Simone Brunozzi

I’m at Melbourne airport, waiting for my flight for Sydney.
I waited for about 20 minutes in queue, before the check-in.
Qantas, the airline I fly with today, has this policy:
If a flight is about to leave, they ask people in the queue if they’re on that flight, and they take them directly to the check-in counter, letting them skip the line.
A great “tactical” choice, since otherwise these people would slow down the flight, or miss it.
However, this is a POOR “strategical” choice, because from now on I’ll arrive at the airport half an hour before my flight, I’ll skip all queues, and will jump on the plane right away, smiling at all these people that arrived long before me and stood in line for 20 minutes.
Qantas: you’re dead wrong.
You use incentives in the wrong way.

It’s two years now! Still an amazing experience!

Everything started… here.
It’s an interesting story, “How I got hired by Amazon.com”.

From May 10th to 28th I’ll be in Australia, doing a business trip for Amazon Web Services.

Here’s my schedule:
May 10th: Perth
May 11th-15th: Melbourne
May 15th-18th: Gold Coast
May 18th-21st: Melbourne
May 21st-28th: Sydney

I’m busy on most days, but I’d be happy to meet with you if you’re around.
If so, please email me at this address: simoneb at am__a__zon dot com (remove _ ), and we’ll arrange a meeting!

Thanks :)

This week I’m in India, at the Great Indian Developer Summit 2010, in Bangalore.
One of the biggest developer conferences on Earth.

I’ll break all records, doing:
3 talks;
2 keynotes;
1 workshop.

Here some examples of my slides:
One.
Two.
Comments are appreciated.

The workshop is very technical, but I’ll do a demo and I doubt I’ll use slides. So… You can’t watch it :)

In the next few days my blog activity will go down to zero, at most. I hope you’ll use this chance to look at some of my older posts.
Maybe you have better things to do, but I think it’s worth a try.
I don’t want to give you any hint… Just randomly look.

Or, if you read italian, check out my italian blog.

I wish you a great week!
Mine started well from the beginning ;-)

Mrs. Polverini, who recently won the regional election in region Lazio (the one where Rome is located, thus one of the richest region in central Italy), is now under a heavy storm of critics related to a conversation that was captured by a cameraman a few days ago. Another politician, Mr. Zaccheo, tells her that he was able to bring votes, and asks “Not to forget his daughters”, as a form of reward for his job. This is the Youtube link (video in italian).

As usual, I don’t like to spend time on the specific details of this single incident, but I’d rather look at the general situation that is so common in Italy.

To be honest, most italian politicians, from small pawns to powerful ministers, HAVE TO use these techniques and practices to win votes and thus elections.
For Mrs. Polverini, being “catched” like this means that she will probably face legal action, but in a general sense she’s no different than all the other politicians.
To be clear: this is NOT to justify her, but just to focus on the broader problem.

Our politicians live in a sick environment: there’s NO WAY to be a politician without facing the thousands of requests for favor that come from everywhere.
We would need to introduce a great transparency, at every level, to avoid these situations in the future.
One way could be to have Open Data; to have transparent and legit job selections for public administration positions, and to introduce meritocracy at every level.
This path, however, doesn’t capture the votes, and therefore no politician is going to go after it.
Do you see a big difference, here, between left and right wings? I don’t.

I think that the solution can come from a popular movement, from the ground, bottom up, possibly sustained by a neutral platform, and guided by energetic and capable people. People willing to change Italy and happy to be part of this change.
Change doesn’t have to go through politics, to start with. It has to be on a parallel track, without becoming part of it. It should be “super partes”, neutral, and hunt down all the old ways of doing politics, forcing the opening towards the real desides that voters have.
I don’t see any signal like this one.

For some reasons, I think that Larry Lessig doesn’t get all the rewards he deserves for his work (above all: FixCongressFirst.org) to change politics and life.
I think that if a person doesn’t get that recognition, that person has the right to say “I’ll stay home, with my family”. That person would be right.
Perhaps, there should be another way, then.

A possibility could be that an old crazy billionaire invests some tens of millions of Euros in a Foundation, and hires young honest people to make this change. I’ll cross my fingers.

Instead of focusing on this Polverini scandal only (which is important, of course), let’s ask ourselves what we would need to stop corruption, stop this sick way of doing politics.
Well, this would be a huge change for Italy.
And I admit that I’m one of these people that don’t think that Universal Suffrage is necessarily a good idea.
We could discuss this in person, if you’ll meet me somewhere.

Maybe, using a pure “Unix” approach, we should use drastically simple rules:
- No politician over 40 years old;
- Public Administration employees can be fired;
- Every politician should disclose his monetary assets and earnings;
- the national television company, RAI, has three channels: let’s convert one of them to English, another to Chinese, and keep the third one in Italian.
- We hire Lessig and let him create a true Politics 2.0 platform.

Well, this would already be enough to breathe fresh air.

What do you think?

