Archive for category Como
If Clooney Would Ride a Vespa…
As the whole world knows by now, George Clooney loves spending holidays on lake Como in his Villa Oleandra in Laglio. Recently the american star was involved in a curious episode reported on the pages of our local daily newspaper La Provincia, here and here. An episode so curious that inspired me to write this letter to the newspaper, published in the Letters to the director feature :
I’m asking myself how many smiles snatched the article published on last Saturday on our daily newspaper about the curious episode which featured the nice George Clooney riding his Harley up to Dizzasco, where as it seems he went for an unannounced visit to the rest house and wasn’t recognized by the doorkeeper.
Being a Vespa enthusiast and a two-wheels lover, I tried to imagine what could have happened if he got there riding a Vespa rather than a roaring Harley-Davidson. The Vespa has been a symbol of freedom for generations of italians as it is nowadays, so I like to believe that if he would have got there on a Vespa the doorkeeper would have had a different attitude, maybe recalling the journeys he did in youth with his own Vespa. Such a passion in common would have acted as a pass much more than the noisy american bike.
It happened to me more than once that not-so-young people stopped to have a look at my Vespa, and with a smile they began telling me their adventures spent riding the Piaggio’s scooter.
George gives a good example by choosing a two-wheels for his trips around the province of Como. This is something more people should do, while they seem to prefer diving into the chaos and stress caused by the traffic fed by themselves rather than leaving the comfort of their cars even for a few kilometers .
I would lend my Vespa to the american star with pleasure, so that the next time he’ll be luckier during his unannounced visits without press managers along with him. He may know very well every palm of Hollywood and be a lover of the Easy Rider movie, but he still probably ignores how to get welcomed by the people of our lake. 😉
The nice reply by Pierangelo Marengo: Yours, besides being a love hymn for the Vespa, is a pleasant digression into the world of the possible. Of course it has to be demonstrated, but no one can prevent you from indulging in a dream on two wheels.
The Chestnuts of the Vespa Club Como
On last Sunday the Vespa Club Como organized the Cagna la Castagna (Eat the Chestnut), a public party at the bottom of the ancient roman walls of Como, where people could eat roast chestnuts, drink wine, listen to music, meet friends and stare at the line of Vespas and Citroën 2CV.
It was my first time at one of their public events since I joined the club only a couple of weeks earlier.
I went to their weekly evening meeting, invited by the president Gianluca Cesana, with a bit of hesitation, because someone warned me that new Vespa models like the GTS weren’t appreciated as much as older ones.
So when I had to answer to the first question about what Vespa I owned, the president told the members to wait for any judgment and let me tell them what I did with my Vespa this summer, right while some of them began moaning ( although with a clear joking tone 😉 ) about the fact I owned a GTS, since they already spotted it. I told them about my trip around Italy and they soon started telling me about their longest journeys done on a Vespa. The ice was broken thanks to Gianluca and we immediately found something to share. 🙂
Gianluca gave me a sticker of the club which is pretty original as you can see on the left. The smoking puppy on the Vespa was made by an artist working at Bonelli, the well known italian comics editor. Now I bring it proudly on the windscreen! 
I liked the introduction I got from the club members, they’re a good bunch of Vespa-fans indeed.
Vespa is a myth for italians and most of all a great passion to share.
“L’Italia s’è Vespa” was one of the slogans I spotted on a old advertisement at the Museo Piaggio, recalling the beginning of our national anthem, “L’Italia s’è desta“.
Marketing guys are really crazy you know… 😉
Artisans-Entrepreneurs at Innovacomo
Posted by Albegor in Como, Net-Tailor on October 14, 2006
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 was invited to speak about the project made for the Sartoria Orefice with the coordination of the Centro Volta.
Dressed in an impeccable suit, as only a taylor could do, he held a presentation clear and effective in just a few minutes of speech. 🙂
After him some other artisans-entrepreneurs presented their success cases.
It was the first time I attended their meetings and I felt at ease among them, maybe because I feel like an artisan after all. The type of tools might be 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 suits. Well, to say the truth, now he’s using a PC and an Internet connection also. 😉
Bruno Panieri, Confartigianato’s manager for the market and rules sector, was connected from Rome thanks to the Skype videoconferencing feature. He had 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 success case, such as the Orefice’s project.
