Archive for January, 2007
I Want You For i-muse
This is the crazy leaflet Luca made to attract the attention on our stage offer, while this is the serious version with a detailed description of the offer and requirements.
It’s actually a search for an extraordinary person! 🙂
Joel Spolsky in his book Joel on Software, recommends searching for brilliant and results-producing people, qualities rarely coexisting in the same person.
Experience in this case isn’t relevant, we know we can’t pretend too much from a student, but it’s clear we’re going to invest in this person so that he or she could take an active role in the entrepreneurial project and watch i-muse grow together with us.
Considering the kind of job, a woman would have a great advantage, but this won’t be a discriminating factor.
A fine presence will, though, and this is not a joke!
Let’s say it: being fine-looking is pretty easy nowadays, it shows respect for yourself and for the people you have to relate to, while being smart is not at all. 😉
As marketing guru Seth Godin wrote: your references are your curriculum, so if you’d like to send it to us write them down before anything else and then write why you’d like to get involved in the project.
Just a few words will be ok, the essential making all the difference!
In Mantua for the Saturn Project
Taking advantage of a couple of spring-like days to say the least, last week I went to Mantua on my Vespa where I’m attending a course by Regione Lombardia, the Saturn Project – support for the enterprise planet, aimed to support new entrepreneurial activities.
The course is intensive and well organized by the Centro Studi Castelli’s consultants. I’m appreciating the practical setting and the direct application of the concepts to the entrepreneurial ideas of the twelve people attending it.
A really useful course for the administrative management of the i-muse project. 🙂
Since I had two contiguous days for the course I decided to sleep at the Ostello del Mincio, a pleasant place and with the best website among those of the Hostels where I slept this summer during the Vespatour.
i-muse Featured on La Provincia
It really was a satisfaction being able to tell for the first time how the entrepreneurial idea which led me, Guido and Luca to create i-muse was born and evolved.
Sara Della Torre, the journalist author of the article about our project published on wednesday on the newspaper La Provincia, translated perfectly into words the whole story. 😀
During the interview I noticed that she was amazed by the numerous positive coincidences which happened during the evolution of the project, such as how I managed to involve Luca and Guido or how we created the logo. 😉
We still have a lot to demonstrate, we know this very well, but probably what isn’t too evident from the outside yet, or it’s a bit underestimated, is how much work we did until now to come to this point.
We’re now searching for a fourth extraordinary person. Finding him won’t be easy at all, so we start doing this early.
Thanks to the office at the Polytechnic things are moving fast now!
Meanwhile we enjoy the compliments the article on La Provincia granted us. 🙂
Passwords at Safe with eWallet 5.0
Tell me the truth.. where are you storing passwords to access sites, read email or log on to your PC?
In a simple text file or even on a paper note? 😉
Well, in that case it’s useless hoping nothing bad will ever happen because it will happen!
It’s not good news but it’s statistic data: identity theft is a growing threat and the source of never ending hassles even before we could even notice it. 😥
I did this sort of inattention too, then I understood and I began using a software to safely store my passwords and other personal data. It was fundamental for me that such software run on both the desktop and PDA and I choose eWallet by Iliumsoft since it seemed the best solution.
It actually changed everything. Now my data is always safe and at hand when I travel with my PDA: it’s all a matter of habits!
Now that they released version 5.0 they added a lot of improvements both to the graphics and the synchronization capabilities between the PC and the PDA, so it’s very easy to use.
Send Murphy’s Law to the hell and trash the paper notes with the passwords!
It’s a weak system for your security, much more than not keeping updated the antivirus or the operative system.
Before trashing them be sure to add the data to your favorite electronic wallet! 😉
Flavio Oreglio in Como for Il Sole
Could something ever exist better than doing charity while having fun? 🙂
I don’t think so, especially in these times, but it’s exactly what will happen on sunday evening if you’ll come to the Teatro Sociale in Como where Flavio Oreglio, the great cathartic poet from Zelig, will perform in a musical show whose profits will go to Il Sole, the local Onlus working on distance adoptions and international cooperation projects.
