Welcome to WhiteHouse.gov

Hi All!

It’s not a news telling you that, as millions of people, I followed Obama’s campaign and his inaugural speech. I’m trying not to compare American experience with Italian situation, as the gap it too deep, and my current vision about Italian political system is not positive.

That is, I’d like to underline some important points, and give you some references about Obama and social media’s campaign and the new Whitehouse website.

Starting with ‘Obama’s brand’ I was astonished by the positioning: he’s been able to ‘fill the hole’ in prospectus’ mind (electors’ mind!), by representing something really new, NOT equal to anyone. Isn’t it the dream for every brand, is it?

This result is mainly due to a viral campaign, made by a mix of direct relationships (don’t forget that hundreds of volunteers went door to door to explain Obama’s program and to convince people to vote), and the exploitation of social media capability.

It’s useless for me to repeat a great analyses written by Valeria Maltoni on her blog,  I warmly suggest you to read it!

The other point that obviously really involved me, is the new WhiteHouse website, especially the new blog added to the website.

According to Becky Carroll’s opinion, now the blog looks more like a web page than a conversation.

But considering the ‘Italian’ point of view, there are at least two great innovations: all the third party contents are ruled by Creative Commons licenses; participation in terms of rating and review Government laws  “… we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it…”.

All the citizens can express their opinions BEFORE final approval.

This is only the beginning of this adventure, but I’m sure our interest won’t decrease!

Enjoy this reading and stay tuned!

Blogs and information overload

This morning it happened to me to read a post by Jason Falls from his blog “Social Media Explorer”, and an article by Michael Kinsley from ‘Time’ magazine (I found it also in the website), that made me think a lot; so that I’d like to share them with you.

Apparently, they seem far from each other, not only because of the kind of media. The post title is ‘How to use links and linking effectively”; the article title is “Too much information. The campaign turned us all into news junkies. But how many blogs does the world really need”.

Especially, I was affected by comparing two sentences.

By Jason Falls’ post:

“As you can see from this post, plenty of links is certainly not a problem. If it adds context, supplements the content in a relevant way or points people to useful sites or tools you mention, link away”

I strongly agree, that’s true. Linking is one of the best strategy to create exposure to your blog. A blogger needs links!

Then, from Michael Kinsley article:

“But aggregation has become a hall of mirrors. “Did you see Romenesko this morning? Yeah, very interesting. He’s got a link to a piece in LA Observed that links to a column on the London Times website where this guy says that a Russian blogger is saying that Obama will make Sarah Palin Secretary of State.”

“Wow. Sounds true. Where did the Russian guy get it?”

“He says it was in Romenesko.”

After having read this sentence I wonder how many times I get lost by reading a post then following a link, running after information…

Well, I think that the problem is the information overload. As there are many blogs worth reading. And each one links to other information and blogs.

As I like to ‘dig’ information, it’s very difficult to limit my readings, or to omit many links in my post.

I believe that with some experience and having time limits, every reader could be able to choose or skip information at a first glance.

I think the more we can read and write, the more democracy is represented. Even though sometimes it can be a little bit difficult.

What’s your opinion?

Technology and Happiness (or Unhappiness)

http://www.techlovers.it

During the last RomeCamp2008, I’ve been asked to partecipate in a project called ‘Techlovers’.

Before informing you about the project’s ‘technical’ details and aims, I’d like to tell you what I had to do.

A young girl asked me for an interview as a blogger, in front of a videocamera (I was terrified), but the question was more terrible than the videocamera: how has technology been changed my life? How does technology make me feel happy?

Immediately, I replied talking about my US experience, my blog, and the new people I recently met. But I’m still thinking about it…

There are many daily things I improved with technology, but I strongly believe there is a main reason of my technology’s happiness: knowledge.

I can get all the information I need in a while. I can meet all far away friends. I can read different opinions about a topic and have a totally new opinion. I can share experience.

I can better understand our time. Knowledge as a support, not a substitute of human relationships. Isn’t this a technology’s happiness, is it?

That’s why I think is important to fight against digital divide, and for the network neutrality!

Techlovers.it is a project by www.ninjamarketing.it , that is an Italian blog about unconventional marketing.

The project idea they explained at Romecamp2008 is collecting video stories from Italian internet users, successful and unsuccessful stories, all the difficulties people coped with because as digital divide, the happiness people reached because using technology change their lives.

After the video collection, there will be a context where users will vote their favourite story. At the end, they’ll realize a videoreportage, a sort of “Italians 2.0”, that will be programmed on TV and Internet.

In this post I just wanted to talk about feelings, but there are some intersting aspects about media, marketing, Italian digital divide I’ll talk about very soon!

For more information: www.techlovers.it and www.ninjamarketing.it

Soccer against hunger

Photo by Andrea Staccioli/Inside

Yesterday, the European Professional Football Leagues and FAO launched in Rome a new campaign to create awareness and raise funds against hunger. Also yesterday many people joined the Blog Action Day.

It’s important to know that in the same day different people and different organizations focused their attention on the same topics, poverty and hunger, using different media.

On one hand, we have important testimonials such as the Italian football player Roberto Baggio, government representatives from European countries, and traditional media like press and television. On the other hand, we have hundreds of bloggers, videocasters, the social media and the network. “Anonimous” people versus VIP, traditional media versus new media. In this case, it is not so important to understand which media is more effective, but the number of people this synergie can reach, and the best way to use them for the same goal.

