[dropcap3]T[/dropcap3]here are moments in the history of scientific discoveries brought to fruition, in which the answers are found not only to assumptions made by scientists at the beginning of the search, but also to other questions that were not subject to direct investigation.
These questions – albeit unexpected – are welded so the initial applications and the evidence found as a whole not only close the circle of the research undertaken, but open and unfold new horizons of research.
This is the case of mirror neurons, the discovery of the now famous team of Professor Giacomo Rizzolatti, of which was also part Professor Vittorio Gallese, who has demonstrated the existence of particular motor cells of the brain that are activated not only when performing of movements and actions, but are able to perform a perceptual function, becoming active also during the observation of other individuals that perform similar actions and movements.
Subsequent discoveries have also shown that the motor field is not exclusive, but that such a mechanism would also cover the emotional and sensory fields, with a number of consequences to fall in many areas of science and beyond.
Professor Gallese– Professor of Physiology at the Department of Neurosciences of the School of Medicine of the University of Parma, Coordinator of the PhD in Neuroscience and Director of the Graduate School of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine of the same University and since 2010 also Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Dept. of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University in New York – is particularly active in multidisciplinary research investigating the possible applications of mirror neurons and in the dissemination of this fundamental discovery. This is also due to his humanistic skills and his natural vocation to knowledge sharing.
That of mirror neurons is indeed a discovery not only celebrated with increasing interest in the field of neuroscience in Italy and in Europe and overseas, but that now involves directly or bypass a number of other important disciplines, both scientific and humanistic.
Responding with great courtesy and availability to our invitation, Professor Gallese, in the occasion of the recent release of a new book, “The empathic screen. Cinema and neuroscience”, written together with Michele Guerra, has provided a number of exciting and passionate responses to the questions that we asked, ranging from mirror neurons to communication practices, Social importance of creativity, literature, aesthetics. With the ability to look and vision of those who have made knowledge the ‘embodiment’ not only of their science, but of their passion for research and for humanity.
But let’s see how the professor answered our many questions.
[highlight]We start from the discovery of mirror neurons. How does it feel to see realized one’s own “prediction” in science, and so far-reaching?[/highlight]
 
The discovery of mirror neurons that took place by chance, was the ripe fruit of research carried out in very different ways by the then prevailing neurophysiological methodology of investigation. Instead of studying the hypothetical contribution of a certain part of the brain to a given perceptual, motor or cognitive function, our approach was much more ‘open’: we were interested in understanding what were the functional properties of neurons that populate regions of the motor cerebral cortex. In other words, we not only asked a ‘single question’ to neurons, but many. We wanted to understand, for example, if and how motor neurons, those that control the execution of actions would also respond to sensory stimuli, such as tactile, visual or auditory ones.

We went decidedly against the current in assuming a perceptual role for the motor system. Until the early eighties of the last century prevailed the idea of a strict division of labor among different areas of the brain, characterized by a strict separation between perception, cognition and movement.
In those years Giacomo Rizzolatti and the group of researchers led by him, of which I was already part as a student, put in crisis the mainstream model of vision, showing how action and perception are integrated by many motor neurons that also respond to tactile, visual and auditory stimuli. This integration takes place in the neurons that control the execution of actions, such as grasping objects with the hand. We had found that some of these neurons, then named as ‘canonical neurons’, are activated even in the absence of movement, during the observation of the same objects of which they control the grasping. Thanks to this mechanism of motor simulation, the object seen is ‘translated’ into a motor pattern, the pattern normally used to grasp it.
To see an object means also to simulate its grasping. The object in this way is perceptually ‘embraced’ by the viewer, because it is mapped through a motor simulation, as a potential target of an action directed to it by the observer. As we studied the properties of these neurons, we found that some of them were not activated when viewing objects, but while watching our actions on those same items. Later on we decided to use the metaphor of the mirror to describe them: the visual response of the neuron reflects its motor one. The same neuron that controls the execution of one’s own action also responds to the observation of the same action performed by others. The mirroring mechanism is certainly often the basis of mimetic and imitative learning.

