This blog's first anniversary...and its surprising audience!

This blog was started a little over one year ago with the tagline “Me about myself”, which has since remained the true spirit of this blog. (Nothing of interest to anybody other than myself, I thought at the time.)

A couple of months later, I wrote about the unexpected audience this blog was attracting...by now, this thing has gone completely out of (my) control!

• There's been 1.450 of you, unique visitors, of which 300 have visited regularly (typically once every 1-2 weeks, which matches how often I have posted something)
  
• You've come from 367 different cities, from Aachen to Zurich, from Nesseby (70°8'29" North) to Melbourne (37°48'49" South)...
  
• ...in 47 countries across the five continents, from Argentina to the USA, including pretty much every country in Europe, North America, Oceania and the Indian subcontinent...but also Tanzania, the UAE, Singapore, China, the Philippines, etc.
• Apart from the home page, your favourite content has been my contrarian position for Luca Luciani during the Waterloo incident (here), my congratulations to Beatrice Borromeo (vs Bruno Vespa, here), the pearls of wisdom from the Value Partners retreat @ Djerba (here and here) as well as Debora Serracchiani's speech (seen all over the Web, including here)

At this point, the question has to be: where should this go next?!?

The spirit won't change. It can't. But since I have an audience, I ought to listen! Write your comments and suggestions. What did you like? What did you think was irrelevant, inappropriate, misplaced? What can be done better? What else should this be, if anything?

PS Thank you Zampe for getting me to do this in a first place!

Yes, we can (Part VII) - ...or Richard St. John's

Eight secrets for success, emerging from two years of research (courtesy of TED).

Originally sent to all Value Partners employees by Giorgio Rossi Cairo

We only recruit sensibly mad people - Christmas 2008 Edition

Here's what Value Partners' founders wrote to all employees this evening.

Dear friends,

Eid Al Adha Holiday had just passed, Christmas and Hanukkah are around the corner, and Chinese New Year is soon to come: our warm wishes for joyful days in the arms of your families.

For once, nothing mad about it, just very sensible.

Let me wish the same to you all.

We only recruit sensibly mad people - Calcetto Special Edition

A collective edition, for our fans.

Not only do we recruit them, but we get them to do sensibly mad things together, too!

This edition is a tribute to the Value Partners official 5-a-side football team, put together by Capitan Melani for the prestigious Champion's Chip. Despite incredibly poor fitness levels, no clue on roles and tactics (there's 25 of us in the team, and 5 playing at a time!) and no training whatsoever, we are at the top of the scoreboard after two matches! Two solid wins against two of the strongest teams in the league!



To prove we are truly sensibly mad, Foscarina played as goalkeeper for the first half of our second match, replacing injured No.1 Valerio. Not only did she emerge unscathed (yes, we finished the first half up 3-0), but was also nominated "player of the week" by the authoritative (?!) Zabetta dello Sport!



Will the record hold after tonight's match!?


Disclaimer: I am a proud member of the team, with no impact whatsoever on performance. That's a good thing, because I am useless! ;-)

We only recruit sensibly mad people - 2008 Retreat Special Edition II

Ladies and gentlemen,

Please welcome Nicoletta, winner of the "Showgirl of the Decade" award at the VP 2008 Med Retreat @ Djerba.

On the way to dinner, the microphone in the last bus soon gets hijacked by a handful of wannabe singers. After some not-so-inspiring attempts, Riccardo Monti takes the scene with his memorable O'Sole Mio. At this point, Nicoletta grabs the microphone, and begins a world-class show..."Liza Minnelli is nothing!"

Full coverage of the event - including full versions of the songs and the heartbreaking confessions - exclusively on VP Inside. But don't despair - a glimpse at the Night of the Oscars @ Djerba is soon to be shown on these screens.

We only recruit sensibly mad people - 2008 Retreat Special Edition

(The first of a series from the 2008 Med Retreat @ Djerba.)

Riccardo Monti, Director of Value Partners, in a memorable performance of O'Sole Mio, co-starring Laura Cattaneo with cameos from (in order of appearance) Tina Guiducci, Valentina De Luca, Paolo Marinelli, Enrico Schiappacasse, Enrico Lanzavecchia. Amazingly, this was recorded on the way to dinner, before having any drinks.

Note the impeccable 2nd verse, too often forgotten by pseudo-experts of Neapolitan folk songs. Paraphrasing a famous Italian movie from the 1980s, "Pavarotti is nothing".

More to come...which ones and how many depending on how many personal threats to my life and career I receive in the coming days ;-)

We only recruit sensibly mad people - Part III

After Federica and Foscarina, here's Alessia - another brilliant example of how smart professionals suddenly reveal odd sides of their personality.


Here's her story.

I had been working late one Sunday night, and had a 9am meeting on the Monday morning. The only way to be sure I did wake up in time was to ask my team member Alessia to call me in the morning. I sent her an SMS (sorry this doesn't work very well in English)

"Assicurati che sia sveglio max alle 8" (Make sure awake max at 8am)

A minute later, in the middle of the night, I receive an SMS.

"Chi e' Max?" (Who is Max?)

No comment.

PS Baby Max is expected in August, congratulations to Ugo and Alessia!

Via Leopardi is dead, long live Via Leopardi

The last day of Value Partners' glorious office in Via Leopardi 32 officially came to a close on Friday 9 May at 17:10 when the servers were shut down. Here's some pictures to commemorate this epic moment.

And here's some of the comments that animated the corporate email during the day. It all started with...

"Per chi è ancora qui, appena i server andranno in shut down, questo è il segnale convenuto, è previsto in sala conference un brindisi a questo magnifico palazzo e a tutte le idee che ha saputo far nascere"

...which gave birth...



--"Io qua dal Brasile con una caipirinha"
--"Partecipo spiritualmente in remoto al brindisi con un succo di mango"
--"...una caipirinha a metà mattina la vedo aggressiva...Visto che comunque avete lanciato questo thread...brindiamo anche qui da Atene con Ouzo e Mastika"
--"Beh a questo punto mi unisco anche io ... Qui si beve poco ma si mangia gran chicken masala. Un arrivederci a via Leopardi!"
--"Mi unisco anche io al brindisi da Buenos Aires con un buon bicchiere di Malbec.
Un saluto grande alla MITICA via Leopardi!!"
--"Da Roma mi unisco al brindisi con un 'Bianco dei Castelli'. E sentitamente partecipo allo spirito ed valore di questo momento"

...but also a touch of romance ;-)
--"Io tra queste mura ho trovato l'amore"

PS I promise to add any more pictures sent to me

We only recruit sensibly mad people - Part II

Here's Foscarina. During her working day she's a smart resource of VP's R&I office...then transforms into multiple personalities! In the picture above she's enjoying the Germany 2006 World Cup Final in Berlin. Notice her sober attire and attitude: a true example of Olympic spirit?

Blogging lesson with Zampe (aka funkyprofessor)

Here's Zampe (aka funkyprofessor) acting as a blog teacher....doesn't he look like a real one?!

We only recruit sensibly mad people

Federica Friz is one of the latest recruits at VP, boasting and excellent CV and an MBA at INSEAD.

Just before joining she anticipated she would be spending a week in Guadeloupe...what she did't say is that she was filmed, broadcast on Sky and published on YouTube...roughly 2.30 minutes into this video you can see her introducing herself, and then getting involved in all sorts of interesting (!?) sports.

(in Italian)

UPDATE: Here's Fede's profile...have a look at her sporting preferences!