of excellence, and a close eye on cultural evolution.

The new millennium brought sweeping changes as the image of women broke free from the traditional roles imposed upon them, turning them from objects of desire into subjects with agency. The shift began to surface in 1998, when Bruce Weber introduced male figures, such as Ewan McGregor and Bono, for the first time, as highlighted by the evocative title “Women that Men Live For – Men that Women Live For.” In the 2000 Calendar, Annie Leibovitz demystified the allure of the body with meticulously framed shots of anatomical precision, paving the way for the abandonment of the nude two years later. The 2007 edition definitively shifted the focus towards introspection, delving into the inner essence and psyche of five women who candidly opened themselves up to the lens of the Dutch duo Inez and Vinoodh.
The following decade saw the emergence of the most modern interpretations of beauty, advocating for a new aesthetic. In 2013, Steve McCurry drew connections between the world of women and that of social activism, while the 2016 edition, once again created by Annie Leibovitz, focused on female empowerment. In this case, twelve successful women of all ages, including Serena Williams, Patti Smith, and Yoko Ono, told of their journeys with their achievements and challenges they had faced. In 2017, Peter Lindbergh boldly stated that “The ideal of perfect beauty promoted by society is something that simply can’t be attained,” presenting his Calendar as a protest against stereotypical beauty and the tyranny of youth. Kate Winslet, Julianne Moore, Helen Mirren and others appeared in natural, unguarded moments, captured in black and white: the Calendar shattered the illusion of artificial perfection, revealing the essence of the soul rather than the body. This brings us to the 2023 edition, titled “Love Letters to the Muse,” a heartfelt tribute by Emma Summerton to the muses — the female poets, directors, painters, and actors — who have influenced her personal and professional journey. In a dreamlike setting that owes much to the magic of Realism and Surrealism, it celebrates the timeless beauty that this year has inspired the creation of the “Timeless” Calendar by the Ghanaian photographer Prince Gyasi.