by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
With rootsanchored to one's homeland to generate work and value, but with the ability toreach every corner of the world. Brilliant intuitions that become a businessand that climb the markets. Products, services, solutions that make thedifference and that are descriptive of a productive network but, above all, ofvalues concerning that Emilian hi-tech district that the world envies us. Andthen there are the people, that human capital that beats the economic capital.Indeed, it multiplies it in a virtuous way. Because everything starts fromteamwork, which makes the difference in a much more complex, fragile andinterconnected global context.
The business stories that I have had theprivilege to tell are all this and much more. It is not enough to do, you haveto do well. And do well in this triangle of innovation and research that hasalways been successfully articulated along an axis connecting the three citiesof Bologna, Modena and Ferrara. In these areas with a strong entrepreneurialvocation lurk stories of men and women who have done business, but ultimatelyhave created a community. “The companies that obtain the best results in the long-term incorporate a social purpose into their business, which is as important as the economic purpose”: this was put inblack and white by one of the fathers of contemporary marketing, Philip Kotler,who recently dedicated himself to brand activism, i.e. to the social as well aseconomic role of companies.
And so in these “Stories of companies, people, communities”– the new multi-platform and multi-lingual storytelling to discoverentrepreneurial excellence – we discover the laboratory, the production, theoffice, but actually much more. Because in these places there are also new waysof doing business. On the other hand, the recipe for generatinginnovation today lies in moving from the contingency of just in time to the value of community work with just in case. This is how Simon Kuperput it in the Financial Times. To have a vision, contained in the mission, asthe Americans would say. But this way of doing things - which is substance, notform - presents an all-Italian signature. This is why there is a need to tell theseentrepreneurial stories that reflect innovation, research,internationalisation.
Vertical and transversal skills that are expressed inteam play and are strengthened in the reticular and connected districts of theEmilia region, in the area with a high rate of innovation linked to thedistricts of Modena, Bologna and Ferrara. From biomedical to automotivecomponents, from textiles to ceramics, from mechatronics to data science.Stories of business leaders in the packaging, food and electronics sector.A narration focused on the manufacturing and social qualities of the territory, whichalmost entirely exports to the United States, France, Spain and the rest of theworld. Theseare the companies associated with Confindustria Emilia: 3,483 companies thatemploy over 170 thousand families, distributed over20 supply chainsfor more than half of the national turnover. The digital component is describedin the stories embedded as an enabler of opportunities. A digitalcomponent that takes the shape of processes, skills, investments. Because allof this involves knowledge and awareness. Data to be managed to decryptcomplexity, data that becomes an anti-crisis tool to manage complexity. Atitanic challenge of reconversion that is not so much instrumental andinfrastructural but rather professional, with a necessary literacy of skills,which must refocus, starting from the digital world.
Some time ago the Englishcollective of artists, designers and cartoonists, known as Most Collective,told the future of work in a cartoon called “The last Job”: they set on stagethe story of Alice, who was the last worker on Earth in a digitised world. Theydescribed Alice at home, at work, on the street. Alice busy shopping ortravelling. Alice as a human outpost for virtual relationships that actuallypassed exclusively through the smartphone. An apocalyptic vision but also lightyears away from what the future will be. In these stories, digital is no longeran accessory, but is an integral part of the transformation of a company, acity, a community. The digital that makes the difference in systems, processes,people, in everyday life. With an even more complex challenge: also becausethere is nothing more complicated than making things simple.
Soperhaps the recipe for these successful businesses lies in never stopping, inbeing proudly linked to tradition and the community, but at the same time inbeing able to evolve to better interpret the new needs that are overwhelminglyrevealed.You will read or listen to all this because the multi-media storywill be usable as a reading or as an audio in podcast. A story that declines anactive territorial citizenship, a welfare born many years before the veryconcept of welfare itself. Enjoy your trip then in the stories of the suppliersof the world, where quality is linked to restitution.
Because as Hugh Macleod wrote in the Guardian, “to fill the blankpages of this new world, we need to bet on global microbrands, on business thatmeets the community.”
* Giampaolo Colletti is a journalist specialised in innovation and the digital world. He collaborates with Sole24Ore. He is the founder of the wwworkers job community. He is the author of "Spider Brand", published by Egea, a publishing house of the Bocconi University (Milan, Italy).
