eurogeneration - Eurogeneration in America

Post-America syndrome

ely1984 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:34:00 +01:00

Here I am, back in Paris: still paying the consequnces of the jet-lag, with loads of ideas running through my mind, happy about being able to hug my wife and go back to cafebabel.com. But still...

Still I have to admit that this stars-and-stripes experience was so omni-comprehensive as to leave a mark. For the people around me it must be so wearying. Yesterday my collegue from EUrotik (now available in English as well) told me (in French): "Enough with these USA, Adrià".

Well, I have to say that, dear babelians that followed me faithfully during my "On the road 2.0", I feel like many of you after Erasmus. I guess I should be psychoanalysed by doctor Allanic, whom Prune talked about, o maybe by Fiorella. Joking...meanwhile, here is the latest version of my journey map with the New York stop that I didn't tell you much about...

View Larger Map

You can read here about the illuminating meeting with Jay Rosen, "crowd-sourcing journalism" guru, in the Big Apple.

A European behind Meru, Second Life's alternative

ely1984 — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:49:00 +01:00

When you’re 27, in Italy, if you're still doing a bachelor, all you can do is make a vow to the Virgin Mary. Vladlen Koltun, instead, got a PhD when he was 21 and has been teaching Computer Science for 3 years now. At Stanford, Silicon Valley’s backstage, where all the future founders of Google and You Tube studied.

Now Vladlen – that we meet in his own study in the Californian athenaeum in a beautiful autumn day – is working on a project that is expected to be revolutionary: he’s trying to create what I would define the Second Life-killer, the alternative to Second Life, the virtual community praised by the media and around which a real business is gradually growing. “Second Life has a problem of scalability [see Vladlen's comment below]. Moreover there’s a security deficit: anyone can easily listen to conversations and enter spaces he is not authorised in. With our project, these problems will just become memories”. The name itself is meant to underline this idea of stability: in the Buddhist religion Meru means spine of the world, something that keeps everything together.

All the work, guided by professor Koltun (in the picture on the left as he appears on the Stanford web site) and sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, began in January 2007 and involves a multicultural team – the Virtual World Group – of 9 people altogether among whom Indians, Chinese and Americans.

And Vladlen? Where is he from? "I was born in what was then Soviet Union and is now Ukraine, in an country and a culture that are disappeared nowadays. It's for this reason that sometimes I say I feel more Soviet that Ukrainian...(he laughs). No, well, if I had to feel I’m something”, says Vladlen, Russian mother tongue and fluent in English and Hebrew, “I would say I feel European. I feel more at home in the Old Continent than here in the States where there’s no tradition of beauty production” [see Vladlen's comment below].

Yet, maybe also to fill this gap, Vladlen is modelling this “alternative space” that, for him, is virtual reality. The first version of Meru is due to arrive at the end of 2008. “But be careful. The things that mostly resemble Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash are some computer games with which you can modify the world”. Meanwhile, real world is not interesting for Vladlen who says he hasn’t yet thought about starting a business: “At the beginning Internet itself wasn’t meant to be a business and it was started here in Stanford with the Arpanet project”. The rest of the story is renowned. Not bad for a Soviet.

USA: I like, I dislike

ely1984 — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:02:00 +01:00

A rich, explosive and extremely varied country, USA is, at the same time, a nation proud of its DNA, forged with blood and with an hard-and-fast Constitution. But also contradictory, sometimes cruel, always bearer of challenges, adventures and uncertainties, loads of uncertainties. These were the USA that I saw. Joking and being serious at the same time, here is a gallery of what I liked and what I didn’t.

I like

Washington subway: elegant

Animals throughout the city: funny

Multietnicity when it means harmony

The flag: it rocks

Offline ads for online web sites: modern

I dislike

New York subway: narrow, dirty, “well, what...?”

Regular coffee in Starbucks: are we sure that the roast is Italian???

Rats in the streets: still a problem in big cities like New York

The count down to cross the road: really unendurable (without having to talk about the omnipresent automatic drive that nullifies the breaks’ slow effect and makes your stomach jump).