After this first discovery many more ensued. Our research, along with that of many other colleagues around the world, showed that similar mechanisms of mirroring are in our brain for emotions and feelings. The same areas of the brain that are activated when we feel disgust or pain, or we experience a tactile sensation, are also activated when we see others experiencing the same emotions and sensations.
I introduced the model of embodied simulation to describe a basic functional mechanism of our brain that connects us with others. In practice, we reuse the same non-linguistic neural representations that govern our actions, emotions and sensations to recognize them in others. Embodied simulation is, however, only one of the mechanisms underlying our intersubjectivity, which is also based on more cognitive and inferential modalities of comprehension of the other. Probably embodied simulation is the oldest mechanism from an evolutionary point of view and the earlier to manifest from the point of view of the development of the individual.
According to my hypothesis, thanks to embodied simulation we have the ability to access the world of the other from within. Thanks to the reuse of neuronal circuits that normally govern our actions, emotions and sensations, we can understand in experiential terms actions, emotions and sensations of others. Embodied simulation is in fact a basic and crucial mechanism of intersubjectivity.

The discovery of mirror neurons was made by accident, but it was not a coincidence that it was us. We were ready to ‘see’ the kind of property because we knew that the motor system not only makes us move, but also helps us to see the world around us. The most radical novelty promoted by the discovery of mirror neurons and the mechanisms of mirroring discovered afterwards in the human brain, however, is another. It is the demonstration of how fundamental and constitutive be the relationship binding us to others. Even at a neurophysiological level there is a shared dimension: not only my actions, emotions and sensations are similar to those of the other, but also the underlying neurobiological basis is partly common. The other is for us something more and different from an object to be understood and interpreted. The other is another you.
[highlight]The second question is the consequence of the first: from the growing interest in these issues, that in fact change many things, what scenarios, and in what areas will this different point of view change? A point of view that – finally – changes perspective in relation to the link between mind and body. A link that artists never questioned.[/highlight]
 
You are right. What does the concept of embodiment express? It means that body parts, actions or bodily representations play an important role in cognitive processes. States or mental processes are embodied in the measure in which they are represented in a format. The same content, such as an action or intention, may be represented in a bodily or propositional format. The idea is that the bodily format predated the propositional one, both philogenetically and ontogenetically. We do not know exactly whether the propositional format is totally separate / separable from the body. Personally I suspect it is not. But it remains a fact that these different representational formats allow you to build very diversified content. Mind and body are two words that describe different aspects closely intertwined in our biological nature. For centuries we have kept separate the body from the mind, perception from action and the I from the Thou.
Fortunately today I feel we are moving in another direction, which seeks to highlight the crucial importance of embodiment for consciousness, thought and language.

Before speaking about aesthetics, however, I would like to add something about language. Embodied simulation speaks of non-linguistic modes of inter-subjective relationship, but obviously, if we want to understand human nature, language is essential. The discovery of mirror neurons has also opened new perspectives to the study of language. Mirror neurons are activated not only when we see perform an action, but also when we hear or read about it.
Together with the American cognitive linguist George Lakoff I proposed the close link between linguistic expressions, body and embodied simulation. In fact, even when we read body-related metaphors – such as those with tactile content, as ‘a rough character’ – we activate the sensorimotor areas that map the sensation, when we experience it literally. My hypothesis of ‘neural reuse’ claims that we use brain mechanisms originally evolved to guide our interactions with the world, then putting them to the service of more recently evolved skills, such as language.
The abstract aspects of language are now the main challenge for our approach, and it is to these aspects that we are directing part of our research.

In an article published in 2011 together with a scholar of English Literature at the University of Texas at Austin, Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski, I proposed that the ‘sense of the body’ (Feeling of body, FoB) is an important element of our involvement with fiction narrative. The sense of the body is the result of a basic functional mechanism made possible by our mind-body system, Embodied Simulation, allowing a more direct and less cognitively mediated access to the world of the other. Embodied simulation, as we have seen, mediates the ability to share the meaning of the actions, basic motor intentions, emotions and sensations of others, thus founding our identification and connection with others. In agreement with this hypothesis, intersubjectivity should be understood mostly and primarily as intercorporeality. Narrative is a peculiar form of mediated intersubjectivity, where the text – the medium – allows readers to engage in relationships of different types with fictional characters and, through them, with the author. Literary theorists in recent years are more and more interested in the cognitive sciences, particularly by resorting to the theory of mind, suggesting that many levels of the text can be explained by special meta-representational features of our brain.
I believe that, at best, a literary theory of this kind may constitute only one out of the many possible approaches to the literary text. Moreover, this approach ignores or minimizes what seems to me a fundamental element of the relationship that both the author and the reader establish with the text, the sense of the body generated by embodied simulation. My proposal for an embodied narratology is founded on the belief that this approach can shed new light on literary studies, providing new information on the relationship of the author and readers with the text. Embodied simulation could be relevant to how we experience narrative, for two reasons: First, because of the sense of the body activated by the narrated characters and by the situations with which we identify, thanks to the mechanisms of mirroring and simulation they generate in readers. In this way, embodied simulation generates the unique ‘seeing-through-the-eyes-of’ that plays a special role in our aesthetic experience. Second, for the bodily memories and imaginative associations that the narrated material evokes in readers’ minds, without having to think about it explicitly.

