Back to the roots

Pasta al pomodoro

Yes, Pasta al pomodoro is the food I mostly miss when I am abroad.

And the recipe is quite simple. I still remember my grandma preparing it.

A little bit of onion, one carrot and celery.

Then olive oil, tomatoes and basil.

You chop a slice of onion, the carrot and the celery together and you put it in the olive oil that is already warm. Few minutes with fire veeeeery low until the onion is light brown and then you put the canned tomatoes and you wait.

You see it starting bubbling, always at low fire stirring every now and then for some time until the oil starts been on the surface and the sauce is thick enough to be able to stay attached to the pasta.

Then the magic touch... Basil...

And that was starting at 8.00am and when I was child I had my milk and cereals with the pomodoro sauce bubbling in the background.

But that's Italy and I have a golden rule. NEVER expect finding something similar to Italy when you are abroad. And this is valid mostly for food. Not that the local foods are bad but the Italian food outside Italy is simply not the right one.

And once, a colleague of mine tried what I had told him to avoid. He tried to order a pasta al pomodoro during a business trip. I will not tell you what he received te comments that followed. But that was obvious. This was not their recipe. Not their cup of tea.

This allowed me to taste some delicious plates. Tajin in Morocco, Dahl in India even a well prepared Huggies in Scotland!

These were simply perfect. The right food in the right place.

Although the recipe is quite simple infact, to prepare the right Pomodoro sauce you need the right ingredients someone that has taught you how to put it together and experience.

This exemple came in my mind this week, during a meeting.

I had a meeting with my salesforce discussing about some opportunities they had.

One of the remarks I got from a lot of them was that we were missing some types of units because in one job they could not quote with what we had.

Always looking for what is missing and not arriving to the top of what is available. Being the best in a specific area is today crucial, more crucial that having everything and being one of the many swimming in a red ocean.

Most of the companies, expecially italian companies, must work as a corner store.
With their resources, that are limited, they must focus on one thing doing it very well.

And in today's world this is part of the strategy.

Clear cut choices. Unless you are a big name like NIKE, APPLE, SAMSUNG (but sometimes even if you are such a big name) you cannot be everything for everybody.

Simply identify where you can be the best, what you must have in term of tools and the IMPLEMENT everything.

IDEAS, TOOLS, PEOPLE

TOMATOES, A PAN AND MY GRANDMOTHER

Buon appetito

Who is gonna save the world?

During last years the "disaster theory" has been growing bigger and bigger.
We are threatening the world and we must behave properly in order to avoid the worst.

"Sustainability", "Environment friendly" all these words have been bubbling in all the normal things that we are using and buying every day.

What has happened then? Well, not very much.
We have simply done the USUAL THINGS a little better.
Is it the right way?

"If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got"

This quote is clearly not mine. Actually I do not know who said this and even Internet is quite confused on this.
However explains quite well the point. By doing always the same things, even a little better, we will NOT be able to take a great step forward. A step forward as great as we would need.

So what... you would say.

The secret is SPECIALIZATION. That's the key word.

Quite a strange word though.

To try and explain what I mean I usually think about this picture that was an old (time's running fast) ad by Pirelli.

Carl Lewis is wearing a great pair of shoes! They are surely shoes but are they the BEST ONES for what he's supposed to do?
Are we in the position to use equipments, whichever equipment we are talking about, that are the same EVERYWHERE in the world and for EVERY USE?

The answer is...
NO!
And even though it is clear that we cannot multiply all equipments taking into consideration all the uses and users, we must try to optimize them.

In a word, we must change something.

Recently, a Crowdspeaking program called Phoneblocks was launched.

 

 

This is a great idea, that has also been linked to environmental issues (I am not so convinced that there is a real envioronmental reason for that).

But the key point is, let us have a device that is doing exactly what I need and I like.
A phone that is SPECIALIZED in doing what I need and that I like.

In my working life I am dealing with hundreds of salesmen, engineers, of consultants and users that understand that what they are currently doing is not the best solution.

They are understanding the different solutions that I am giving them but then, when we are trying to see if this can be used according to the "normal" rules, we are not able to find a way to fit them. And then, going the "usual way" is the simplest, quickest and safest way.

After several years I spent trying to be a "missionary" and proposing something different to:

1) save a lot of money
2) save a lot of energy

I finally found the answer to the question "Who is gonna save the world".

Who dares to change the "usual way" to do things.

Difficult, time consuming, dangerous but incredibly effective.

 

It's (almost) all about QUALITY!

Apple launches a new IPhone 5C, a low cost device...

APPLE... low cost... These were two words that could not be in the same sentence.

It is like "The Fonz" trying saying "I was wrong"

And there was a reason. That was a device INNOVATIVE, WITH A GREAT SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE, SOLVING PROBLEMS (or things that you realized that were problems right then) and quite NICE.

These points were greatly highlighted by Steve Jobs when IPhone was launched in 2007.

New product. Nothing similar in the market. No price benchmark.
And the same was for IPad.

