My name is Ugo Parodi Giusino, founding member and CEO of Mosaicoon
To begin with, I'd like to tell you about what we do in Mosaicoon because I think that it's a good starting point
and then to introduce the two topics connected with the new creative economy
and to express my personal vision of creative economy
Mosaicoon, located in Mondello - as Raffaella was saying - is a society dealing with
the production of advertising campaigns for the main national and international customers
campaigns that are produced and delivered all over the world
The starting point consisted in the idea totally breaking with standardized communication principles
well-established as the advertising principles
....that is my field....
it's essentially a 'vertical' approach
So, creativity is left aside in favor of the content, the vertical advertising message
where customers or agencies communicate with someone, with users..
to communicate a certain point of view without expecting any reply
The basic idea of Mosaicoon was to analyze another aspect
that belongs to our generation, the wonderful period we are living, that is the Internet world
upsetting both all the standardized communication principles
changing the approach from vertical to horizontal one
So, if I say something now, users can reply
and, obviously, in this process of content production and dialogue with someone -that is to me creative-
on the web, this reply has often become more important than the message itself
This approach - that has become the approach of Mosaicoon - consists of 'viral' campaigns
a very commonly used name today but...
when we got started the word 'viral' didn't exist..
and 'viral campaign' means that the content is so interesting, so charming to induce users to communicate it to other users
here's the concept of virus, of spreading, to repeat the message and share it
In brief, since we started in Mondello we got ahead step by step and made some improvement above all in the last years..
but our greatest goal was to get the first venture capital funding in the Southern Italy...
as you know...very difficult to get
The company has been rebranded as 'Inc.' and changed its name from Belsito Media to Mosaicoon
and, obviously, the creative economy represents the core business of the company
In fact, the company is based on a very original creative approach
and I can't absolutely separate creativity from innovation since - to me - they are strictly connected
All things considered, I think it's interesting to deal with two topics concerning the philosophy of our project
starting from a wonderful quotation by Kubrick that has always influenced me
Kubrick - talking about Griffith - said: ' I' ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, " Don 't try to fly too high," or whether it might also be thought of as, "Forget the wax and feathers and do a better job on the wings."
This quotation is now displayed in the meeting room of Mosaicoon
and it has been influencing me for many years and I'm used to reading it every day
because, in my opinion creativity is made up of a 'flight'
something leaving daily life to reach something different , innovative
and at the same time this 'flight' is possible only thanks to a technical and specific work that is the elaboration of a technique..
aimed at building strong wings to implement that creative plan
And this was the Mosaicoon key: the creativity as first input
I'm used to citing an anecdote that makes me smile
In 2003, when I had to write my graduation thesis..
I studied Video Art in Barcelona...
I wanted to write about a phenomenon I found really interesting that is ...
A Japanese boy - when neither youtube nor video sharing network existed - recorded a video and uploaded it to the web
and in one month 20.000 people watched that video thanks to the Internet
Such wonderful phenomenon, above all from a communication point of view, was so new - now it is something banal..
When I thought to make a thesis on this topic that I found really interesting, the academic dean of the faculty of Palermo said to me:
"Look, to me, Internet videos have no future and this is the reason why a thesis on this topic doesn't make any sense"
and here's the second topic: "What is the territory'" broadly speaking..
I'm very attached to my territory, that's why after periods of living abroad I decided to come back
and, to me, all the limits belonging to this territory as many others represent the main advantage in order to develop something new
and I always tell my colleagues that if we hadn't had a context so strange - having an office in Mondello is a little bit unusual
in a world made up of multinational enterprises and agencies located in Milan and London -
we wouldn't have contacted some agencies to propose our revolutionary idea compared to the common one, a different approach to the communication
something that large agencies couldn't do because they had a certain kind of experience
like today...
Today, main investments are directed to a traditional creativity, namely banner pop-up, a traditional model on the Internet - What madness!
And the other side of the creative economy is that territory with its objective limits has always been for me
the main motivating force to do something new and really interesting
and I have always thought that this blank slate - hat is the inability to refer to any realities - was our force to say "we are crazy..
let's follow our madness because nobody will never tell us what is advertising, what is right and what is not
we don't have customers to talk with
There was an incubation period of the project that was "Belsito Media" and then it turned in Mosaicoon thanks to venture capital
The other anecdote that makes me smile concerns the venture capital
on the occasion of the venture capital we thought about what we needed....but we were told: "Look, in Italy we make 30 venture capital every 5 years...
so it's quite impossible to do it here in Palermo with a 25 year-old boy and other three people with an office in Mondello.."
However, we succeeded!
So, also in that case, the 'foolish act' to carry out an innovative project joined a secretive context resulting in an excellent incentive
for new ones
and I see this more and more..and what amazes me is that the more we grow up, the more I realize that dealing with big multinational companies
or ad agencies...we are asked how we got certain goals, how we work..
and this also because - thanks to the internet - we can see from Mondello everything happening in America or in Japan without any geographic limits
and this represents a great incentive for new creativity and in old contexts where the creativity is still vertical new creativity models come out
Obviously, in my field we talk about creativity of advertising that is one of the most relevant forms of creativity
connected with professional context
and since there is neither a background nor comparison
new ideas come out..
We are carrying out this kind of project..
and I always think about Kubrick quote because we are often wrong when thinking that creativity is the only thing we need..
obviously, we all know that it's not enough..but joining perseverance in developing a model to a rich territory where there is nothing but..
where everything can be created....
as a creative man I have always considered this potential something really interesting.
That's how the Mosaicoon and I consider the creative economy
Besides, I'm an optimistic and positive person so in case of troubles I always see new chances above all for those who never had opportunities
and, aside from territory, a new communication approach will be promoted by a new and different creativity..
because there will be a changeover and the Internet has represented an indispensable accelerator in our society. Thank you.