Now let’s talk about aesthetic experience. The use of all forms of fiction we now call ‘art’ implies common features that can now be usefully investigated also by neuroscience. The feeling of bodily involvement caused by paintings, sculptures, architectural forms, film and literature, increases our emotional responses to those same objects. Because of that, it is a key ingredient of our aesthetic experience.
My theory of Embodied Simulation specifically seeks to grasp these aspects. Below the most cognitive-linguistic aspects guiding our experience of art, there is a bodily dimension- already sensed in the past by many philosophers and art historians – that we are now able to study empirically. Embodied simulation is important to define aesthetic experience in at least three ways: First, thanks to the bodily feelings aroused by the content of works of art with which we interact, through the mirroring mechanisms that they evoke. In this way embodied simulation generates that particular empathic involvement that plays a vital role in aesthetic experience. Second, by virtue of embodied memories and associations that imaginative works of art awaken in beholders: each of us projects something personal in what is looking at. Third, due to the possibility that certain images have to awaken in the viewer the simulation of the gestures that produced them. With a recent study by Maria Alessandra Umiltà we showed that when we look at a cut in the canvas by Lucio Fontana we activate the motor areas that govern the actions of our hand. It is ‘as if ‘, through simulation, the art work also told us something about how the artist realized it.

There is another aspect that distinguishes embodied simulation guided by the immersion in the worlds of fiction related to art, from when this functional mechanism is activated by the situations of daily life. Indeed, artistic fiction is often stronger than real life to evoke our attentional, emotional and empathetic involvement. Why? Perhaps because during aesthetic experience we can temporarily afford to lose contact with our everyday reality. We release new energies and put them at the service of a new dimension that, paradoxically, may prove more vivid than the prosaic reality of everyday life.The aesthetic experience of works of art, rather than a suspension of disbelief, can be interpreted as a kind of ” liberated simulation”. When we read a novel, look at a work of art, see a play or go to the movies, our embodied simulation is freed from the burden of having to model our presence on the demands of everyday life. We approach art from a safe distance by which our openness to the world gets magnified. In a way, to appreciate art means to let the world go in order to more fully grasp it. Through a state where our attention is focused on the narrated virtual world, we can fully use our simulative resources, momentarily abandoning our defensive barriers against the real world.

Movement, touch, and proprioception are co-involved every time we turn our eyes to the world. Hence, I think we need to profoundly rethink the relationship between symbolic expression and aesthetic understanding. We must look at aesthetics from a perspective centered on the human dimension and its neurobiological substrates, focusing on the relationship between the brain-body and the world. To know more and better the mechanisms underlying the production and reception of various forms of human symbolic expression, highlighting the performative and sensory-motor aspects, can help us to better communicate and to better structure the spaces of the use of images. This opens up new research perspectives for optimizing the distribution of images, as well as to their use. This goes from communication techniques and web design to the design of museums and exhibition spaces.
[highlight]How does online – thus delayed – communication integrate with this model of simulation -incarnation-resonance, in which the body is (or at least it seems) absent, with the exception of sight and hearing? The focus of your latest research on film and gaze can be also referred the phenomenon of videos, which today statistics show to be much quicker vehicles of information transmission and communication than other language systems (text and static images)?[/highlight]
 
