Editorials in English

in English

Micromanagement vs. experts: the original sin in organizations

I was reading an interesting article about micromanagement (Why Is Micromanagement So Infectious?) that forced me to write again on management issue. My interest is on the implication of a micromanagement attitude on a team with a focus on expert management. In business management, micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes or controls the work of subordinates or employees. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation. Micromanagement classic symptoms are the lack of delegation, the imposition of company rules regardless their effectiveness or fairness, the not contextualization of task and goals, the trivial focus on the lesser details…

Industry 4.0. a cultural revolution before a technology one

Industry 4.0. a cultural revolution before a technology one by Antonio Ieranò We are used to deal with linguistic expressions consisting of a name and two wagered numbers whose second is a zero: Type 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and so on. Referenced in ascending order, the figures would suggest an evolution, a transition to a more advanced version (or up to date one) of a given situation or a certain object. Among the first to show itself, and the best known not only among the experts there is definitely “web 2.0”. It is a fascinating phenomenon from an ideal point of…

Learning from mistakes is not an easy task to accomplish

Learning from mistakes is not an easy task to accomplish It is common to read that we should learn from our mistakes. It is absolutely true. The problem when we talk about mistakes is to learn how to recognize a mistake, and which lesson we can take from it. Although it seems a simple task to accomplish, it is one of the hardest to do. Recognize a mistake The mistake analysis is a serious thing. First of all we should be able to recognize a mistake Then we should analyze what kind of mistake we are dealing with After we…

unhappy employee are a cyber security concern

Have you ever considered the fact that the “best place to work” is something a security chap should take into serious consideration? A lot of people keep thinking that security is all about one of that technology, most of those expert master perfectly one of another specific technology and think they have the sacred graal of security. Since I am not so a big tech expert I am allowed to think that security isn’t in that specific technology, but in a systemic approach where technology cover just one part, and is just a part of a whole process. One of the aspect…

Cryptography, keeping on the big lie

So Cryptography would be a National Security Issue? I’m tired to be polite and politically correct when talking about encryption. Let us be clear and honest, all those crypto_war is a pile of crap. Every time I heard someone claiming that we should not enforce strong cryptography I wonder: to they have the slightest idea what they are talking about? Probably not, considering also most of the objections against cryptography I heard. Listening to those “enlighten” minds it seems that without cryptography the world be a sort of heaven where intelligence could have the possibility to solve any criminal case. And…

Our memories are all we have

I am in China for work, with a few connection to the real world outside, so Italian news usually comes to me late, when I am able to connect to internet from hotel; great firewall allowing. Being isolated from the Italian reality put things into a different perspective, allow you to keep less news with more time to digest and think about. It happened a few days ago I learned of the death of Umberto Eco, one of the greatest Italian tinker of our age. He was a great writer, a great thinker, a truly free spirit. The first thing I did…

Management style, common error to avoid

Management style, common error to avoid Being a manager is a hard job, and it deals with cultural, economical, corporate issues and rules. But being a manager is indeed an important job usually performed with a not clear idea on what a manager should do. We can find Bad and Good managers, and most of the times they do not even realize where they stand in the good or bad dashboard, because usually nobody teach you what to be a manger means. Nevertheless there is a world of literature on management, so If someone really want to improve from naïve…

The rightful way to make an employee unhappy

Management is a difficult art, management in big corporations is more difficult. Management in a corporation where the multicultural requirement is a need is even harder. We all know it and, to a certain extent, we have to deal with it. We can’t expect everything works well and right, and we have to show flexibility and we have to be open to change and embrace the new but… Let’s be real, no matter how much effort you put sometimes things are just not right. When the environment is too toxic probably is better to leave than hoping for a change. …

The fine art to make impossible what is possible. (Or why many projects fail)

I know there is always a great distance between reality and management, Sometimes it happens to me to bump into a real good manager, but it is mostly an exception to the general rule than the norm. I would say that my personal opinion is that because nowadays management mostly is all but dealing with reality, with the prevalent culture that has moved from production to finance, we moved from the real economy to a virtual representation that does not take into account many factors because focused only on few parameters. The result is quite interesting since, from one side,…

Will Safe Harbor closure disrupt the internet?

The biggest threat internet has ever seen is related to a sentence of the European Court of Justice, its consequences could block the data flow between countries closing internet into “areas”. Last October, the European Court of Justice struck down the Safe Harbor agreement, a 15­ year old transatlantic arrangement that permitted U.S. companies to transfer data, such as people’s Google search histories, outside the EU. In invalidating the agreement, the ECJ found that the blurry relationship between private-sector data collection and national security in the United States violates the privacy rights of EU citizens whose data travel overseas. Basically…

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