I haven’t  been updating the content in this blog for a while, but worry not… my online presence is alive and kicking… just happening mostly somewhere else.

My main [public] online hangouts are the following:

• I write quite often on my blog for conference organizers Conference Basics
• I post about things (gadgets, accessories, food) I see and I like on melikes.posterous.com
• I tweet at @gchicco
• I do Facebook and Google+
• My professional profile is on LinkedIn and I sometimes update a personal profile on About.me
• My photos tend to go to several different places now though I still use Flickr as a general repository. Otherwise you can follow me on Instagram (my username is gchicco)

I guess (actually, I know) I’m present in several other online services too, but those above should suffice if you want to stalk or interact with me.

See ya around

Made by Kenichi Tanaka, this video represents through various infographics some of the well know statistics about Japan… and some more other ones really worrying  that I was not aware of (like food consumption). While I was living in Japan I was overly struck by the amount of bottled water, plastic bags, disposable chopsticks (article on reducing the use of bottles, plastic bags and disposable chopsticks) and other behaviors that are not your typical nippon cliche.

(Via Coolinfographics.com and Slidecoach)

My left foot after the race. Photo by Matteo Penzo

On Sunday 21 March 2010 I participated in the Stramilano 10km race, the first official run using the Vibram FiveFingers shoes to simulate barefoot running. While I’ve been a FiveFingers user on-and-off for the last 3 or 4 years, I’ve only started running using them one monts ago and this race in Milan was the longest distance I’ve used them so far (10 km).

My reasons to use the FiveFingers are many but one of the most important ones is that since November 2009 I’ve been feeling acute knee pain while jogging for more than 2 km. As I’m constantly traveling, I haven’t been able to do an accurate medical check-up but it is planned in the short term. I’ve been practicing sports for several years and I’m not new to knee pain. The causes are multiple but it had never happened while doing light running. A secondary reason is that I’m a pure-heart geek and last Sunday I participated in the Stramilano together with my friends from the GeekRunning group.

My Vibram KSO FiveFingers with tune belt attached for the Nike+ sensor

The result was that I could finish the race at a regular pace with no pain. Now some of my leg muscles are a bit sore because I was not training often enough and because running with the FiveFingers stimulates different muscles that when using regular sport shoes. I aslo got some minor blisters on the internal side of my feet as I still have to completely “break” into the shoes.

Geek Runners after the Stramilano (photo from Matteo Penzo's flickr but not taken by him)

The model I currently use is the FiveFingers KSO combined with a “tune belt sensor pouch” (Amazon link) to hold the Nike+ sensor (Amazon link) I use to track my running (through the iPhone). I’m looking forward to running in them on a weekly basis and, why not, do some trekking too.

Side-effect of running in the Vibram FiveFingers: I got asked at least a dozen times how it was to jogg in them and if it was healthy for my feet.

I probably made all the mistakes listed in this article, pity I didn’t find it earlier.

More photos

My Vibram KSO FiveFingers with tune belt attached for the Nike+ sensor

Tune belt for Nike+ Sensor

I first met Larry Lessig at the iSummit ‘08 in Sapporo, Japan (where I worked together with the iCommons team). I took several photos during the event and one of Lessig giving the closing speech was selected for the Italian edition of his latest book, Remix, published in September 2009 by ETAS (part RCS-Corriere della Sera).

The book doesn’t seem to be available online yet. I will post the direct link for buying it soon.

I met him for the second time in Milan in March 2009 at Meet The Media Guru (event in which I worked as part of the organization team led by Maria Grazia Mattei).

Since I got my iPhone a couple of months ago, I noticed I started using much less my ubiquitous Moleskine notepad.

Maybe it’s because the iPhone is now more ubiquitous in my universe than the Moleskine. I used to carry it everywhere in my back pocket but now it stays mostly inside my backpack. I use the “mole” for several different things: I write thoughts and notes on trips, to-do lists and ideas I don’t want to forget. I keep some useful business and restaurant’s cards in it’s pocket and stick flight, transport and museum tickets plus other miscellaneous memorabilia to it’s pages. From time to time I also add a sticker and an instant photo to it. I used it to save concepts for future blog articles and business ideas.

Some of that stuff still goes to the Moleskine (imagine glueing a tram ticket to the iPhone) but most of the to-do lists and blog post ideas have been monopolized by Apple’s phone. With Gmail’s task manager I automatically sync to-do’s online, so that I have a unified list. With Wordpress’ App I can jot down blogpost drafts directly online. And if I want to keep track of a restaurant or other place I visited I can add it to my personal Google Maps.

Will I abandon paper for silicon chips? No way! I love writing and drawing with a ball pen on the silky pages. My thoughts are better framed better between the fake leather covers than inside “the cloud“. I like serendipitously browsing through old notes and be transported to past memories by travel tickets I’ve kept.

What does happen is that I consume my notepad much less… and I’m always eager in finishing one to start a brand new one, add stickers to it’s cover and copy useful information (Passport number, contact info, the code I use to tag different notes).

Just an irrelevant thought in a lazy Sunday in Amsterdam.

So finally almost 1 month ago I moved to Amsterdam to work in a very cool international event, PICNIC (more on my work in PICNIC on my blog dedicated to Conference Basics), that will take place next September 23 to 25.