What do you think? Let’s talk about no-profit projects where different media strategies ‘live’ togethere!

If you want to read the article:

http://www.fao.org/Newsroom/en/news/2008/1000935/index.html

Blog Action Day 2008: let’s talk about poverty

Today is the BLOG ACTION DAY against POVERTY. Bloggers everywhere will publish posts that discuss poverty in some way.

It’s really difficult for me to say something original about poverty and its causes.

I can only tell you something about my personal experience and feelings.

I was born in the 60’s and, at that time, poverty was something my parents tried to forget, because it was strictly connected to their childhood during the Second World War. The power of media was so far to be as strong as now and there were just few images about poverty.

The first time I really felt aware and realized how many people are affected by poverty was during my first trip to Africa. Poverty and hunger. Not only children, but also adults.

As citizen, traveller, human being I couldn’t ignore what I saw. It was 1989.

Now it’s quite impossible to figure out how many people in the world live with less than 2 $ a day. The number is increasing every day and poverty is involving also ‘industrialized’ countries.

Globalization, economic crisis, wars, overexploitation, diseases: we can list so many reasons, without find any solution. Poverty is rapidly spreading out.

That’s why we should care about it and fight against poverty also with small, individual actions and behaviours.

Knowledge and awareness can be helpful to balance the huge divide between two parts of the world.

There are many projects against hunger and poverty that need our help. I’d like to suggest you to join one of them, and help people to realize it, by donating and involving friends and other people.

Here, you can find some associations with serious, interesting projects:

http://www.kiva.org

http://sharehlp.org/

http://www.bambinineldeserto.org/ (children in the desert)

http://www.savethechildren.it

http://www.amref.it

Blog Action Day 2008: POVERTY

Blog Action Day 2008

Hi Readers and Bloggers!

I’ve just found an important opportunity to partecipate to a useful example of viral campaign.

Every year there is a no profit event called ‘Blog Action Day‘, which aim is to create awareness and a global discussion about an important topic, by involving bloggers, podcasters, etc. in the SAME DAY. Last year the topic was the environment. This year is POVERTY.

I believe it is not easy to talk about poverty, but that’s why it’s so important to raise awareness with different opinions and points of view. If you have a blog, if you partecipate on network debates, please don’t forget on OCTOBER 15th to write just some thoughts about poverty.

You can register your blog’s partecipation: http://site.blogactionday.org. Here you can find details and further information.

Spread out the voice!

Here you can watch the video: Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Teaching social media

I have the pleasure to inform all my readers that Becky Carroll started a new social media class. It means that there are new blogs from her students!

It is a unique experience to meet people that live in the same area (San Diego), but they are from all over the world. So, it represents a great opportunity to compare different way of ‘affording’ the blogsphere, and to figure out different cultures.

A virtual trip in different countries. Don’t miss them, and help the bloggers with ideas, comments, suggestions, in order to motivate them. The main link is Teachingsocialmedia

Italy and Social Media

Hi Everyone,

I’m back in Rome, and after this experience in San Diego, one of my first goal is trying to understand the world of social media in Italy.

Event though we are plenty of blogs, actually I don’t have many information about users profile, and marketing via social media in country.

As I’m very interested in this matter, I have been started reading as much as possible about social media in Italy.

The first useful information I found is that from September 12, for three days, there is the first Italian ‘blogfest’. The event will offer the opportunity to meet and talk all about blogs, socialnetworking, and community.

I have only a doubt: the main sponsors of this meeting are Telecom Italia, the main Italian Telco company, and Microsoft Windows Live.

On one hand, we can consider it positively, as it increases the interest for the event. On the other hand, the participation of such huge companies can influence the spirit of this first meeting.

In my opinion, comparing to US, Italian market (and people) is a beginner in using social media for business, or as alternative to traditional media. Therefore, my question is: can be useful or not the presence of these two companies? (just a note: until few years ago, Telecom had the monopoly of the Italian telecommunication market, and they still have some ‘privileges’). Don’t we have to consider social networking as an ‘open space’ where everyone can find his own opportunity?

How to travel … staying at home!

When I started writing my blog, I said that there are many way to travel, because in my opinion travel means knowledge.Even though sometimes is not possible to visit other countries, the WWW offer us a great opportunity to know people and different cultures.

That’s the reason why today I’d like to suggest you “to travel” by reading two blogs.

The first one is http://lisaschool.wordpress.com and it is about the invisible wounds that some experiences can leave. Liza tells us about her husband’s experience when he was back from Iraq.

I am really impressed by her words and by the difficulties they had to deal with. As I live in Italy, before reading her blog, the war for me was only something that I watched on TV. I have never met somebody that was directly involved in war. I only had the stories from my grandfather, but it was long time ago and the II World War was very far me.

Through her blog, I’m really learning something more about people and culture of this Country.

The second blog I’d like to suggest you is http://getinterested-csr.blogspot.com. As Claudia (the author) explains in her blog, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the commitment by business to obtain a positive impact on society.

There are different approaches for CSR and it is very interesting to understand how different companies manage this issue and the benefits they can generate. The projects are very different as well, as they can involve associations from their own country or from abroad (especially Third World Countries).

In my opinion, CSR represents the “good” side of globalization, and government should encourage companies in affording these projects.

Liza and Claudia, the authors of these blogs, are also attending “Marketing via New Media” class. Don’t you think they are doing an excellent job, do you?