Guerrilla thinking

Once more.
You will accuse us poor Guerrilla thinkers of being negative, pessimists dark-future prophets.
Yes, you will say we are only able to criticize but never provide an alternative a clear vision of how things should be.
Honestly we do not care. 

The title you can read above is a true fact. And if just don’t want to hear that, then click away from here. Italian crisis is not about its public debt, tax evasion or GDP, it’s about culture and system.Here are the reasons why Italy’s crisis might end in terms of economy but will not soon be over as far as its ability to innovation is concerned.

1) ITALY DISCOURAGES TALENT

Say you are a genius. Say you have great ideas and you want to open a company to share it with the market. If you were born in Italy, it might not just be that easy.
Your will to innovate will smash his head against the wall of bureaucracy.
In Italy it takes ages to open a company. And even more to close it.
And once you do it you pay taxes, a lot of them, even when you don’t earn money.
Need money for your business? Forget the banks or any social support.
So much for garage companies and young business. 

2)  IN ITALY YOU ARE ALWAYS YOUNG

25? 30? 40? 50? 
No matter how old you might get.
Up to your 50s, you might be too young in Italy.
Walking the streets of the BelPaese, reading its newspapers and watching local tv channels you will always hear a common refrain: “boys”.
You are always a boy. Tv news will talk about a 35 years old man referring to him as a boy. 

In Italy you are always too young for a career when you are between your 30s and 40s. And too young to be a partner or a president in your 50s. 
Don’t be surprised though. This makes sense in a country where political leaders are in their 80s (or pretty close to them).
You got time. If you play your card well, you might make it in your 60s.

4) IN ITALY THERE IS NO MERITOCRACY

Most of Italian managers sit on their chairs not because of their ability or the results they met but because they are sons of someone, friends of someone, or simply someone’s bitches. Italy totally ignores merit. Merit is something for which you might deserve a badge or congratulations from your boss.
But be aware that this might also be a problem in your career.
If you are too smart your boss might think you are dangerous.

If you want to sit in the red room and take decisions you must play the good old tamed monkey and try to have some saints guarding your supposed-to-be career.
Ideas and change cost effort and risk. And both are not welcomed in Italy.

That’s mainly why nothing ever changes in Italy, because nobody has the balls to take decisions and risks. If you are not willing to do it and sit on a decision chair just because your sugar daddy told you to, you might want to stay low and don’t show up to much. And taking decisions would definitely expose you too much. 

5) ITALY IS NOT A NATION

Most of Italians just don’t care about what happens in their own country.
Yes they will be touched for a lost kitten on a tv show or moved by big tragedies but rarely will they stand up and demand their rights.
The actual Italian government, run by unelected prime Minister, is a clear demonstration of this.
Italians love to shout and say everything is going bad and that somebody should do something to change the situation. But when it comes to move their ass and do it, a few of them are willing to take the risk and spend their time or money for the love of the nation. They prefer to keep on complaining and sit dully on their brand new sofa watching their brand new flat screen.
There are no communities, only individuals with relatives.
What happens outside their families is not their business.
Italy is not a nation. Not anymore. Is a collection of individuals bound by the same system/language but divided as far as anything else is concerned. 

6) ITALIANS ARE AFRAID OF MAKING MISTAKES

If you know USA culture you are probably familiar with the concept of failing.
Winning is a very important value in America at the point that one of the most famous disparaging definition for anyone is “loser”.
But as much as winning is important, losing is never an eternal damnation.
When you fail and you lose, you can (almost) always deserve a second and then a next try. The same can’t be said for Italy.
The freedom of making mistakes in Italy is mined by culture, bank system, government and people. And in a place where you can’t fail, you can’t certainly win. If you can’t fail you try to survive.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Italy used to be a powerful country, rich of talented people and strong heroes.
But it has lost its soul. It sold it to foreign merchants of dreams.
And with it, its power to dream and risk is gone as well.
After the second world war, Italians took their cardboard suitcases and travelled the world to literally build USA.
Many of them made success and ultimately got their sons or grandsons to play a big role in the heart of American government and soul.
But nowadays Italians are spoiled and dull. 
To most of them the dream of their life is becoming a tv star or a soccer player.
And those who are different, who feel they could do more have to face the fact that the country is not ready.