IComo: 8th Matching about Technologic Innovation
Last week I attended the 8th matching about technologic innovation organized by the Centro Volta, the monthly event promoted by the IComo initiative and aimed to help local small and medium enterprises to start innovation projects.
The presentations this time ranged from nanomaterials applied to textile fibers in order to grant them new properties such as resistance to bacteria, to the latest developments in liquid crystals production, to advanced imaging systems used in robotics, to the selection and implementation of a natural element with a unique DNA to track a product along the supply chain and to guarantee its originality.
During the presentation by Pierangelo Metrangolo about liquid crystals, he recalled that right there in Villa Olmo, in the big hall below the one we were seating in, modern chemistry was born thanks to Heisenberg, Fermi and other scientists during a big congress held in 1927.
These matchings are always interesting and many of the speakers come from high level italian laboratories. In fact IComo staff aims to stimulate ideas of the local entrepreneurs and they’re right, especially when the presentations are so brilliant. The number of the attendees is also increasing, a good sign of the information campaign they’re making to promote the meetings.
I’ll be at Smau on October 5th, the ICT exhibition in Milan that from this year it’s reserved to professionals only.
There’s also the interesting e-Academy structure and I’ll attend a couple of the numerous seminars.
My Vespa will bring me to Milan tomorrow for the exhibition, then she’ll rest for a couple of days at my friend Marco’s “Motorantola” workshop for a complete check up, so much needed after the long journey around Italy. 🙂
The Riddle of the Tailor and the Software Developer
Posted by Albegor in Como, Net-Tailor, Software on June 19, 2006
Whatever could a tailor and a software developer have in common?
I couldn’t answer that until few months ago, when I started working on a technology innovation project commissioned by a prestigious tailor shop in Cernobbio, Sartoria Orefice, under the scientific coordination of the Centro Volta research center. I wrote a bit about this project in the past updates and now that we’re getting closer to its completion, I have been allowed to write more about it.
Sartoria Orefice is one of the few small enterprises in this high quality market sector, renowned for excellence not only in Italy but also in many countries of the world, so much so that a lot of customers come to Cernobbio from abroad to ask Mr. Lino and his son Cleto, who now runs the business, to create the perfect suit for them.
Back to the initial riddle, I am convinced the most appropriate answer consists in one simple word: Elegance! 🙂
Consider the hard work the tailor, guided only by his experience, make every day with such simple tools as needle and thread. Compare it now with the work I did during the last months with tools only apparently more complicated such as bits and bytes to create a hardware and software system which will make Orefice’s work much more efficient and profitable.
Especially the software part was made to measure, as they say, and the end result is as elegant as a finely handcrafted suit. 😉
They’ll be able to expand their business with this system, in fact the reason they invested in it in the first place is because they strongly believe in its potential.
I was happy to find such great people to work with: Cleto, Lino, their kind staff and Matteo from the Centro Volta. By working side to side with them I had the pleasure to learn some of the secrets of a craftsmanship as old as the hills, and fine-tuned by 5 generations of tailors. This year they’re celebrating 150 years since the first Orefice started the business in 1856.
This project gave me the chance to gain experience in a number of fields, from the development of custom software to the latest videosurvelliance and videoconferencing IP-based hardware, Sony’s products in particular, but, above all, gave me the opportunity to learn to deal with people in the best way, understanding their needs and turning a problem into an efficient working solution.
I’d love to apply this kind of approach to another small localcompany . The staff at the Centro Volta is ready to enroll me again, should someone request their direct assistance in a technology innovation project, maybe along the lines of the IComo initiative.
You could contact me directly if you prefer, while if you need a high quality Made-in-Italy suit now you know who call. 😉
With their new system Cleto and his father will be able to assist you all the way from the choice of the fabric to the finest details of your suit, even if you live on the other side of the globe.
Recently I came across a significant quote by Einstein which inspired me the initial riddle:
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Love Your Cat, Hate Its Litter
This is weird… take a deep breath because this is really weird! 🙂
Do you have a cat? Does he live in your house? If so you can’t but love it as you created a special relationship with him since it entered your home and actually took possession of it. 😉
So do I with my cat Willy and if you too have a cat then we have a little problem in common: the litter!
You have to take care of it, keeping it clean, regularly refilling it with new sand and disposing of your pet’s waste since it can’t do that by himself.
And here comes the solution: it’s named Litter Kwitter and it’s meant to gradually train your cat to use the toilet!
