Yesterday evening I attended a conference organized by Innovacomo, the initiative of Confartigianato Imprese Como aimed to promote innovation among the the local small and medium artisan enterprises.
There were much more participants than expected, a clear sign of the interest for the argument. Mr. Cleto Orefice recommended me to attend since he had been invited to speak about the project I made for his Sartoria Orefice with the coordination of the Centro Volta.
Dressed in an impeccable suit, as only a taylor could do, he held a presentation so clear and effective in just a few minutes of speech that positively surprised me.
After him some other artisans-entrepreneurs presented their success cases.
It was my first time at their meetings and I felt comfortable to be among them, maybe because I do feel like an artisan after all. The type of tools might be very different, since I work with bytes and lines of code while an artisan like Mr. Orefice uses needle and thread to create high quality custom dresses. Well, to say the truth now he’s using a PC and an Internet connection also.
Bruno Panieri, Confartigianato’s responsible for the market and rules sector, was connected from Rome thanks to the Skype videoconferencing feature. He had very good words for the Innovacomo initiative considering it a example to follow at a national level, a sort of polar star, he said.
Innovacomo’s staff aims to build a network made of two fundamental elements: a community of artisans-entrepreneurs and a database of ideas, connect them and promote innovation. I think they are going to succeed only if they’ll join forces with other local initiative such as IComo. It’s nonsense in my opinion trying to make important steps by themselves in the minefield of innovation in a globalized market. Synergy is the key here to help turn a simple idea into a solid success case, such as the Orefice’s project.