Archive for category Mobile

Valérie, our french stagier, went back to France for her deserved holidays after she managed to get appreciations from anyone who had the chance to meet her due to her contribution to the i-muse project and not only due to her charm and pleasant french accent! 🙂

An extraordinary girl, brilliant and results-producing, qualities they recommend to search for in the people to work with and that rarely you can find in the same person.

It was a privilege working with her during these three months, not only because she has a so vital attitude that looks the opposite of his italian surname ;), but also because you could talk about anything with her: from business planning to Rfid technology, to french cuisine, or even about John Gray’s books. 😉

Also thanks to her the number of left-handers in the i-muse team became equal: 3 vs 3.

Her thesis about the use of technology for the valorization of cultural goods, that she’ll discuss in september in Italy, almost looks like a celebration for i-muse, in a natural way however, since the studies and the market trends are reporting that the odds for our product are good in this specific sector.

A big thank you for what you did: Au revoir Valérie!

This is the graphics made by Luca to invite people to try i-muse at the Educational Silk Museum in Como. 🙂

Now it’s your turn to judge our work, a hard work, complex, which involved many people and now it’s condensed in 50 minutes of PDA guided visit to one of the most fascinating museums in Como.

At the end of the visit we’ll ask you to fill a feedback questionnaire. This and the careful observation of your behavior while you’ll be using i-muse will help us understanding if and how making modifications to improve the guide.

We’re organizing the tests by appointment and they’ll be free of charge of course, so if you’d like to book for the test you can write to info@i-muse.info.

The virtual guide is waiting to tell you with an appealing voice “Welcome to the i-muse system“… 😉

If it sounds too bold or solemn let’s try in this way: i-muse is ready! 😀

The PDA guide, the core of our entrepreneurial project, is ready to be tested!

Since this week the staff of the Educational Silk Museum of Como, who kindly allowed us to build the first contents for the guide according to the exhibits placed inside the rooms, began testing i-muse and evaluating its potential both from the technological and multimedia contents points of view.

Now we’re starting an intense invitation-only test phase in which we’ll test i-muse with different typologies of people and at the end of the visit we’ll ask them to fill a feedback questionnaire, a phase which will quickly bring us to the official presentation press conference.

We’re proud of the work we did so far and we feel ready for the fire test, the moment in which the guide will go into the hands of visitors. 🙂

Maybe we don’t realize it well enough by ourselves yet, but we have a great social responsibility with this project.

We created i-muse for you, bending technology to the service of you as visitors of museums and art events, so you’ll be the judges and you’ll tells us if we hit the target! 😉

Some weeks ago I was reading that the astral conjunctions were pretty against my zodiacal sign, the Lion, and that Saturn was the bad planet according to the horoscopes. 😯

However, fortune wanted that it was Regione Lombardia’s Saturn Project to actually bring some luck to the project I devoted myself together with my team in the last months!

They published an official chart of the entrepreneurial projects admitted to the Action 2 of the Saturn Project providing the financing of the 70% of the immaterial expenses of the financial plan submitted. 😀

Reading my name in the top section of the chart was a satisfaction, even more considering that the number of the submissions was pretty high.

After the useful courses I attended in Mantua for the Action 1 of the Saturn Project, this is a great news that makes all the i-muse team more at ease about the expenses we have to face in order to complete the PDA guide and begin its promotion.

We’re almost there! 😉

We received a lot of curricula for the stage offer related to i-muse.

Curricula from anywhere in Italy and someone even from abroad.

I did about ten interviews on the phone and then I proceeded with four interviews in our office.

The general feeling is that the opportunity to write a thesis about an innovative project in the sector of cultural goods such as i-muse is considered like a sort of privilege. 🙂

Among the students who impressed me the most for their smartness and results achieved until now in their student career there was a french girl attending international management at the Università Cattolica in Piacenza.

Now Valérie, this is her name, moved to Como thanks to the support of the international students relations office of the Politecnico.

It has been hard finding a flat for her, since the real estate market in Como is definitely “sparkling” and finding a flat not too far from the office for just four months wasn’t easy at all.

Valérie will see the birth of i-muse together with us and will assist us launching it on the market.

First prize in the category Technology – Projects, first place in the Online Award, a 1000€ voucher spendable in products and services by Maggioli Spa, articles on the magazines by Maggioli Editore and some contacts with potential customers: this is the balance of the participation of i-muse in the IQU Award at the event EuroP.A. in Fiera di Rimini! 🙂

Prizes that motivate and stimulate the whole team for the simple reason we see a real appreciation for the work done until now.

A big thank you to who voted for i-muse in the Online Award. Each vote was important since the difference from the second place was pretty tight.

In the photo you can see me holding up the prizes just received from Marcello Balzani, chief editor of the Paesaggio Urbano magazine.

Now we have to focus even more on i-muse to come up to everyone’s expectations! 😉

Innovation and Urban Quality, this is the theme of one of the awards for excellences which will be given during the event EuroP.A. taking place in Fiera di Rimini at the end of march.

An event having its target on innovation and valorization of the results of projects related to the public administration.

In this context there’s the IQU Award, composed of prizes which will be assigned according to the two main categories of works already made and to be made, then divided for thematic areas: Technology, Mobility, City and Architecture.

We submitted i-muse in the Technology category, but also for the special prize “Designing for everyone“. We take this into a lot of consideration since the usability of i-muse is one of the strong points of the product.

There’s also the Online Award in which users visiting the dedicated area of the site can cast their preference after reading the presentation documents of the projects submitted.

You can vote for i-muse if you like the project as a whole or even for a more specific motivation, such as the logo, how it is pronounced, if you like a member of the team, etc… 😉

Cast you vote!

You should pronounce it like this, as Greta says it, a beautiful little blonde jewel! 🙂

She’s the two years old daughter of my cousin Alex, a cousin like a brother since we know each other since I was born.

I heard pronouncing i-muse in different ways since we announced the product together with the logo.

Someone at the Startup Accelerator of the Politecnico in Como, where we’re incubated, thought we played some kind of music 😯 since i-muse recalled the name of the famous pop band, the Muse, author of the song Starlight, one of my favorites.

i-muse is actually the short version of Interactive Museum, but there’s also the assonance with the verb “to amaze” and also it can recall the classic inspirer muse.

A small kiss to Greta then, our voice of truth. 😉

We’ll surely amaze you with i-muse, we’re almost there!

I mean the Christmas holidays… yes, because the email we sent before Christmas with the team’s best wishes granted us the 4° prize of the XMas Email Awards 2006 contest organized by Wireless.

Now that the prize has been delivered to our office, a 5 Megapixels FIAT digital camera with a sub case :o, I’d like to thank the organizers and the jury.

The case is really nice, we’re almost sorry of opening it and use the camera for the immersions into the Lake of Como some mad guy among us already proposed to test the underwater capabilities of the camera.

After all what could you expect from someone writing in the Christmas best wishes email:

“… the three mad guys of the i-muse team, the innovative PDA guide for museums and art exhibitions, so mad to believe their project will succeed simply because they believe in it, wish you:…“? 😉

You can see the graphics made by Luca and the other winners on the site of the contest.