Well, I told you this was pretty weird… as weird as a genial solution to a common problem that no one has thought of yet can be.
The idea of the Litter Kwitter came to the australian entrepreneur Jo Lapidge by watching the movie with Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro, Meet the Parents. In the movie you can see the superb performance of the cat, Mr. Jinks, using De Niro’s toilet.
So Jo designed a system to train a pet to do the same. There are three steps to follow to make him getting used to climb onto the toilet pan, putting the claws in the right position, keeping steady and quietly performing his intimate business.
The three stages are well explained on the Litter Kwitter official website and in the DVD included with the package.
I purchased it since I was amazed by this idea and the advantages resulting from a successful training: no more litter and a bit more hygiene at home!
Cats are smart, you know that very well if you live with one, or even more than one, but they are also creatures of habit, so you should proceed very carefully with this method if you want to obtain a positive result.
Willy is doing well, he’s still at the red stage, almost ready to go to the amber one, and with patience and the right encouragement I think he’ll be fully trained within a few weeks.
Thanks to Jo for her invention then, now I wonder if she’ll come out with a new method to train cats to flush the water toilet also!
Love your cat, they’re so special.
Il Sole and The White Night in Como
Il Sole, the sun in english. They couldn’t choose a better and more appropriate name for the dynamic ONLUS (Organization Non Lucrative for Social Affairs), recently become NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), dealing with distance adoptions and international cooperation projects, born in Como in 1997 from the initiative of Mrs. Olivia Piro.
Someone says the name is the most important thing for a person, so it is for Il Sole and the people involved in it as volunteers, since this name fully reflects the energy they have in the will to help children in distant countries such as India, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.
They’re always busy, but never forget to praise their achievements, so last week they had a small party to inaugurate the new offices in Como, their operative headquarters, twice as big as the previous one, but most of all located in a quieter area and lit by the sunlight most of the day, making it more pleasant for the volunteers to do their work. They also recently got a brand new Toyota Jeep from the Fondazione Comasca to be used in their operations in Burkina.
Now they’re preparing for a series of events organized for the incoming Notte Bianca di Como on june 10.
They’ll take the whole Piazza De Gasperi near the lake and the Funicolare station and will entertain the public all night long. Even four comedians from the popular Zelig italian TV show will perform on the stage. For one long night it will become the Piazza del Sole!
Can’t wait for it, even if there will be a lot of work to do as a volunteer! 🙂
At this time there are two initiatives if you want to support them: the annual lottery which will last until July 24 and the 5×1000 donation on the income declaration. You can get more information by visiting the website of Il Sole.
Touristech 2006 and Veronafil
Two intense days made the weekend fly more swiftly than usual. On friday I attended the Touristech event in Villa Erba and I spent most of saturday in Verona at the Veronafil philately and numismatics fair.
Touristech is the first event organized by Wireless dedicated to new technologies and digital innovation at the service of the cultural entertainment and hospitality services for tourists. For this meeting they couldn’t choose a better location than the beautiful Villa Visconti, located in the Villa Erba park in Cernobbio. It has been a long time since I had the chance to walk in that park, although I’m often in Cernobbio, and I hadn’t remembered how pleasant and relaxing it is. In fact it was the first time I wasn’t tired when I went home after a day full of conference presentations instead of what usually happens after similar events organized in Milan.
One of the moderators didn’t forget to mention they shot some sequences of the Ocean Twelve Hollywood movie there. After all the benefits of the presence of George Clooney in his villa in Laglio seem to be much more valuable than the works by Luchino Visconti…
The presentations were all interesting, especially for the fact that the subject matter is the basis of a software project I’m working on together with the group of people I assembled at the beginning of this year. People make the difference in everything and this project is shaping up thanks to them . 🙂
I met Paolo Conti, a journalist of Il Sole 24 Ore, the brilliant moderator of the recent Mobile Force & Office Forum 2006 and we had the chance to talk about the project.
After a morning of presentations by representatives of the major players of the tourism market in Italy, such as Touring Club among the others, the event closed with a series case histories of mobile technology applied to outdoor journeys, such as the PDA guide they’re experimenting with at the Villa Reale Park of Monza and the PDA guide currently in use at the Swiss National Park.