We live in an era characterized by what Mark Hansen called ‘technomimesis’. The new media call for forms of sharing and imitation extremely powerful and increasingly linked to images portraying the human body. More of written communication, thanks to social networks are especially images and movies to spread so ‘viral’.
The introduction of new digital technologies overthrows language from the role played so far as the dominant carrier of the experience of reality, putting a new bodily, non linguistic visuality at the center of our experience of the world. The post-modern technological modernization, paradoxically brings the body back to the center of the relationship instaurabile with a ‘reality’ increasingly mediated by digital interactive visual representations. The growing autonomy of the material digital world colonizes more and more our imagination, while outsourcing our memories.
The immediacy of reality that every day we contemplate from screens that follow us everywhere takes the place of our imagination.
According to Walter Benjamin, the film gives rise to a new region of consciousness that refers to a novel use of our mimetic faculties, in which vision from purely optical becomes haptic and multimodal. In the last five years, I started a collaboration with Michele Guerra, film scholar at the University of Parma, which led us to study the moving images with a multidisciplinary approach, combining film and media theory and neuroscience. These investigations and the theoretical assumptions that inspired them are the basis of our latest book “The Empathic Screen”. The goal is not to replace the human sciences with neuroscience, but only to offer a new level of description that can enrich our knowledge.

One of the claims made in the book is that the line between what we call “real” and the imaginary and imagined world is much less clear than you might think. Thanks to embodied simulation seeing and imagine seeing, acting and imagine acting, and experiencing an emotion imagine it, are all based on the activation of partly identical brain circuits. The same applies to stimuli conveyed by means of mass communication media such as video screens, computers, tablets or mobile phones. These new media, in addition, offer new ways of interaction, requiring our active bodily, thanks to the touch-screen technology. The Go-pro Cams, in addition, allow new levels of ‘almost perfect’ subjective shootings. All these technological innovations pose new theoretical questions and suggest new empirical explorations.
[highlight]A curiosity at this point: artificial neural networks (mathematical models that simulate the interconnection between elements defined artificial neurons) have been in the past decades under study in computer science and technology, only to suffer a stop and be reactualized today. The discovery of mirror neurons may give a further boost to this phenomenon?[/highlight]
 
Mirror neurons offer no explanation to everything. Neural networks historically have tried to replicate the operation mode of real neurons, but they were based on many assumptions that were very distant from the perspective of embodied cognition. These assumptions have not found empirical support.
I doubt that these networks actually work as our brain. This skepticism stems from the belief that you do not fully understand the brain if you turn it into a computational machine and especially if it is separated from the body. The mechanisms of mirroring and embodied simulation, however, can inspire the functioning of algorithms that use corporeality as an index. I think that content expressed with bodily metaphors and references to pragmatic-performative aspects are more likely to be understood and memorized. I think that communication theory and its practice will be affected by this new model of perception and interpersonal relationships.
[highlight]Changing the subject now, one last question: the social platforms – with their tuning (even simplistic) in terms of quickly shared public opinion – can be seen as a sort of extension of our perceptual systems?[/highlight]
 
Our brain / body system has evolved over millions of years to interact with the physical world populated by inanimate objects and other living bodies. The relationship with the “artificial” representation of the real, from the Paleolithic frescoes of Lascaux onwards, has traditionally made a marginal portion of our relationship with reality. Since the invention of writing, we are only indirectly aware of increasingly large portions of what we consider real, through the mediation of linguistic-narrative representations. In the contemporary age we witness a reversal of the proportions between ‘real’ and ‘virtual’. For millions of men and women the relationship with reality ever more takes place through its media representation. This applies to the news or reality shows, as well as to social networks. For a growing number of people it is real only what mass communication media represent. The sense of what is real and what is not may be profoundly affected. This can lead to a profound change of value systems, to also affect the behavior of individuals.
Studies show, for example, the erroneous perception of beliefs that we take to be widely shared by the public.
These errors of assessment result in part from being immersed in a world of shared information with people very much like us, almost all of them chosen by us. The neurosciences, having the ability to deconstruct and understand the ways in which the body interface with the ‘real’ world and with the digitized one, can reveal, as it were, the game, providing tools to design new contexts and new mediations and, perhaps in a futuristic future, even the bricks with which to build them. I think that in the future neuroscience can tell us a lot on all these issues.

***

At the end of this incredible conversation, we want to say goodbye not only with a big thank you to Professor Gallese for the time that he has spent, but also with an invitation to our visitors to the reading of his book, The empathic screen. Cinema and Neuroscience, really interesting and original.
In it, a “neuroscientist and a film theorist analyzing a number of masterpieces (Notorious, Persona, The Shining, The Silence of the Lambs) from the type of involvement that these films have on the body of the spectators and the forms of simulation produced by the movements of the camera and by editing. (…) The goal is to understand the multiple mechanisms of resonance that constitute one of the great secrets of the film and reflect on the power of the moving image, which in ever more new and pervasive part of our every day lives.” Best regards. Indeed, enjoy!
Read the Interview in Italian