Ounce, gallon, mile... grrrr. In the picture the graduates Giusy uses for cooking.

So what do you think? Am I too provincial? What are your impressions on America guys?

Inside Wikipedia and more from Florida

Adriano — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:59:00 +01:00

I am going to leave the Tampa Bay, Florida after a lot of incredibly good meetings mostly in St. Petersburg.

Wikipedia, an amazing noprofit organization. On Friday, I met with Sandy Ordoñez, Director of communications of the Wikimedia Foundation. I learned a lot from her about this amazing noprofit organization that runs the famous wikipedia website. Think about that: they only have 12 employees and they raise every year around 1.5 million dollars thanks to 25$ average donations from a lot of individuals. How can they do that? Because they have a very universal idea (knowledge must be free and available to all) and they involve volounteers in every step they do. "Every single press release we do", explains Sandy, "we have to share it with a 50-people community of invited and trusted members of Wikipedia". A lot of ideas for cafebabel.com! "But it is not easy. You have to find the right balance between building consensus and making decisions".

The entry of Wikimedia Foundation 100 sq-meters office with a map showing all the images of wikipedia. The Foundation will move up to San Francisco in January 2008. In the Bay Area is also located Wikia, the for profit company wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, has founded.

Left: fundraising strategy. Wikipedia has just launched its new campaign. Right: postcards from fans all around the world.

St. Petersburg Times, when good journalism goes local. I met with Bill Duryea (in the photo, left with a cafebabelsugar in the hand), a national editor who spent a lot of time explaining me everything about one of America's most celebrated local newspaper (see a story from the NYT). Their business model is more and more diversified. They launched a free press tabloid for young people plus a magazine targeted on healthy women and their contents are just so good because they provide a freshly local perspective to both Floridian, national but also international news.

Poynter Institute, wanna-be journalists, go there! The Poynter is very prestigious and well-known institute providing trainings for journalists but also many intriguing researches (see this study about readers' eye). I met with Bill Mitchell, editor of the Poynter on-line and Howard Finberg, editor of newu.org. The first website provides interesting conversations and analysis about journalism but also job offers in media world. The latter provides incredible on-line trainings to be a good journalist today. It's free and very very useful.

A bad news? Tomorrow morning I'll wake up at 5.

The good news? I have two. Tonight I've been invited to Giusy's house. She hosted me (as a true Sicilian who has lived in Naples) with her American boyfriend, Chris, offering me after the dinner hot chocolate milk + the cult "abbracci" biscuits (see the picture by Chris). The other good news? Tomorrow I fly to New York City for the last stop of my US trip. I am very tired but so happy to live this amazing adventure and also to share it with you all. Wish me good luck and if you have good tips for NYC... go for it!

Are you an anti-american? Have a look: you might change your mind!

ely1984 — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:50:00 +01:00

Let's try to demolish some prejudices about America

1. USA don’t do anything for the environment.
Yesterday, coming from Berkeley, we were travelling on this fast lane, marked by the rhomb, because we were two people in the same car.

2. There’s a poor political debate.
Raise your hand if you live in a country where there are as many political and international affairs publications at the newsagent’s.

3. Americans are not interested in what happens in the external world.
Have a look at Global Voices, where you can find the best of the world blogosphere in different languages.Here I am with David Sasaki, one of their most efficient editors.

And the pizza maker from Oakland asked: “Does Italy still exist?”

Adriano — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:14:00 +01:00

Oracle Arena, Oakland, California. It is 7:29 pm of the 6th of November. The NBA match between Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers is about to start off. As hungry as I am… I feel bald enough to queue up to buy a… ”pizza”. Soon my turn arrives, I order and ask to pay by traveller’s cheque. The woman (eighty years old) at the checkout point calls for the owner who asks for my passport. He grabs it and says:

- Italy? Is it still a country?
- Yes, of course. Why?
- Well, with the Euro you guys are like a single state now, right?
- Well, you are not completely wrong. In fact if you read carefully on the passport you will see that up on the first line it goes: “European Union”
- All right…so now you are like the USA, right? It was just about time
- Kind of… yes. Kind of...

