Italian version On Saturday, January 18, I presented “Experiences of value” in front of about 100 people, to whom I donated the book at the end of the meeting. In this first week I have received comments from those who felt comfortable telling me their impressions. I deeply respect those who did not give me a response or who did not read the book. I am grateful for all the comments, even those that might seem less positive.In fact, these…
Italian version I have been involved in building complex software systems for about 30 years. In 2018 I attended a business meeting in which a colleague talked to us about how to build systems that can withstand external threats. I remember that meeting well. Not only did I hear about antifragility for the first time, but I never thought in that context that I would hear a very profound consideration of the eternal dilemma of the relationship between life and…
Italian version In a letter sent to an Italian newspaper about one month before he died, Pope Francis made yet another appeal for peace, in which he stressed the importance of the careful use of words. I quote part of the letter : I would like to encourage you and all those who devote work and intelligence to inform, through communication tools that now unite our world in real time: feel the full importance of words. They are never just…
Italian version Unity is strength is a very famous proverb. It is easy to find experiences in sports that demonstrate the substantial validity of this proverb. It sometimes happens that the performance of a team is surprisingly greater than one would expect by “adding up” the value of the individual components. Think of the feats of Denmark and Greece at the 1992 and 2004 European soccer championships, the victory of Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester in the 2016 Premier League, the victory…
Italian version The verb compete originates from the Latin cum petere: Thus the etymology of the verb compete, which we also find in Italian competere and French competitionner, conveys to us an idea of cooperation, joint effort to achieve a goal together. In my opinion, competition should be a collaboration aimed at the creation of value (in this regard, I encourage reading the article The definition of value).Competition is an integral part of our personal and social lives. We talk…
Italian version A few weeks ago a friend told me about helicopter parents.“What does it mean?” I asked her curiously.The comparison with the helicopter has a twofold meaning. On the one hand, the tendency to constantly monitor and control the child’s life, like a spotterhelicopter; on the other hand, interventions designed to remove the child from situations of difficulty or distress, just as happens in a helicopter rescue in which the person is picked up and removed from danger. This…
Italian version Last year in January, my father Giampiero passed away. In the days following his death, I felt much gratitude for the example of married love that Dad and Mom witnessed with their lives. I believe their story is common to many married couples in the 1960s. Dad started working at age 18, sailing around the world. Mom devoted herself to taking care of the family. With unity and love, they faced joys and sorrows, including the last and…
Italian version This story is by my good friend Paolo. It is about a fact happened in May 2022. It shows us how it is possible to arrive at conflict from a barroom discussion, and how wonderfully it is possible to defuse it. Thank you Paolo! It was a sunny day, I was quietly enjoying an ice cream. At one point, a man with a white beard like mine approached me and asked if he could sit at the same…
Italian version Value is a frequently used word. We often use it for what has economic value, or we use it to refer to people and actions that have to do with acts of heroism and extreme selflessness (civilian and military medals of valor). According to the thought of Japanese pedagogue Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871-1944), value is the synthesis of beauty, gain and good. We create value when we act to improve our physical and spiritual aesthetics (beauty), to gain tangible…
Italian version We normally calculate the wealth of a group of people as the sum of the wealth of individuals. Suppose we have 1 island with 5 inhabitants, each of them having 1 gold coin. The wealth of the island is 5 coins, and it would be the same even if only one person had 5 coins and the other four had none. Addition gives us no information about how wealth is distributed within a group. Instead, let us try…