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[dropcap3]P[/dropcap3]arlare di Dati con la “D” maiuscola – e dunque di numeri, codici, statistiche illeggibili e acronimi incomprensibili – nelle già rare occasioni di dibattiti sul tema, vuol dire esporsi la maggior parte delle volte a reazioni di noia malcelata, a esclusione forse dei cosiddetti tecnici di settore.
Alla comparsa di questa “magica parolina” in un argomento di conversazione, infatti, più di un interlocutore volgerà la propria attenzione altrove, trattenendo a stento uno sbadiglio. Senza immaginare che attraverso quelle stesse, sterminate stringhe di numeri e testo si decideranno le sorti dei servizi pubblici, si verificherà l’impatto ambientale dei consumi energetici, si stabilirà con quale frequenza passeranno i treni e quali saranno le terapie mediche dispensate in regime di convenzione.
Dati e sequenze, dunque, che ci riguardano in prima persona e destinati a incidere in modo strategico sulla società in cui viviamo, senza che la stessa collettività che questi dati li produce, accumula e stocca ne sia consapevole e quindi si chieda: in quale modo si possono raccogliere, gestire e interpretare, ovvero governare pienamente?
Questo “scollamento” tra la tecnologia che avanza e il comune sentire non è del resto una novità. Si tratta anzi di un paradosso interessante che discende direttamente dalla storia e dalla cultura del nostro paese, e non solo.
Per un lungo periodo di tempo, infatti, le tematiche di tipo scientifico e tecnico sono state tenute distanti dai temi considerati di tipo umanistico, comprendendo in questa categoria la letteratura, l’arte… in sostanza la cultura con la “C” maiuscola (anche lei).
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Scienza e letteratura sono state così confinate agli estremi opposti dell’universo, forse addirittura in due universi paralleli, che convergono, sì, ma all’infinito.
Una semplice convenzione? Un’incapacità strutturale di interagire tra loro? Una necessità funzionale al loro pieno sviluppo?
Domande frequenti, queste,  e in qualche modo devianti: non è sempre stato così.
Basta il riferimento alle nostre menti più geniali, come Galileo Galilei e Leonardo da Vinci, che si cimentavano in entrambi gli universi con pari ingegno e risultati dalla portata ancora oggi innovativa.
O – per tornare a tempi a noi più vicini – all’opera del sociologo e filosofo francese Edgar Morin, che teorizza (e non da adesso) la necessità del superamento delle barriere tra le diverse aree della conoscenza al fine di ottenere una “testa ben fatta”, capace cioè di ragionamenti complessi e interdisciplinari.
Oggi, di fronte agli orizzonti di cambiamento dettati dalla contemporaneità, tale necessità è più che mai attuale, con un rinnovato bisogno di trasversalità indispensabile per affrontare le nuove sfide che ci aspettano cogliendone appieno le opportunità.
È di nuovo il momento in cui Numeri e Parole, Scienza e Letteratura possono – anzi devono – andare a braccetto, con reciproci vantaggi e in vista di risultati sorprendenti. Il tutto qui vicino, anche se nascosto sotto a Zettabyte di dati.
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Questo blog, senza nessun’altra pretesa se non quella di far dialogare questi due universi solo all’apparenza distanti, nasce con la speranza di tradurre in un linguaggio coinvolgente e meno ermetico le pratiche, le ragioni e perfino i sogni legati al mondo dei Dati, che – grandi come sono (anzi Big) – hanno bisogno di un luogo adeguato dove fare conversazione.
Per farlo ci siamo ispirati – con tutta l’umiltà del caso – a un altro genio italiano, Italo Calvino, il cui approccio scientifico alla Letteratura e alla Cultura in genere ha portato tanti e tali frutti da nutrire generazioni intere di letterati, artisti e scienziati.
Il titolo stesso del blog, “Six Memes for Our Millenium”, gioca a rimpiattino con quello originale del capolavoro “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”, ovvero “Lezioni americane”.
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Lungo questo cammino sconnesso ci occuperemo sì di numeri – promesso! – ma senza smettere di guardarci intorno, attenti all’attualità, ai cambiamenti e ai racconti attraverso i quali questi temi universali ci vorranno intrattenere, bontà loro.
E ad ogni articolo ci divertiremo ad attribuire il “marchio” di quelle parole chiave che Calvino ha individuato in maniera profetica, mai come oggi appropriate per descrivere l’universo culturale in cui ci muoviamo: leggerezza, rapidità, esattezza, visibilità, molteplicità, coerenza.
Cercheremo di dare conto dei Dati da cui partiremo per nuove inimmaginabili avventure e dei Dati cui faremo ritorno, attraverso suggestioni, condivisioni e report, lasciando parlare liberamente tra loro numeri, immagini e parole.
Perché al desiderio illimitato di scoprire, conoscere e condividere, così come al cuore, non si comanda… Dati alla mano!
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Illustrazione di Gerardo Lunatici
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Al servizio della governance delle strutture sanitarie