Apple was, and is, known for the overall QUALITY of its devices. The hardware quite powerful and the flawless software. This mixed to a very stylish design with nice material giving a stunning perceived quality (I say perceived as it's the 3rd IPod that I must change because the on/off button breaks down!!!).

This is the reason why the price was not an issue. Everybody wanted to have the best device in the market accepting all the cons of the "closed system" Apple strategy.

Now... Iphone 5C as Coloured (to me as Cheap). Plastic instead of metal and few Euros less on the device.
But the point is that Apple has introduced the PRICE variable and that is a mass distruction weapon.

This is not what Apple is recognized for. This is not their cup of tea. Will the QUALITY of the brand remain the same?
On the first day IPhone 5C got 1.000.000 pre-orders. A good performance but still HALF of what the IPhone 5 was able to do.

This story helps me going to another anecdote. This summer I have been to Pescara, in Abruzzo (my father's region).
It is a great place Abruzzo, the sea on one side and the mountains on the other. A national Park on the highest peaks of the Appennini mountains and hundreds of  km of coasts. Everything with a delicious wine, oil and food.

While talking on the beach I met a gentlemen that started talking about his company.
They are producing Chimney Pipes and vent systems for stoves and burners. But most of all they WANT TO BE THE BEST!!!

He was absolutely passionate of his job, described how much he is putting in term of ensuring the quality and the investiment he did in new machine tools. He described me the new product he invented to help natural draft devices.

But then... he asked me how to be able to increase his export part. He does not want to start thinking about a "low cost" range because he knows that's not what he's good at.

There are companies with the original "Apple attitude" everywhere in Italy. Now, a lot of them are also thinking about "low cost" products. Probably not the best thing to do.

Incidently, if you are interested in a great chimney pipe or vent system, leave a message!!!

Ciao and enjoy your Sunday

 

Opportunity

My last Blog ended saying that I found the way to do meditation.
Everything started because of something wrong. I wanted to go out running and the Ipod was out of batteries.
To that date, running was for me trying to keep fit and listen some music. Running=Ipod.
It always seemed impossible to me go away from that equation.

But that day everything changed.

I started listening to my body, myself breathing. And that was my mantra. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIN OOOOOOOOOOOOut. I could finally clean my mind. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOut.

That was great. Being able to clean my mind listening to my body. This is the great thing of a meditative (not competitive) running.
My "running passion" started from there. It started from a need (as most of the things that really work) and developed into my hobby.

And thanks to the hobby I found how much running was similar to my job.
Few points that will clear this concept
1st: You must know the "battlefield". Not knowing the track or the circuit will bring you to a bad distribution of your effort
2nd: You must know who you are and where are your strength. To properly distribute the effort you must know where you are good and where you can push
3rd: Control: listen to your body to see where you are and see if you can reach the target.
4th: Understand your weak points: look where you can improve and work on that weaknesses
5th: In a race you must know your opponents: never try to follow the others. Always run to the level that maximise your strenght according to who you are (and who you want to be).

This is what people should do if they need to go and look for OPPORTUNITIES for their business. Before investing any second (REMEMBER that time is the most valuable resource that we have) try to understand the battlefield, the competitors and your strenghts, understanding which is the problems you can solve.

I read a great book (in italian) that gives a nice description for that. It is the Art of war modified for the managers.
I am sure that there is also a similar version in English but, for the Italians or who speaks Italian, this is quite nice.

MMMMMMeditation

Coaching. That's the word of the decade. To find someone that is capable to take out of you everything you have inside. Sometimes very well hidden.

I have recently done some very good trainings. There is a coach I like the most, Sebastiano Zanolli (www.sebastianozanolli.com). He's a brilliant speaker and has great motivational skills.
In one of his training he spoke about meditation to clean your mind and reduce the stress.
I always thought that the mind has got a maximum capacity, like a bottle. When you exceed with stress, data or anything else there is an explosion. This is why, being able to find a way to reduce the level, was a great idea.
The process is easy... you start thinking about nothing for few minutes. Three just to start with. And to help you there is the mantra to be a magnet for your attention. It doesn't necessarily be any clever or mystical phrase. Just a sound to keep your attention away from the usual things.
Three minutes... simple.
My mantra was easy. TORO, TORO, TORO (My football team).
Three minutes. Go!
TORO TORO TORO TOR... I must call Andrea... ouch no!
Again. GO!!!
TORO TORO TORO TORO TOR... Tomorrow I must remember that...

Well that was IMPOSSIBLE.

But then... I found the solution.

Here we are!

That is the first post of my new Blog.

First of all... Why is it in English (or a kind of English...)?
Why can't I be lazy and just write in Italian?

Well, I would like to share what I know, what I see and what I like to everybody. I will then talk about my place, my country and what we can produce in my country and, possibly, help people trying our products.
It will be developed in the next days. All the, few, things I know and I like will be listed and shared.
Let's start.
See you soon