Maybe European unity is still a long way to come. But if even a pizza maker in Oakland is aware that Europe is getting closer, that means something down there is starting to stir. Which is encouraging.
Afterwards my moral dropped because the team I was supporting, the Warriors has lost the fourth match in a row since the beginning of the Championship…proving to be one of the saddest teams in the NBA. That must be because Marco Belinelli, from Italy, sorry, from the EU with “furore”, has not come out to play…

Business, Transgression and Vibrations: the secret of the Silicon Valley

Adriano — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 05:34:00 +01:00

The scent of the grass just cut tingles my nostrils when I get to Stanford, in the heart of Silicon Valley. The medieval-style cloister of the little square of this micro cosmos of 10,000 inhabitants – a real town with shops, pizzerias, A&E and fire fighters stations – clashes with the wi-fi and the entrepreneurial verve that reigns all over the campus. Yes, since the secret of the success of this Knowledge Temple – that has given birth during the 70’s Arpanet, the ancestor of the Internet, and during the 80’s has welcomed students as the founders of Google and You Tube – is the symbiosis, hard to understand for an European eye, between the world of Business. It is sufficient strolling around the campus, sunny and warm, to spot on the board the ad “Google is currently recruiting programmers”, or a sign commemorating the funding for the classrooms of Computer Science by giants like Intel or Hewlett-Packard.

It does not have anything to do with Europe. Where the sense of partnership University-Enterprise is reduced to (fake) open days of orientation, internships not or underpaid and in any case without any future prospect, nepotism and so forth. But here in California it is not about altruism: the enterprises invest in thoughts, ideas, new visions. And often taking the risk of subsidizing projects without a clear economic interest. This is the case of Google, which did not have any business model at the very beginning. And this is also the case of a project that is kept top secret, (I will be talking about it shortly) a team led by an Italian researcher is working on. You can feel here the leak of brains. The temptations are strong to many French, Russians, and Italians I met here.

Now I am back in San Francisco, the metropolis with which Stanford, like Palo Alto or Mountain View (siege of Google). Lively city: the energy comes out the earth often in rapid motion and rushes into the cathodes of this icon of the hippy and alternative culture: this explains a big deal…why it is here and not anywhere else that the economy of the future is thought and implemented.

Pictures: before a breathtaking landscape I pose with my guide, a former diplomat that accompanies me all along this trip, Harley Davidson in the Latin borough Mission, in San Francisco too.

Traduzione di Alessandro Moncuso.

An hesitating Hillary reminds Ségolène Royal and Walter Veltroni

Adriano — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 05:28:00 +01:00

Last Tuesday Hillary Clinton officially joined the club of our own Italian para-politicians. The wife of the former US President has indeed answered with a “yes, no, maybe” when questioned about the subject that is now embittering America: illegal immigrants. The Governor of New York suggested, for practical reasons, to issue driver’s licenses even to immigrants without a regular visa, stirring up the critics of the Republicans. To a precise question by the anchorman of the debate between the primary elections candidates, Hillary asserted that she understood Eliot Spitzer’s choice. Then, evidently in a tight spot, she asked the leave to speak to state that she did not say that she agrees with him. Eventually, she tried to patch things up declaring that, all in all, it wasn’t such a bad idea. Her hesitation resembles Ségoléne Royal’s catastrophic campaign. The socialist candidate appeared to be too unresolved on key subjects such as Turkey joining the EU, declaring that she would have called a referendum to make the French decide and giving mixed signals. As last Veltroni, who has just won the primary elections for the Democratic Party, was the main target of Crozza satyr (Italian comedian – see video below) for his capability of being unable to choose. Hillary, Ségolène, Veltroni: if the para-politic is effective for winning the primaries, as demonstrated by the Italian and the French politicians, it is not enough to win the main elections. Madame Royal is not keen to explain that to Hillary maybe because the New York senator refused to meet the then anti-Sarkozy candidate, considered to be too radical.

Translation by Elisa Vincenzoni, a new blogtranslator I warmly welcome on Eurogeneration! Elise studies International Relations in Firenze.