Qbox è la nuova soluzione tecnologica che consente di rilevare e valutare in modo sistematico e analitico tutte le informazioni necessarie a una gestione efficace delle liste di attesa.
In particolar modo permette di avere a disposizione dati precisi e rilevanti sull’appropriatezza prescrittiva, facendo di quest’ultima uno strumento fondamentale per il processo decisionale e la governance di strutture sanitarie.
Durante la 9a edizione del Forum Risk Management di Arezzo presenteremo tutte le potenzialità di Qbox, mostrando tutti i vantaggi che può garantire ad aziende e strutture sanitarie e, in particolare, a chi si occupa del loro management.
Appuntamento fissato per il 25 novembre, alle ore 14.30, presso la Sala Lippi, ad Arezzo Fiere e Congressi, via Spallanzani 23.
Per chi desidera approfondire, di seguito potrete trovare del materiale che descrive la soluzione della quale parleremo durante l’intervento.
Scarica il pdf: QBOX_Arezzo
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L’8 Maggio 2014, IG Consulting – Maps Group, ha partecipato all’evento ICT in Sanità, organizzato dall’Osservatorio del Politecnico di Milano. Durante l’evento sono stati discussi i benefici dell’ICT come driver di miglioramento dei processi socio-sanitari, anche attraverso l’analisi di alcuni casi di studio specifici.
In particolare è stato affrontato il tema dell’appropriatezza prescrittiva, con la dott.ssa Ruffini, (Chief of the Nuclear Medicine Department dell’AOU Parma), che ha presentato il progetto pilota basato su tecniche semantiche, realizzato dalla struttura complessa di Medicina Nucleare in collaborazione con IG Consulting, per la valutazione dell’appropriatezza prescrittiva degli esami di radiologia dell’area di emergenza-urgenza, incrociata con la determinazione dell’esito del referto.
L’iniziativa, è nata col duplice obiettivo di migliorare l’appropriatezza prescrittiva degli esami di radiologia dell’area di emergenza-urgenza e di rilevare la polarità dei referti (positivi, negativi, dubbi) per misurare l’incidenza degli esami urgenti non positivi e raccogliere indicazioni utili per valutare la riduzione dei carichi di lavoro. All’interno del progetto, è stato utilizzato Qbox, il sistema in grado di interpretare in modo automatico (e in un contesto medico-clinico), il contenuto non strutturato del quesito diagnostico, incrociandolo con le regole prescrittive definite nei vari protocolli.
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Ogni giorno, con la nostra piattaforma Webdistilled, acquisiamo e analizziamo due milioni di interazioni su Twitter in Italiano. Di questi, meno del 29% sono retweet. Abbiamo analizzato i dati della settimana dal 30 Marzo al 5 Aprile 2014 (poco meno di 20 milioni di interazioni). Come prima cosa, vediamo che il 50.7% sono tweet, il 28.9% sono retweet e il 20.4% sono reply.
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Quindi, è facile ricavare che il numero medio di retweet per ciascun tweet fatto è di 0.57. Attenzione a non trarre conclusioni affrettate. Questa misura ci dice solo che, mediamente, sul flusso Twitter passano 6 RT ogni 10 tweet, ma non ci permette di fare alcuna assunzione su qual è la probabilità che un tweet riceva almeno un retweet (su questo torneremo presto con un post ad hoc).
Ovviamente, il numero di RT dipende anche dal numero di follower. Analizzando la distribuzione dei retweet in funzione del numero di follower di un autore, possiamo vedere che il numero medio di RT per tweet passa da 0,12 per un utente con meno di 100 follower a 34,21 per gli utenti con oltre 100.000 follower.
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Ok, quindi non mi devo aspettare un elevato numero di retweet a questo mio post, visto il mio numero di follower su Twitter 😉