Then I spent saturday among the numerous small stands of coins and stamp collectors setup in one of the huge exhibition halls of Verona Fiere. Should I mention this had something to do with the work behind the PC version of EcPc? 😉
My focus were Euro coins of course, and I had the chance to meet some users from the LaMoneta.it Italian forum, but unexpectedly I came back home with a surprise as much as precious: I managed to get the Green Vespa, the only Vespa model ever made for the famous Kinder surprise toys series!
I got to know of this particular toy since I read the book Vroom with a view by Peter Moore and I’ll certainly have another chance to write more about that. 😉
IComo: Patents and Intellectual Property Rights
Posted by Albegor in Como, Net-Tailor, Software on May 14, 2006
Patents and intellectual property rights were the subject matter of the seminar organized by the research center Centro Volta related to the IComo: la fabbrica delle idee initiative, a project aimed to promote technology innovation among the local small and medium enterprises.
The meeting took place in Villa Olmo, the place chosen for the current exhibition devoted to Magritte, and consisted of a series of presentations by company managers and professional consultants involved in the delicate matter of tutelating intellectual property rights and exploiting the benefits and the added value of patents.
The current tendency is to consider a patent not only as a good tool of legal protection for a company’s idea or processing method, but also as an internal asset to make business with, a way of thinking americans already well know and effectively use. Testimonials of this were the managers of big companies such as ABB and Fiat with its CRF (Fiat Research Center).
From the conference clearly emerged that evaluating the convenience and opportunity of registering a patent is a delicate matter and requires the support of experts needed to perform a series of studies and researches in order to be able to produce a strong patent, which may be used as an effective protection tool especially for the local small enterprises constantly facing the counterfeiting phenomenon of a global market.
The innovation technology project I’m currently involved in, under the direct coordination of the Centro Volta, is evaluating these issues and after this seminar I’m even more convinced in the way of registering a patent to tutelate the work we’re doing and then make business with, if possible.
Registering a patent instead of maintaining an industrial secret inside a company has both advantages and disadvantages. With a patent your idea becomes public, but you tutelate yourself for the number of years you’re going to do business with. On the opposite think about the Coca-Cola formula for example. They say they didn’t patent it, so it still remains an industrial secret.
Software is an even more delicate matter if inserted in the patent issue, but that was not discussed in the meeting. The EU Commission is still debating about software patents and since they’re considered a big obstacle to innovation, especially by small developers, I suggest you to read about the NoSoftwarePatents campaign.
The conference ended with a funny and smart presentation by a lawyer who gave the audience some significant examples of the way of working in our country compared to the US. They seem to be different planets in this particular matter, not only by the numbers involved. 😉
René Magritte in Como: L’Empire des Lumières
Le basier, La saveur des larmes and L’empire des lumières.
These are the three paintings by René Magritte which impressed me the most during the visit to the exhibition now taking place in Como. An exhibition that is getting a lot of positive comments both from the critics and from the public and will probably reach and then exceed the number of visitors of the two exhibitions devoted to Picasso (77,000 visitors) and Mirò (70,000) which have taken place in the same rooms of the awesome Villa Olmo in the last two years.
I really liked it and I recommend that you visit the MagritteComo website to get the right directions to come in Como and visit the exhibition. It will last until july16th.
I spent two hours admiring all of the 80 creations of the Belgian Genius and I felt relaxed and enriched when I exited the Villa. I used the word Genius since he refused the title of “artist”, preferring the title “thinking man”, since he considered himself as someone who communicated thoughts through painting just as others did using music or writing.
Villa Olmo and its park on the lake is the perfect place to host such surrealist pieces of art. Inside the Villa they used the Dilumo, which stands for Dispositivi luminosi mobili” (mobile lightning devices). They’re light metal structures covered with the black sheet used in theatrical sets. Every piece is illuminated by optical fibers. That’s the only light in the exhibition and contributes a lot to the mysterious atmosphere you can feel along the route.
I read some interesting things about the life of Magritte and in particular I recall that he enjoyed inviting groups of friends to show them the latest paintings and play the “title game” to choose the title for them. 🙂
Too bad audioguides you can use along the exhibition only covered 22 of the 80 pieces. Probably I won’t miss the chance to visit it a second time, maybe accompanied by a real guide! 😉
In my opinion, mobile technology could be very useful in this kind of events and in fact it’s the subject matter of a project I’ve been working on since last year. More news about it soon.