On the road 2.0 - my trip so far in a Google Map

Adriano — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:43:00 +01:00

I've tried to report very briefly about the major meetings I've had so far in Washington and San Francisco with my International Visitor Leadership Program, thanks to the Google Maps. Enjoy! Tell me whether you like. If you do, I'll update it. This is an on-line journalism experiment but Google Maps aren't done for that. So you have to click on "View larger map" to read my briefs easily. Tomorrow will leave San Francisco for Tampa, Florida. Wikipedia and the Poynter Institute are waiting for me.

View Larger Map

A discussion on cafebabel.com in an American University class

Adriano — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:26:00 +01:00

Last week the very program began. Appointment at the American University with Professor Shalini Venturelli (whose origins go back to Lucca, Italy), who runs the International Communication Department there. After an informal chat in her office Mrs. Venturelli says to me: “Let’s go to give a class now”. “How come?” I ask her, “Yes, no worries”.

This way I end up in a classroom, with some thirty students from all over the world, to speak about European media, to show cafebabel.com (homepage but Eurotik as well and the slideshow of Comikazen that made me proud) and to deliver answers to a captivated audience: Americans of course, but also many Asians, Europeans…and many more.

And afterwards the lesson given by Professor Venturelly about: how the approach with cultural policies changes in Usa, France, Germany and United Kingdom. The allusion to the US is enlightening if compared to the state of the EU nowadays. The issue the School of Chicago used to tackle was “how to create a sense of community in a multicultural country?” The answer : by the mass media. Does it recall you something?

Something that struck me: the merchandising. I could not help buying the t-shirt of the University in which cafebabel has been discussed for the first time in the US.

P.S. The student I speak with is a Spanish who is going to write an article about cafebabel.com in a student publication.

Translated by Alessandro Mancosu.

Washington and Brussels. (Un)veiled

Adriano — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 05:11:00 +01:00

570,000 inhabitants, medium size, quiet and yet cosmopolitan city: Washington has greeted me warm and sunny – it resembles Brussels, “capital” of those wanna-be United States of Europe that, as USA, have chosen a city lacking of a strong personality to pile up their institutions.

But, since my arrival at the airport, I understood I am not in Europe any more, either for the long time queuing up (ah Schengen!) and for this amazing poster for the immigrants to see, with a big WELCOME in capital letters. The question arises spontaneously: can you picture the same image in Paris (where wearing the Islamic veil is forbidden to women in schools), or in Berlin or Rome?

The impression, my guide confirmed, is that whoever gets to US nowadays is welcomed better compared to our immigrants.

Pictures by Greg Gorman. Translated by Alessandro Mancosu. More pics on Facebook.

Going to America

Adriano — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:19:00 +01:00

No, not forever. Just to meet the people of Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, New York Times with an idea in mind: digging out new ideas in order to improve cafebabel.com. I will be visiting Martin Luther King and George W. Bush ‘s homeland during three chilly and yet sparkling weeks. All this made possibile thanks to that post war America that, with the Fulbright Act, came to understand how the key to win the Cold War was all about conquering the hearts and minds of the mankind throughout the world. By inviting students (such as the Fulbright scholaship) or young leaders from the entire world in order for those people to get to know the stars and stripes counterparts of their work environment. I'll be there thanks to the International Visitor Leadership Program that attracts every year 5000 youths from all over the world: a masterpiece Europe should bet on as well. This is also a great opportunity, for which I would like to thank the Franco-American Vanessa. I will be accompanied by a US retired diplomat who will be my guardian angel. I hope to introduce him to you all very soon. Provisional programme:

Washington
San Francisco
Tampa, Florida
New York City

During this trip, I promise, I will be doing my utmost to describe my encounters and impressions, with the eyes of someone who has lived the eurogeneration and goes to USA to tell about it…So, please stay tuned on our channel "Eurogeneration in America". But in the end let me propose you a must among the songs worldwide, a true leader…Renato Carosone. Because “he got it”

P.S. If you have any tips and suggestions about landmarks to be seen, friends worth bringing a chocolate box...let me know, I am waiting for comments or email... Translated by Alessandro Mancosu