And to those talented, brilliant minds. To the young Galileos, Fermis and Caravaggios, the only chance that is left is to leave and look for a place that’s ready to exploit their passion and strive for life and a better future.
 

That’s it.
It’s all in the title.

We had the chance to talk to some of our fellow Italy-based GTs a couple of days ago.
Frustration was all over the air. 
The web in Italy is failing. Not used to its all potential. 

Here are the answers to the question: why are Italian companies failing on the web?

1) MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN COMPANIES ARE TOO OLD AND PROUD

Don’t misunderstand us. It’s not a matter of real age. But it is surely a matter of MENTAL age and disposition. People taking decisions in Italy are too often unable to understand the trends and follow the market. They are stuck into their product/brand state of mind and unwilling to think as a consumer.
Even when they pretend to do it, they always universalize their point of view.

You can hear them say: “I would never tweet” , “I don’t use Foursquare”, without understanding that there are many, so many other people that actually would and do.
Rather than getting them to trust their agency, this incapacity plays on their pride and get them up to themselves and ultimately in the position not to understand what is being proposed.

2) NOBODY EVER TAKES THE RISK TO DECIDE ANYTHING

Think about it. How many times have you held a 3 HOURS presentation to a large audience of people in a room and heard right afterwards that they would present that to their “boss” and decide?
In Italian companies (or at least in big ones) only a few people take the risk to decide. The rest of them simply flow from one presentation to the other, unable to even express their own opinion.
You can see that for yourself. Next time you hold a presentation, ask to your interlocutors what they think about it.
If the boss is in the room, you will see that nobody will ever talk before him/her.
And when they do, they will simply go after their boss.
People working in Italian companies are FOLLOWERS by nature.
But how can you expect a brand carried by followers to be a leader? You can’t.

3) MARKETING PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THE DIGITAL MARKET

This sounds funny, doesn’t it? 
When you hear the word “marketing” you might expect that these people actually study, know and deepen their market. But when you face them in a meeting you soon realize they don’t.
Sure, iF they sell, let’s say, coffee they might know many things about coffee but they don’t really never know how the coffee is discussed, loved, hated and connected to their target online.
Never have our Italian GTs found during their presentations to clients someone sitting on the other end of the table able to give them a vision of their digital awareness and reputation and a clear brief of their goals.
“Digital” is a word that means a lot and nothing to them.
Most of them still think that it actually means having or creating a website.
Too many times you can hear them saying silly things like “Facebook is for kids” or “Youtube can’t make money, it will close sooner or later”. 
Truth is that they rarely even have a Facebook account. 
There’s no passion, no real interest.
They read an article in a newspaper and they think they know it all. The problem is that the article is written by another Italian average market thinker who pretends to be a guru but it’s just, most of the times, a jackass.

4) PEOPLE IN ITALIAN COMPANIES LACK IN PASSION FOR THEIR JOB (AND LIFE)

Communicating a brand/product is one of the best jobs you might happen to have.
But you can’t live it as a day by day career.

In order to really succeed and make a difference you must live it as a passion.
You must be curious about people. You must ask yourself questions like: what do they do? where do they do it? And most importantly: WHY do they do it?

This is even more true when you are talking of the digital landscape.
After all, the web is all about passion and love.

But people working in the marketing areas of most Italian companies just don’t get it.
And they really don’t do this anymore. They pay zillions euros to idiot research agencies that will pop out a million slides powerpoint to say nothing that you can easily understand going out in the streets for yourself.

Please Italian guys, stop sitting on the throne of your brand growing a fat ass.
Go out, breathe, listen to the people, get them to talk, use a bus, get on a train, LIVE and watch.
And learn.

That will do a lot more for your work than any research can do.
And you will stop failing.