Stand up for your story!

29_07_2016_Newsletter

by Daniele Zambelli
President and Creative Director, Simmetrico Network

Storytelling is a word that is much abused and most often misunderstood.

Ignorance in using this term and the misrepresentation of its value have led to theorizing the death of storytelling and to inventing interpretations that seem to have been generated by a marketing mind interested more in form than in the substance of things.

Storytelling cannot die. Sharing stories makes man the most evolved being on this planet, and it enables our species to grow, transform and evolve: it allows us to aspire.

Telling stories is a means for sharing, it is the shared anticipation that allows us to “aspire together” and engage in an endeavour.

It is an anthropological need: tribes would gather around a fire and tell stories; the stories about hunting, about the great carnivorous predators, the forces of nature gradually became stories about myth. The chief would lead the venture of the day, but at night, when darkness would envelope hearts with the primordial fear of the unknown, it was the shaman who would hypnotize the minds with stories that exorcised the fear of the beast hidden in the darkness. The fire would warm their bodies, and the story would turn fear into courage uniting the community into a common purpose. This way, next day’s hunting would have certainly been a success.

Civilization was born with storytelling. Writing and art turned storytelling into representation, and representation is much more than the mere reading of reality, it tells about man’s expressive potential that is present in reality: possibility.

As in the past, today, storytelling has the same role: telling stories is the only means for interpreting society and for bringing people together, for sharing a space of action that enhances differences and that presents new answers in a growingly complex world where fear and uncertainty confuse our priorities. Our age is characterized by short-lived and contrasting changes that we have to deal with, and this generates two types of stories: On the one hand, stories that build up fences so that we may seek refuge in things we are familiar with, our comfort zone, where identity gets confused with fear and we prevent ourselves from being interactive, from being challenged with new things and from sharing. A false feeling of safety that makes us prisoners of ourselves and of our memories.

On the other hand, the other stories, those that integrate our identity and our roots with the complex questions that the modern world puts to us.

These stories drive us towards the world in search of interaction and relationship with diversity, and they urge us to overcome the fear of embracing novelties, the unknown and the future.

The story of your organisation is going to be told, this determines who we are today and hence our future.

It is crucial for any leader of a business that wants to grow and not be overcome by the complex challenges of out contemporary world to ask himself a very simple question:

What story about ourselves do we want to share with the world?

Which story is most effective and will keep us moving forward?

This is what storytelling is about: defining in the present what will be possible for us in the future, releasing the energies contained in our story.

It is about transforming our experience into new energy, reminding us about our value.
In the bible Matthew says, “every scribe…..brings both new and old things out of his treasure chest” these experiences taken together are our unique qualit.

Globalized markets, the fast-paced social and technological changes that redefine languages and contexts in time frames that are becoming terrifyingly short – unprecedented in the history of mankind – are the “beasts that haunt us in the darkness”.

Fear plunges us into a state of emergency, it makes us build walls that prevent us from seizing opportunities, it prevents us from understanding that to be innovative we need to share a new story about ourselves with the world. This awareness is one of the responsibilities leaders have today.

We cannot be distracted: each company needs to refocus its vision by drawing on its intangible heritage, its history, its roots, its purpose, not to withdraw but to create partnerships and build through its inner value, a strategy that produces growth, improvement and innovation essential qualities required to be visionary and competitive.

Accepting this challenge means being players who are aware of their identity and at the same time open to change.

Using all your energy to defend the small ramparts that are bound to crumble under the pressure of an ever faster changing world, is a battle lost even before it begins, it turns us into the slaves of urgency. We must raise our heads and peer over the horizon, and to do this we need to climb to the top of a tower. This tower is our story, re-interpreted, renewed and shared.

If this is true for individuals and companies, it is even more true for Italy as a whole: “Better storytelling is needed, a story that enhances Italian specialness”, is stated in the Report “Italy: a new deal, a better future”, by EY in cooperation with the Bocconi University, Invitalia and Sace, presented recently in New York.

For this reason, two years ago, we decided it was time for us to tell a new story about ourselves that identifies the unique quality, that is Simmetrico. This process gave rise to the development of a new division “ Simmetrico Cultura ” dedicated to the production of entertainment and cultural formats.
Simmetrico has developed so far seven original projects based on a wide range of international contents that belong the international cultural human heritage. The latest ones are dedicated one to a celebration of the light as a social, cultural and scientific phenomenon and one to one of the most significant protagonist of modern history: Ernesto Che Guevara.

We have opted for the idea that it is important to develop our service with products imagining that the future is not only going to be about winning contracts through tenders, but about being seen as content providers who can anticipate needs and offer products for the cultural communications market.

This new approach immediately triggered new dynamics that have attracted new professional skills and new partnerships. This has generated new energy in the company with benefits also for the projects associated with new contracts.

Choosing to redefine one’s story is an inescapable act of courage, it means confronting change with an attitude that is the outcome of the meeting between our past story and the role we want to play in the future.

Every company, every entrepreneur is the differential between two worlds: the “utopian” world of vision and of possibility versus the world of concreteness and sustainability. Finding a synthesis that keeps us in the middle: this is our job! ….. but that is another story.

The path of development and innovation pursued in recent years by Simmetrico has been strongly inspired by the ideas and work of one of today’s most interesting, in our opinion, communicators of the contemporary world: Patrizio Paoletti. His ideas have marked and pollinated our growth and it is therefore only dutiful to mention him here and thank him for his relentless and precious work of awareness raising, a bridge between ancient ideas about man and the places of his possible future.

Our working year has drawn to a close with the arrival of the summer holidays and so I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our friends who have had the patience of reading these few lines to the end: happy holidays and best wishes for a well deserved period of rest.