Their project Reborning Flowers, aimed to give psychological support to child victims of rape in Addis Abeba in Ethiopia, is having a difficult time due to the critical situation in the area and I think Flavio will talk about it during the show. Another reason to contribute to such a delicate project while spending a special evening, not only different.
Tickets go from 25 to 10 Euros.
Mrs. Olivia Piro, Il Sole’s president, yesterday evening told me she’s dreaming of a theater at full… let’s help her making the dream come true! 😉
Mens Sana In Corpore Sano at the Palestra 100
Romans had a pretty deep knowledge about the search for harmony between mind and body to keep ourselves in shape and feeling active and lively. So why don’t try listening to our wise ancestors? 😉
I was really missing this kind of harmony, but since I tried going to the gym to put back in shape my back, aching due to long hours spent working with the PC, I finally understood the true meaning of that phrase.
Recently it has been thanks to the Palestra 100 that I realized how much a pleasant environment can help physical training.
The three months I spent at the gym before leaving for the Vespatour have been really invaluable to engage in such an intensive and often tiring journey.
Because of this I’d like to thank the people who made pleasant the experience at the gym. From Angelo Sguazzero, the director, a former hundred meter runner and athletic trainer in some Serie A Italian football teams, who with his interest for psychology applied to physical training really surprised me about things very few trainers even take into consideration.
Also thanks to his daughter Silvia, a former dance champion, and to Elisa I learned to do stretching by breathing correctly, a thing that has now become a good early morning habit. Not to speak about the other trainers and the fantastic SPA (Salus per aquam) area, a real relax paradise. If the hydromassage, the sauna and the turkish bath are not enough, there are Veronica e Tania, two massagers able to make your back melt! 
It’s not the cheapest gym in Como at all, but it’s really worth it in my opinion.
These aren’t words written for convenience or hidden purposes, it’s actually an appreciation for a place where I find myself at ease, so I’ll be happy if this post will be useful in promoting the gym.
I sent them one of the only two postcards (the other one ismore personal) I wrote and sent during the Vespatour to thank them for making me understand what actually means Mens sana in corpore sano. 🙂
The Ions of the Marmore Falls
When I told to my friend Lydia I was planning a journey around Italy on my Vespa, she recommended me to visit the Marmore Falls.
So, on the way to Rome, starting from Melezzole di Montecchio in Umbria, I decided to spend the afternoon at the falls.
I reached the area a few minutes before they released the water, since they stop it at regular times to power up the nearby hydroelectric plant, and I stared at the impressive increasing flux of water while a rainbow took shape at the bottom of the first 90 meters long fall. 😀
The air around the falls was crisp and fresh. There was such a feeling of wellness that I totally forgot the bad cold I got during the previous days.
They say there are negative ions in these areas due to the water falling onto the rocks and that the ions help cleaning the air by making bad particles precipitate.
When I read that modern air cleaners/ionizers works with this principle, I ordered one and after a couple of months in my bedroom I can say it really made a difference.
Now I installed the machine in my office and I attached to it the second picture you can see here.
I feel better just by looking at it, and the air feels much better in a place where I’m now spending a lot of time.
Thanks to Lydia for the tip about the Marmore Falls! 🙂
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
I was really curious to see it!
I’m talking about the famous sculpture by Umberto Boccioni represented on the italian 20 cents Euro coins, whose bronze reproduction is now exposed at Palazzo Reale in Milan in an exhibition curated by Laura Mattioli Rossi focused on the sculptural work of the futurist artist.
I managed to see all the artworks represented on the italian Euro coins, most of them this summer during the Vespatour: Castel del Monte near Bari on the 1 cent coins, the Mole Antonelliana in Turin on the 2 cents, the Colosseum on the 5 cents, the Birth of Venus in Florence on the 10 cents, the Marcus Aurelius’s equestrian statue in Rome on the 50 cents, while I “met”, so to say, the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo and Dante more than once during the tuscan part of the journey.
We have so many artworks in Italy and in my opinion they made the best choices for the coins designs. 🙂
The sculpture by Boccioni is really fascinating, starting from its name. It shows such a dynamism and fusion between the human body and the surrounding air, really unique to say the least!
Even the comment by the curator I listened through the audioguide was good.