It’s a pity that you don’t speak italian, because in the last few months I’ve written a lot of interesting things in my italian blog. It’s just that I don’t have time to translate all of them!

Most people know about my past Second Life project, Assisi in Second Life. I don’t spend time in Second Life anymore, because I’m too busy working, and in fact the land is FOR SALE.
So, I frequently get asked the question: “Is Second Life dead?”
I answer: “Well, quite the opposite!”. In fact, Second Life, despite newspapers and magazines are not covering it as often as they did two years ago, is growing very fast.
Read this great Washington Post article and get a sense of where its economy is going. (via @JeffBarr)

If you’re interested in getting involved in my Assisi project (buying the land, renting it, doing something with it), feel free to email me (email is on top of the page).

This very interesting talk sums up, with great realism, how our life could be in the future, dominated by the evolution of Farmvilles and the like. Games, Advertising, Big Brother.

These are the new advertising nightmares that are listed:
- Cereal boxes with screen
- Soda cans with Wi-fi
- Tatoos with Adsense
- REM in-ear entertainment
- Sensors that sense our emotions
- Government rewards for supporting political candidates
- Eye sensors that track our reading

This is what the speakers concludes:
Our grandchildren would know every book that we’ve read.
That legacy will be there, we’ll be remembered.
And you get to thinking:
Is it possible maybe that, since all this stuff is being watched and measured, I should change my behavior a little bit, and be a little better than I would have been?
It could be that this system of mass commercialization is terrible, but it’s possible that they’ll inspire us to be better people if game systems are design right.
I know this stuff is coming.

Personally, I’m not optimistic at all. I believe that economic interests, together with invincible tools, will transform us into consumption puppets. How to react, how to avoid it? I don’t know.

One year ago, in march 2009, I was in Cuba.
Ten days, three friends (me, Dax and Gianni), an island, a rented car.

Cuba.
My 900 photos, which for you ain’t nothing, but for me they’re a treasure of recalls.

It’s a pity, after one year, not to remember people’s names, places names, and a lot of other things. I wish I could meet Dax again, look at the pictures, and remember all the things together.

Cuba, a place that when you’re there, you think of the burden to drive all around the island in a few days; you think about the carretera central, supposedly a highway which instead is sometimes little more than a mountain path; the famous Cuban GPS that we used to go around without losing track; the food, which is not great and it’s always the same (langostas (lobsters), tomatoes, eggs, bread, gelatine marmalade, butter, platanos (bananas) and some oranges).
You think that it’s impossible that in Cuba nobody calls them bananas, and that if you say bananas they don’t understand you. You think about crucifixion, and the role of religion and santeria, and the African slaves, and the Cuban History and everything else. The Cuban art, so rich and specific. The ocean, which is crystal clear and beautiful only in certain places. And cigars. And Hemingway. And the Hotel Nacional which Al Capone used to visit in the roaring 30′s.

You think about an entire pueblo, oppressed by a regime for fifty years, but also a regime that was embagoed by the US for most part of these years. The fall of the Russian empire and the following Periodo Especial, when Cuban lost most of their economic privileges and never gained them back again.
And then, everyone has his opinion on Cuba: on Che Guevara, on Castro, pro-USA or anti-USA, everyone talks about it even if very few know enough details. And during these days I discovered, reading and watching, lots of things that you can learn only if you are in Cuba, only if you live it, even if for a short period of time.

I think about the Buena Vista Social Club, a documentary on the music of the Club by the same name (which in Cuba, you read “Club” with a “u”, the same way you pronounce “good”), which I wathed before going to Cuba, and let me dream a lot about it.

I think about the camahan (not sure how to write it, since it’s a local dialect from Las Tunas), the European/American/Canadian tourists that visit Cuba for 1-2 months a year, and when in Cuba they have an official girlfriend, which for the other ten months has her own life and her own real boyfriend; and this real boyfriend doesn’t complain about it, because with the rich guy’s money the can both live well throughout the year. And you think of how it would be absurd to do something like this, say, in Italy… And how it is natural there in Cuba. Misery changes people, and their way of thinking.
And Dax’s tomatoes, a story apart, that one. And their transportation things.

I think that a holiday in Cuba is not exactly a holiday, but an voyage inside yourself. Something that marks you and changes you, and teaches you.
Avana, Santa Clara, Trinidad, Las Tunas, Santiago, The Bahía de Cochinos, Varadero… Ah, so many memories!

When I think about Cuba, I feel both nostalgia and bitterness: bitterness, because I didn’t use that chance to write about it, in the moment when memories and names and places and things were so vivid. Nostalgia, because it’s an uncomfortable place to live, and yet you know that sooner of later you want to be back there.

I think about Cuba, and I say to myself: one day I’ll be back, with a special person, for a month, and I’ll go around everywhere, and will discover more and more of it. Can’t wait.

Here’s my new, short, free ebook:
Goosmama, Rich in 60 minutes.

This is the worst book you’ve ever seen.

You need few minutes to read it, but I think that its value goes beyond that.
Let me know if you like it :)