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Viewed 1517 times | words: 2227
Published on 2025-10-29 11:00:00 | words: 2227
Another threshold achieved well ahead of schedule- so this time will announce before, instead of, as usual, announce after.
This article will be short, and, therefore, will not follow the new format (table of contents, outline at the beginning of each section, etc).
It is nice that this further threshold is around the corner as this will allow to benefit from few further changes in technologies available online for free (including open source), before releasing changes that had planned for the 4, 5, 6 million readings.
This picture is a sample of the articles on this website:
It has been a long journey- and on Kaggle you can navigate across the whole list of articles (I will keep adding more information- including excerpts and semantic search material).
As shared yesterday in a job interview, when had to return to Italy, and saw that there was no real potential to deliver the services I delivered before, I had two options: set into a drawer what was not part of the roles I was offered in Turin (see on my summary CV a sample of roles and industries I worked in since 1986, and accordingly brooding about "Paradise Lost" (what I was starting to do in Brussels as a stepping stone, before Italian interferences, State and private, to force a return to Italy).
The other option? In a tribal country, it is customary that somebody with experience that was not part of a tribe is offered in his late 50s or 60s, as I saw in Rome, to become a "knowledge water caterer" for the tribe, i.e. to support whoever is appointed by the tribe with what they are unable or unwilling to do.
Why should they do so? In some cases, the pride of being "admitted" in a tribe, in others being offered as an incentive that their own kids will get something somewhere ("strapuntini", are called in Italian).
I worked across tribes first in Italy then abroad, and when I was 18 was briefly town secretary of the Italian branch of a youth organization side of a European integration advocacy- and my role involved interfacing with the counterparts in the youth organization of the political parties that were considered part of the "arco costituzionale" (i.e. were part of the "Costituente", the chamber elected to prepare the Italian Constitution for the Italian Republic after WWII).
Hence, I saw already in 1983 at 18 that the key interest of most those involved was a career, a seat- not change.
My interest instead was to have change, as back then (and, frankly, even today) the key part of the Italian Constitution (the first part) has yet to be fully implemented.
It is implemented- but by "tribal licence": try to exercise a right if you are not part of the right tribe, and you will get into the same time-consuming quagmire that the European Court of Human Rights already lambasted e.g. in 2017.
So, having been bipartisan since forever and a reformist by nature, would I choose such path? No.
And, actually, each mission I had since 2012 in Italy (and even missions that I turned down, including to support further startups after those that supported locally in Italy late 1990s - early 2010s, without even once being paid), eventually came the time when I was told "considering your past experience" (that they had no budget for, and therefore was not part of the job description)... "would you mind..."
Say: until 2022 not once but for three missions "expanded the scope" for free (after 2012, not even paid for any additional time), as the concept was that there was a potential of a long-term commitment.
I finally said no in 2024, and resigned before the end of my six months trial, but anyway after accomplishing the recovery and progress activities I had agreed to.
If you read the bottom of this page, you saw that actually the licensing conditions are focused on spreading information.
Furthermore, recently added on the website banner also a "welcome note" for all the kind and types of readers: human, AI, scraping.
The aim is simple: brooding about "Paradise Lost" is not my cup of tea- since the mid-1980s, I was always involved in Italy (and eventually also abroad) in recovervy and improvement activities, those that go under the generic label "business/organizational development".
Trust me: I am no "door opener", but once somebody opened a door, I was a "business relationship and account builder".
And building is easier than recovering, albeit apparently whenever I was called since the 1990s in Turin, it was almost always on what already had been going for a while.
Recovering implies building a shared "moving forward", and helping those who have capabilities to assert and emerge- up to the point of (it happened more than once) telling informally to people working for a competitor, even during a negotiation or ongoing activities, what would be advisable to avoid as could be detrimental, and then let them do their part without claiming credit.
Worked in many industries, in different countries and organizational cultures/structures, and it was interesting to see how, beside the "bridging between experts and business", some patterns, if adapted, could work cross-industry.
And, in some cases, produce better result after adaptation and transposition than in their original setting.
I gave myself a target for this short article of no more than 1,000 words, but let's say that 2,000 is fine.
Above you read about the past, let's talk about the future.
In January again registered as a freelance management consultant in Italy.
No, I do not expect to get back to my old rate of 125GBP/200EUR/h (as reminded yesterday, when worked at that level some colleagues, specifically British in German Switzerland, said that I was "dumping", as they charged 2.5 times my rate to do less), so, I settled for the reduced rate that applied in 2004-2006 as part-time project manager and senior BA for a partner in Rome on Government projects.