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Ma se vogliamo misurare il livello di engagement, dobbiamo considerare il numero di retweet in funzione del numero di tweet fatti e dei propri followers. Per farlo, possiamo utilizzare la ReTweetability, una misura proposta da Dan Zarrella, Social Media Scientist di HubSpot, che è definita come il rapporto tra il numero di RT ricevuti e il numero di RT possibili, ovvero il numero di tweet fatti moltiplicato il numero di followers.
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Visti i risultati, abbiamo scelto di mostrare la ReTweetability per mille. Infatti, per gli autori con oltre 100.000 follower, il valore medio di ReTweetability è pari a 0,0001. Come a dire, una conversione ogni 10.000 possibili interazioni.
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Le cose non vanno molto meglio anche per quegli utenti con una base di follower più ridotta. Solo gli utenti con meno di 500 followers riescono, in media, ad ottenere valori superiori a 1‰. Ancora una volta, questi sono dati aggregati e come tali vanno considerati. Nella stessa settimana, il Manchester United (2.2M followers) ha avuto una ReTweetability media dello 0.71‰ e il Milan (1.85M followers) 0.08‰.
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Quindi, mettiamo in comune (in latino communicare) tantissimi contenuti (oltre 500M di tweet ogni giorno), ma questa comunicazione genera in media un numero molto basso di reazioni nelle nostre community. È un problema di medium, di come lo utilizziamo, di strumenti o di contenuti? O, forse, è un problema di metriche… Voi, cosa ne dite?
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Secondo una recente ricerca condotta da Emarketer le aziende nei prossimi mesi dell’anno arriveranno a conquistare la piena “consapevolezza social”. Tale processo di maturazione toccherà anche le piccole e medie imprese che destineranno un budget maggiore del passato agli investimenti sui social e alle relative analisi. Emarketer individua anche dei possibili trend per quest’anno, in particolar modo segnala:
Il ruolo crescente che avranno i video. Facebook investirà ancora di più sugli annunci video e il costo medio per un video sul Social crescerà da $1 milione a $2.4 milioni (Reuters) mentre Twitter continuerà in un percorso di valorizzazione che ha già avviato con l’acquisizione di Blueflin e Trendrr: sulla stessa lunghezza d’onda anche Instagram che vedrà crescere l’utilizzo dei video.
La scalata degli accessi da mobile. “Il 49% del fatturato di Facebook nel Q3 2013 arriva dal mobile“ (fonte Facebook, Ottobre 2013) e “più del 70% del fatturato di Twitter nel Q3 2013 arriva dal mobile” (fonte Twitter, Ottobre 2013). Questo trend sembra destinato a proseguire tanto che entrambi i colossi si aspettano di aumentare gli introiti pubblicitari provenienti da mobile device del 40% nel 2014.
La crescita degli annunci automatizzati. Le previsioni indicano che nel 2014 la pubblicità automatizzata avrà un ruolo sempre più importante e si confermerà come un mezzo di engagement creativo e molto versatile.
Sarà sempre più utilizzata la multicanalità, ovvero verranno utilizzate le informazioni raccolte sui social anche per attività diverse. Pare che Twitter e Facebook stiano lavorando su un sistema di advertising in grado di comunicare con applicazioni esterne in modo da poter mostrare annunci targettizzati anche al di fuori del canale social.
Infine la localizzazione. Il 74% degli adulti possessori di uno smartphone lo utilizzano per ottenere indicazioni basate sulla geolocalizzazione, per questo saranno sfruttati sempre di più servizi di SMS o notifiche push per inviare coupon e offerte.

