Jan 30, 2010

Il futuro del Distretto

Qual è il futuro del distretto di Prato? È ancora presente un clima, un’atmosfera che favorisce l’impresa? L’autore tenta di fornire risposte sociologiche a questi interrogativi. Partendo dalle percezioni della realtà locale, dalle aspettative e dalle linee di azione di un gruppo di imprenditori, evidenzia forti discrepanze tra il mondo dell’economia e quello della politica. È un’indagine snella che mette a fuoco pratiche di concertazione tanto diffuse quanto inconcludenti. I cosiddetti tavoli tematici o di lavoro — con un felice neologismo “il tavolismo” — e “l’effetto matrioska”, cioè il proliferare di gruppi, agenzie, coordinamenti, etc., hanno come principale effetto quello di rimandare nel tempo la scelta e la conseguente assunzione di responsabilità politiche. In questo quadro i guru della conoscenza (studiosi e consulenti à la page) non paiono essere stati di grande aiuto né per l’am­mini­strazione pubblica, né per gli imprenditori. Puoi visionare pagine scelte del libro e/o acquistarlo visitando il sito dell'editore Aracne.
Roma: Aracne 2010, ISBN: 978-88-548-3038-7

Jan 15, 2010

Open Access Journals Directory

The Directory of Open Access Journals, managed and partly funded by Lund University (Sweden), lists free scholarly journals that meet high quality standards (peer reviewed or editorial quality control). DOAJ includes publications from around the world and in many languages. A similar source is Open J-Gate.

Behind the Name

What’s defining my self-identity? Before venturing into complex psychological, philosophical, anthropological and sociological coordinates, we should not skip “simple” features. Open your wallet and take out your identity card: age, gender, nationality, the city you where you were born and the one you’re living and… Your name and last name! In Public Profiler you can discover your surname statistics and location on a world map; Surnamedb tells you the meaning of your last name, and Behindthename shows you the etymology and history of your first name.

Jan 13, 2010

Mediated Cultures

Michael Wesch (Kansas State University) is a cultural anthropologist and media ecologist exploring the effects of new media on human interaction. He launched the Digital Ethnography Working Group and created a short video Web 2.0.. The Machine is Us/ing Us (one of the most popular video in the blogosphere, viewed over 10 million times). You shall see also the video: “A vision of students today”.

Transparency International

Transparency International is an international non-governmental organization fighting corruption and trying to raise public awareness of it. The Corruption Perceptions Index measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. The CPI is a "survey of surveys", based on 13 different expert and business surveys (Italy in 2009 is ranked 61, after turkey and above Saudi Arabia). Transparency publishes also an annual Global Corruption Barometer which assesses the general public attitudes toward and experience of corruption in dozens of countries around the world. Check out also the CPI Interactive World Map.