 

 

 

 

A NEW SUCCESS FOR SIMMETRICO AND AZERBAIJAN PAVILION

Simmetrico Network for Autobest 2016

The new Fiat Tipo has been voted “Autobest 2016″ in an event relised by Simmetrico Network.
We conceived the creative concept, developed the set-design, made the video contents and directed the gala dinner at Teatro Vetra in Milan.
We transform the location in an Opera Theatre: a curtain of tulle on the proscenium creates scenografic perspectives while the orchestra played the best songs of the Italian tradition. #staytuned #simmetriconetwork #staycreative
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AN EXHIBITION FOR ERNESTO “CHE” GUEVARA

Simmetrico Network hosted at its office in Milan, Camilo Guevara and María del Carmen Ariet, the scientific coordinator of the Centre for Studies on Ernesto Guevara.

This meeting was organized by ALMA, the company of which Simmetrico forms partdirectly addressed by RTV Comercial (Cuban national television network) to conceive the exhibition dedicated to Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
It was an important occasion to Simmetrico to share the creativity and design of the project.  #staytuned #staycreative #simmetriconetwork

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“Ideas are powerful when they are shared, when they are listened to”

by Daniele Zambelli
Founder, President and Creative Director of Simmetrico Network

 

Sharing is not only the new consumer economy model, it is also an alternative way of working, of giving, of travelling, of learning, of being together. And thus, a new way of thinking.

The concept of the Sharing Economy comprises various aspects that, by responding to emerging needs, offers real growth opportunities. Co-working means spaces where innovation, collaboration, the economy, work and ideas are not mere words, but where things really happen, as tangible as the crowdfunding projects that have found their winning ticket in active public participation.

The growing need to network with businesses and institutions in more collaborative, less hierarchical ways is being met by numerous startup companies that open up new scenarios of interaction.

Those who are in charge of organizing events and handling communication must redefine the conceptual approach to their work.

They must continue to invest in content as the raw material for the narrative stories they seek to bring to the world, but they must also embrace change and continued innovation with the knowledge that nowadays no event can be organized without a digital platform that spontaneously and actively prompts the users to access wider content using new media.

It is the digital dimension that determines and measures the success of the overall event.

The Expo Milano 2015 exhibition has given us the opportunity to participate in a large-scale project aiming to unite countries and cultures. I am not just talking of culture in the classical sense, or of culture as tradition, but also of culture as innovation, as the human capacity for development, for entrepreneurship, for maximizing the value of the land, serving as a true pillar of the national economy. These were the themes that have guided us in identifying the core values, and thus in defining the narrative of the Azerbaijan Pavillion, the “Jewel of the Expo”, as it was promptly christened by the media. It was designed and implemented, from the basics down to the last bit of content, by the Simmetrico network, bringing together creative talent, technology and digital strategy experts, architects and engineers in the same workgroup. It has been visited by more than two million people.

This creative force, with its capacity to manage complex systems where integrated and multidisciplinary creative and management resources form the basis for designing successful products, also works for Simmetrico in USA, China and Middle Eastern and African markets.

 

 

 

“Discover Azerbaijan and win his treasures” wins Mediastars

The digital strategy “Discover Azerbaijan and its treasures”, conceived, designed and developed by Simmetrico and Advice Group, has won the 20th edition of the Mediastars awards.

The winners were chosen from among 527 companies by 126 judges from all over Italy.

Advice won five awards in competition with major agencies:

– 1st place in the Prize Contests category
– 2nd ex aequo in the Promotions section
– Winner of two Special Stars for Creative Direction and Concept Design
– Winner in the Shortlist nomination

It is a particularly relevant recognition: for the first time it has been awarded to a truly innovative Digital Strategy project, revolutionizing the paradigm of the MICE world, signalling that the market is changing and will be increasingly directed towards projects that bring concrete returns, as measured by ROI.

EXPERIENCE DESIGN AWARDS 2015: THE WINNER IS …

GOOD NEWS FROM AMERICA FOR A GOOD START IN 2016!

The Event Marketer magazine has unveiled the winners of the 2015 Experience Design Awards:
Simmetrico won the gold medal in the Best Overall B-to-B Event Environment category with the Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio launch event and won second place in the Best Collection of Technology Interactives category with the Azerbaijan Pavilion at the Expo Milan 2015 (read more here).

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ITALIA-AZERBAIJAN, TOGETHER FOR THE FUTURE

The Azerbaijani Embassy in Italy organized the meeting “Italy-Azerbaijan, together for the future.” The event has been intended to bring together all those in recent years have offered their expertise to strengthen the relations between Italy and Azerbaijan, projecting challenges and successes in the future.

Daniele Zambelli, the Founder, President and Creative Director at Simmetrico Network has received the award for the Azerbaijani pavilion at Expo Milano 2015, which has successfully presented the country in the Expo strengthened the relations between the two countries.

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SHARING IS CARING

In November, Simmetrico Inc was in Las Vegas to take part in Event Tech, a three-day event offering an intensive program of seminars and practical demonstrations of cutting-edge technologies related to the world of event management that help enhance the experience by engaging participants in sharing via social networks.

Event Tech confirmed and highlighted the strongest trends of the moment: sharing experiences, increased use of digital content and, therefore, increased use of mobile apps that allow participants to share their experience on social networks and stay informed about what happens during the event. Under the motto “Sharing is Caring”, participants at the beginning of each event were invited to turn on their phones to share the experience and their thoughts about what they were listening to with their followers.

The audience is no longer passive; instead, it is an interactive audience that tweets, posts and shares the message. Each event had its own hashtag, which allowed the organizers to track it on social networks so as to understand its effectiveness and gauge the degree of interest.