Archive
Watch Out for Libra
Since Facebook announced that in 2020 it will launch a new currency to transmit monetary values globally, there have been many comments with decisive positive or negative conclusions. The Libra phenomenon – the name of the new currency – has in fact sparked great interest, but the judgments expressed to this point cannot be considered definitive, since many of its aspects are not certain yet, including because many of the technical, financial, and technological problems are still being addressed, and because we don’t know what position the oversight authorities will take. In truth, the authorities ...
The Tariff War
“When a country like the United States is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.” These were the words with which U.S. President Donald Trump announced the “trade war” (with the imposition of tariffs) between the United States and the rest of the world on March 2, 2018, on Twitter. The reference was to the deficit between American exports and imports, that in absolute terms has never been less than 400 billion dollars in the past decade, and in 2018, touched the record level of 600 billion. This ...
Libra Glitters But Is Not Gold
Not all that glitters is gold. The old popular maxim provides the first comment that can be offered in response to Facebook’s announcement that it wants to issue its own digital currency, called Libra. If we assess the announcement from the standpoint of collective well-being, we must ask if this innovation meets the requirements that a currency must have to improve the allocation of goods and services. The response, based on the information available, is negative. The announcement that there could be a new currency in circulation spontaneously begs the question: do we need it? In order to answer, ...
RE-flexibility, RE-generation, RE-modeling
The world of real estate is wrongly considered a “petrified forest,” to borrow a term used thirty years ago to describe the situation of the Italian banks. Many top managers think that in the coming years real estate will be the sector with the lowest intensity of business transformation. The question of the degree transformation of the sector in coming years is very important for economic growth, given the many implications of real estate for the daily life of businesses and people. Yet if we look at the sector from a bottom-up standpoint, the image that emerges is very different than that ...
HIT Radar General Report 3rd Edition
Click on the icons to download the e-book now, in Italian and English, in PDF format and ePub fixed layout. To read the ePub fixed layout file we recommend using the iBooks software on mac, iPhone and iPad, Readium or Adobe Digital Editions on PC and Google Play books on Android smartphones and tablets. ENGLISH
Goodbye Workers?
This Dossier is dedicated to work, and more specifically to workers in businesses and organizations in a broad sense. "Workers" is an almost outdated term that, similar to what happened with "laborers," is now disappearing from the managerial vocabulary. In its place people speak of "human resources" and "human capital," and no longer of "employees" but "associates." Yet we are not faced with a simple linguistic change, but rather an epistemological break that reflects a profound transformation that has occurred in businesses and in the processes that govern the selection and access of workers ...
HIT Radar: Application Focus – Industrial Operations
Industrial IoT Platform Industrial IoT (IIoT) platforms act as control hubs for all the industrial automation solutions – from manufacturing to predictive analytics - empowered by the Internet of Things. While these are still early days for the Internet of Thigs, technology providers are investing billions building new-consolidated platforms. You should be prepared to exploit this new application paradigm by studying the market, building-in security and, eventually, developing your first POCs and partnerships. It may take years to develop and scale a platform, but now is the time to make investment ...
Palazzo Te and the Promotion of the Local Territory
Palazzo Te is one of the most important European Renaissance palaces, designed and built by Giulio Romano, first a student of Raphael in Rome, and then invited to Mantua by Federico Gonzaga on the suggestion of Baldassar Castiglione. The commission was sumptuous, and the resulting design is extraordinary. A painter from the Cadore area who was a friend of Giulio Romano, Tiziano Vecellio, would paint the potraits of the three protagonists of the story (one is in Palazzo Te, one at the Prado, and one at the Louvre), almost to immortalize the outcome. The palace grew thanks to the tireless work of ...
Messages from Hong Kong
It has been called the last battle of Hong Kong. Two million demonstrators out of a total of seven million inhabitants, practically one out of three, took to the streets to oppose the approval of a law that would permit extradition to China for crimes punished with a minimum of seven years in prison. They won: the discussion in the legislature was postponed to some future date. But the war to maintain “HongKongitude” didn’t just start, and won’t end anytime soon. In reality, the last word is scheduled for 2047, when the former British colony will definitively lose all of the autonomy it ...
Cultural Institutions as Enterprises
“What can the world of industry do for culture?”. This was the question posed in a round table discussion organized by the Turin Industrial Association, an occasion for interaction between local enterprises and the world of culture, in which I recently took part. A first answer seems to be the following: culture is important, it should be protected and supported; business is enlightened and dedicates attention and funding to culture, obtaining visibility and consideration in exchange. It’s encouraging that the industrial world is seeking ways to support culture. Yet I wonder why it is so ...