The office is in the beautiful area of Jordaan, on the Herengracht canal. I also found a nice apartment near to Vondelpark and it takes me hardly 10 minutes on my beautifully decadent dutch bike to go from home to the office.

I’m loving Amsterdam so far. The city is a mix of a cosy fable town with a strong cosmopolitan attitude, framed by canals and a merchant atmosphere… all in a human scale that makes it easy to live in. The fact that the default transport is the bicycle adds to it’s peculiar mood. The temperature is just right during this summer season, not too warm but enough to wear a T-shirt (I’m not sure if I’d enjoy the city so much during winter but I might not be here anyway as this project lasts till mid-October). Rain is not yet an issue, though a light rain is a comon visitor.

Amsterdam looks like the right background for portrait photography, and I hope I’ll do enough of it in my scarce free time (want to model for me? send me an email!).

During the following weeks I’ll try to compile a short “weekend short” guide to Amsterdam, with the places I experience…  my moleskine and iPhone are crowded with notes from my moves here

I’m changing hosting service but there was some delay with the domain transfer… now that I’m moving to Amsterdam I’m kinda busy but my personal blog will be back online soon…. in the meanwhile why not visit my other blog, Conference Basics?

cheers

gian

Tomorrow I will officially get my Executive MBA degree at MIP-Politecnico di Milano… and my friend Eli the Best just sent me this cartoon by Dilbert

F

or several years I have been in charge of startup, marketing and operations of a company in the executive education area that organized conferences with outstanding business speakers and most recently I work as a freelance professional.

I have dealt with speakers like Bill Clinton, Michael Porter, Philip Kotler, Kevin Roberts, Lawrence Lessig, Malcolm Gladwell, Rudy Giuliani and Jack Welch amongst many others but also with lesser known names which where many times much more inspiring than top shots.

Having worked in America (USA, Brasil, Argentina), Europe (Germany, Italy, Spain) and Asia (Japan) and taken part of events in many other parts of the World, and after making many of the typical mistakes of the sector and seeing much more being done everywhere else, I decided to share some of the lessons learnt and in particular to dedicate my time to those innovative aspects of conference management that can transform a good event into an outstanding one, hence I have launched ConferenceBasics.com

This blog is about the organization and management of conferences, a sector in which I have been working in since the early 2000’s. I write about organization basics, tips and how-to’s, do’s and don’ts, anecdotes, observations from events I participate in, interviews to notable organizers and attendees.

My wish for this blog is to become a place to discuss with you on useful and interesting topics regarding this sector.

This post is writen in English (top) and Italian (bottom)

In English
[ego mode ON]
The second issue (April 2009) of Wired’s Italian edition has just been released and guess who’s article is featured in page 33…

You guessed right! My article on the Pasona 02 project, writen while I was living in Tokyo, has been published from page 33 to 36 (for now only available in Italian in print and online). I describe Pasona Group’s idea of creating an underground hi-tech greenhouse to provide food in a city environment and train unemployed people (mainly freeters, that are Japanese unemployed people with a lot of free time that take occasional short time jobs) on a sector that is growing in demand. Japan produces only about 28% of the food it consumes and imports the rest. But even that small percentage of production is at stake due to the lack of qualified workers. A by-product of the greenhouse located in the Otemachi financial district skyscraper is the production of fresh oxygen that the visitors to the dining area can enjoy while they eat the food yielded by this futuristic experiment. Using hydroponics and new techniques based on artificial light, the Pasona 02 project offers a partial remedy to the lack of agricultural areas of the country of the rising sun, which in a mere 378,000 squared km holds more than 128 million inhabitants.

In italiano
Il secondo numero di Wired Italia (aprile 2009) e’ stato appena pubblicato e tra pagina 33 e 36 trovate un mio articolo su Pasona 02, scritto mentre abitavo a Tokyo. Il testo lo trovate online qui.

In questo pezzo descrivo l’idea del Pasona Group di creare una serra nel sotterraneo del loro grattacielo nel distretto finanziario Otemachi di Tokyo per produrre cibo fresco in un ambiente cittadino e allo stesso tempo formare ragazzi senza lavoro (in particolare dei “freeter” ovvero persone che hanno molto tempo libero e lavorano solo occasionalmente) alle tecniche di agricoltura che oggi sono molto richieste. Attualmente il Giappone produce soltanto circa il 28% del cibo che consuma, e deve importare tutto il resto. Ma anche questa bassa percentuale e’ a rischio perche’ la manodopera qualificata scarseggia. Un prodotto secondario della serra e’ dell’ossigeno fresco che oggi viene respirato dagli impiegati di Pasona Group che usufruiscono degli spazi della mensa, mentre godono anche dei cibi prodotti da questo esperimento futuristico. L’utilizzo dell’idroponica (per la coltivazione in assenza di terra) e nuove tecniche basate su diversi tipi di luce artificiale, Pasona 02 vuole proporre un rimedio parziale alla mancanza di terre coltivabili delle isole nipponiche che nei suoi scarsi 378.000 kmq ospitano piu’ di 128 milioni di abitanti.

[ego mode OFF]