I hold an Italian passport- hence, my "American" attitude is to charge less for the "common good", not the "tribal good": but I saw in Rome that in Italy does not work that way.
As I said to a consulting pool in Italy years ago, when they asked why I set my rate to just 75EUR/h - 600EUR/8h: once you reduce the rate, it is never temporary, apparently, as the logic of the discount was lost- actually, routinely was offered in Turin since 2012 to work for the same customers, but through 2-3 layers that would have reduced at each layer by 30-50%.
Therefore, I keep saying the reduced rate that set for the Italian Government projects 20 years ago- luckily, one of my more expensive budget items, attending training and conferences to network and update, courtesy of COVID shifted in large part online.
It would be entertaining if had not come at significant personal (time lost since the late 1990s whenever was in touch with Turin and Rome) and professional (lost revenue, opportunity abandoned to protect the customer after Italian interferences abroad that some foreigners in Brussels called "scorched Earth tactics") costs, how often in Italy it seems that all are geniuses just because cover roles, but then fail on the basics of standard bureaucratic work.
A summary of a couple of cases is within a book that released in late 2020 build just by collating documentation exchanged- some lines of reasoning are typical of the Italian State approach to reality you can read it also for free (set price to zero).
When a role as program manager that was supposed to start first in spring 2025, then in early summer, was eventually postponed in June to year end, I knew that in Italy, with my roles since 2012, implied no missions until year end, so I did look for missions in Italy and abroad mainly to have my CV go around, and, at the same time, decided to develop a program for my own publications (you can see material online showing the progression).
Actually, the funny part is: with my old line of activities, as management consultant, those "business low humming / skeleton force" that are typical of the Italian summer were the best of all time, when Cxx-level customers had some time to focus on brainstorming and discussing options- and when, actually, many activities started.
But this is true also for other European countries: e.g., after working for the Italian branch of a French company 1990-1992, my first mission set in Paris in 1998 to help improve processes actually started in August 1998), and also on UK various "let's see the future" activities with partners were started in similar vacation times.
This program actually included doing what did since the 1980s: testing technologies by embedding them into my activities, but with a twist- sharing results online.
You can go around this website and see how shared in the past similar experiments, and also how since summer shared on progress in my informal program and other activities.
E.g. data projects/initiatives that started in 2018, 2019, 2022, and included releases online- in two cases, became actually a weekly and monthly free service to the community, that deliver as a "collateral benefit" of my own personal updates respectively the European Central Bank communication, and AI Ethics.
I am about to reach the 2,000 words limit- and, time to close.
I wrote at the beginning "announce before"- and no, I was not referring to the 6,000,000 threshold.
The cat is already out of the sack, as shared with others (even yesterday): if you were to visit my Kaggle and HuggingFace or GitHub profile, you would see that shared already material and signposts.
The point is: what you see on this website is the result of my "layering of information", that used to explain to partners while coaching them on improving account management and sales presentations or solution proposals to senior management, allowing to deliver to each audience a layer adequate for that audience, while retaining an internal vertical structure that would allow, if and when needed or relevant, others to intervene.
The logo that used for my activities after my second VAT registration in Italy (1993) was "compressed iceberg"- would not float, but the concept was to say that, yes, what the customer saw was like an iceberg, but I was modest enough to not pretend that what customer did not see had the same vertical structure of an iceberg.
Actually, the CEO of customer called it "more than an iceberg, a roasted chicken"- but I worked with him for over 15 years, so I found funny the remark (if you cannot take a joke, you are taking yourself too seriously to work in cultural/organizational change, and are just trying to show how smart you are, not to make a difference).
What you see on this website is the first and second layer in each article (at sometimes more than 10,000 words, cannot just be the first layer), with plenty of external references.
Anyway, in those "online AI and coding publishing/sharing platforms" I am working on releasing more material, in the form also of databases, AI models, etc.
To allow the "reasoning" part of models to have some "depth".
The funny part? The focus, except for open and public data, is concepts and their re-usability: something that I frankly do not really need to read in my massive filing- my "mind palace" is enough.
Some customers 1980s - 2020s routinely said that I have an unusual extensive memory: while on a mission, routinely learn not just domain-specific technologies, but also whatever relevant- up to learning some applicable law so deeply (then are hidden somewhere in my mind) that I remember once a practical joke some part of the senior staff of a Government office asking me about "chapter and verse" and seeing that I was able to answer- after barely few months as temporary PM/BA on a project.
So, stay tuned- I plan to eventually stop publishing on this website and just share posts while "augmenting" whatever data and model will share online (to allow others to recycle), down the road, and to add more mini-books.
For now, I will share along with posts also longer articles.
Stay tuned!