Il 3 Marzo 2014 il SISTRI (Sistema di controllo della tracciabilità dei rifiuti) è diventato obbligatorio anche per i produttori iniziali di rifiuti speciali pericolosi (che si aggiungono ai trasportatori e ai destinatari di rifiuti, per i quali il sistema è attivo dal 1 Ottobre 2013).
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In virtù del ruolo che questo strumento avrà in tutto il ciclo di gestione dei rifiuti vogliamo focalizzare l’attenzione proprio sulla figura del produttore di rifiuti.
Secondo la normativa, infatti, è il produttore il principale responsabile della corretta gestione dei propri rifiuti, basti pensare, per esempio, che è suo obbligo accertarsi che tutti i soggetti ai quali affida il rifiuto (trasportatore, destinatario, intermediario) abbiano le necessarie autorizzazioni in corso di validità.
L’introduzione del SISTRI non ha sollevato il produttore di rifiuti da questa responsabilità anzi, proprio il SISTRI sollecita un controllo ancora più accurato, poiché i dati inseriti (e firmati) nel sistema, vengono inviati direttamente all’ente di controllo.
Quali sono dunque gli strumenti che il SISTRI mette a disposizione del produttore per ottemperare agli obblighi di controllo?
Nel SISTRI sono presenti le autorizzazioni dei trasportatori, ma non quelle degli impianti di destinazione che peraltro fanno capo a molteplici enti, ognuno dei quali le rilascia con schemi differenti e non standardizzati. Questo aspetto è fonte di grande incertezza per il produttore del rifiuto perché SISTRI non è in grado di verificare la congruità dell’autorizzazione del trasportatore rispetto a quella dell’impianto di destinazione e viceversa.
La presenza nel sistema delle autorizzazioni dei trasportatori facilita la compilazione della scheda SISTRI ma non ne garantisce la correttezza; questa deve infatti essere verificata direttamente sulle autorizzazioni stesse poiché il SISTRI non fornisce garanzie sui dati presenti nel sistema.
Il produttore continua ad avere l’obbligo di verificare che il trasportatore sia autorizzato a prendere il rifiuto che gli sta consegnando e che, allo stesso modo, l’impianto di destinazione sia autorizzato a riceverlo. Un controllo, quest’ultimo, da fare ogni volta che si affida un rifiuto a terzi.
In definitiva il SISTRI non solo non solleva in alcun modo il produttore dagli obblighi di verifica delle autorizzazioni ma non offre neanche strumenti di supporto per la verifica stessa.
In questo scenario s’inserisce Greennebula, come ausilio fondamentale per chi deve gestire rifiuti e deve avere informazioni sempre aggiornate e facilmente fruibili. Un sistema interamente basato sul web che permette di controllare, in tempo reale, le autorizzazioni dei vari fornitori (trasportatori ma anche impianti di di destinazione), gli eventuali aggiornamenti e la presenza di tutti i documenti obbligatori per legge.
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[highlight]SISTRI[/highlight] – Dal 3 marzo è obbligatorio anche per i produttori iniziali di rifiuti speciali.
[highlight]Il produttore[/highlight] – Ha l’obbligo di accertarsi che tutti i soggetti ai quali affida il rifiuto abbiano le necessarie autorizzazioni
[highlight]SISTRI[/highlight] – Non offre strumenti di supporto per la verifica delle congruità delle autorizzazioni ma richiama il produttore a controlli ancora più accurati.
[highlight]GREENNEBULA[/highlight] – Ausilio fondamentale soprattutto per il produttore dei rifiuti: garantisce informazioni sempre aggiornate e facilmente fruibili
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Venerdì 8 novembre 2013, dalle 09.00 alle 17.30, presso il Padiglione B3, Stand 074 della fiera Ecomondo (Rimini Fiera, Via Emilia 155, Rimini) presenteremo, la Piattaforma per il controllo, la gestione e l’aggiornamento delle autorizzazioni dei fornitori ambientali Greennebula.
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[pullquote]Durante la giornata verranno proposte delle sessioni dimostrative di questa innovativa piattaforma di condivisione delle autorizzazioni ambientali.
Saranno mostrate le semplici modalità con cui gli operatori renderanno disponibili le informazioni utili per i propri clienti e come i produttori potranno accedervi in tempi rapidi, senza inutili complicazioni ma con la garanzia sulla qualità e l’aggiornamento.
Vieni a trovarci presso gli stand di Alfarec, Vecchi Zironi e Compagnia Per L’Ambiente per una dimostrazione dal vivo di come è possibile risparmiare tempo e denaro diminuendo i rischi.
Ti aspettiamo non mancare![/pullquote]
Ottavio Sgariglia
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[list_item icon=”fa-user”][highlight]Operati[/highlight] – Alfarec, Vecchi Zironi e Compagnia Per L’Ambiente.“Sessioni dimostrative di questa innovativa piattaforma di condivisione delle autorizzazioni ambientali”[/list_item]
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[list_item icon=”fa-link”][highlight]Ecomondo[/highlight] – http://www.ecomondo.com[/list_item]
[list_item icon=”fa-link”][highlight]Eventbrite[/highlight] – http://greennebulaecomondo13.eventbrite.it.[/list_item]
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