The Internet holds revolutionary consequences for:

1. The relationship between the company and the marketplace
2. The relationship between the company and its employees
3. The private and personal lives of all of us

In Conclusion


1. The relationship between the company and the marketplace (Top)

Companies have built up their fortunes using a relationship model with well-defined roles: I produce, you consume. And the greater your consumption in terms of quantity, and the more alike in terms of quality (i.e., homologous, mass-market), the more I stand to gain, thanks to the economies of scale I can attain. The paradigm of functional communication in this type of company-marketplace relationship is that of broadcasting, of a communication channel from the one to the many, pitched equally at everyone. This model has given birth to mass-media, and principally television. The contents of television broadcasting do not reside in the film, rather the film appears on television solely as occupant of a spot, the means of maximum circulation of the product among consumers - considered not as persons, but as abstract "segments", the fruit of sociodemographic analysis.

With the Internet, the individuals who make up the market can respond and interact directly with the company. The are no longer passive consumers, they gain a voice, send mail, write to the forum and within newsgroups, recount their misadventures on their own homepages, including, in their capacity as consumers, those they have endured at the hands of companies they have dealt with. And one thing is certain: more and more consumers are connecting up to the Internet, are growing knowledgeable about its workings, and making full use of the possibilities presented.
Faced with this, the company can adopt one of two attitudes. The first is to behave as if nothing is happening, or, worse, adopt measures of self-protection. And so you have the Megasites of Megacorporations, like barricaded fortresses, heavy on flashy, special effects, but lacking even a minimal interactive facility. The Internet is made use of in the same manner as TV, using the logic of a broadcast. What is consumer reaction to such companies? Quite simply, they turn them into the butt of consumer jokes. And since there is no space allocated to communicate directly within the Megasite, they will do so -without the Megacorporation even noticing - wherever there is space: on their homepages, within the sign-off paragraph of all their messages, in newsgroups, in forums…everywhere possible! And so the laugh grows ever louder and will, in the end, ruin such companies.

The other possible attitude is to take the opposite standpoint: overcome fear, knock down barriers, and use the company Website as a meeting ground between company and marketplace (even if not everything encountered is altogether pleasing), which means, in effect, between the company and the individual, each with his own voice. Of course it won't be enough simply to create a space in which to talk, ask questions, respond, communicate; it will be incumbent on the company to behave with integrity and responsibility. If, in response to a request from a client, you reply "Thanks, you're quite right!", you had better take action on the relevant matter, and quickly, otherwise that person won't waste any time in once again venting their annoyance to everyone, as to how the company is all talk and no action. If, on the other hand, the company reckons that this person is completely wrong, it would be better to tell him as much, to his face, and publicly, in open discussion, as the client himself has done, and face up to a debate on the matter. But it must be well reasoned: if there is one thing the Internet will not tolerate, it's empty posturing. Do this, and you're certain to attract an avalanche of "whys?" which you had better answer with all possible speed. And as it's pretty well certain that the company is going to make mistakes, you can bet that people are going to have a good laugh at its expense. But in this instance the laughter will not prove destructive: rather it will be shared, liberating - the first to laugh at its mistakes will be the company itself, quickly making amends, while apologising publicly.

The true communication model of this type of relationship is no longer the unilateral and passive communication of television broadcasts. The new communication model is participatory, the free-for-all of the square, the public forum, the market place in the sense in which that term was understood in antiquity, as illustrated by the way in which many town squares were called simply "Market Square", a place where exchange, discussion, encounter would take place; in short a true meeting place of humanity in all its diversity.


2. The relationship between the company and its employees (Top)

Where traditional organisations are concerned, the model of internal company structure (as described for decades by countless tiresome books on management)is one inspired by the twin concepts of command and control. Each person in the organisation has someone else to command and to control, and is in his turn commanded and controlled by someone else. And this remains the case even if the boss has attended the very latest courses on "How to achieve the greatest possible democratisation of your workforce". This type of organisation is designed to function well in the area of mass production: so many products, all identikit, are processed most efficiently by so many persons, each executing the precise task allocated, limiting to a minimum any margin for deviation. If within this process there should occur from time to time anything that raises the spirits, this will quickly be termed a "benefit" and disappear in an instant.

The working internal communication model relevant to this kind of organisation is that of "Allocation of Duties". Everyone always knows exactly what he is to do. And if he doesn't, it's because someone else has failed to follow Procedure. And so we have meetings on Procedure. (The truth is that the night before, the operative who was due to dispatch The Allocation of Duties broke up from his fiancée, and that morning he had really lost it, but there was no-one to whom he could explain why his allocation of duties demanded that one must nevertheless remain at one's desk for the full eight hours.) Thus communication follows hierarchical pathways, a sort of internal broadcasting, from one to the many. The President can communicate with each and every unit on the Organisation Chart, because all the other units are under his, a kind of Immobile Driving-force of the entire organisation. The lower ranks can communicate only with those immediately below them. In order to communicate with those above, or with another branch of the hierarchical tree, it is necessary to obtain the permission of the unit above. In this manner, efficiency, control and precision are ensured.

With the Internet each employee is able to communicate with any other, at any given instant. And if his company fails to supply him with an email address, he will use his private one. In other words: with the arrival of the Internet, each worker turns out to be one of a kind, and rediscovers that, if on the one hand he is the 'dependent' of a company, creating products destined for the consumer, on the other, he is himself a consumer! And just as the Internet frees him up in his capacity as a consumer, it liberates him also in his capacity as a worker, an employee of the company. With the Internet each individual employee can participate in company matters, put in his pennyworth on everything, write to the President or correspond with an irate client, quite independently of his 'position', or the position of his 'cell' within the Company Chart. And if his company will not create the space and the tools to enable such participation, the employee will find others, and will sneer at the latest, secretive, diktat of his boss, who will never have any idea that this is happening. He will speak of his company to his friends, and tell stories about the comic and useless meetings he attends, and what a con the new product due to be launched next summer turns out to be…and he'll have a good laugh about it, and the colleagues with whom he communicates will join in, as will his friends, and the clients who have become his friends. The laughter will grow at an unstoppable pace, and will destroy each Procedure and every Company Chart.
Unless...

Unless the company itself (for what is the company other than the sum of the people who work in it? And, indeed, its suppliers and clients?) makes the decision to throw into the ring its decision-making processes, its uncertainties, its results; and places at the disposal of each employee adequate space (and the appropriate climate!) to allow for a true, participatory, level of communication, with each person investing the best they have to offer. And within which, once again, everyone will laugh at mistakes, and tease one another- but openly, and together.

But who will be in command in this manner of company? And who will control such a company? The answer is simple: no-one. So who will guarantee that it functions as it should? Yet more simple: no-one. Worrying? Well, yes, a little - but that's how things are. And all the bureaucratic machinery composed of Command, Control, Positions, Hierarchy and Procedure as per the traditional organisation serves no other purpose than to conceal this simple truth: there is not, nor can there ever be, any guarantee of success.

In the end, seen from this perspective, the company begins (or is moving towards?) to resemble a feature with which we are all familiar... our own lives!


3. The private and personal lives of all of us (Top)

We live in a civilised country, and within an advanced economy, which guarantees previously unheard of levels of comfort. So what else should we be seeking?

We are looking to find ourselves. The Great Corporation is a Business system that has filled our lives with gadgets, objects, services, favours and rich rewards. But which has, in exchange, removed something of whose absence we become aware, from time to time, via a vague feeling of unease and anxiety: our selves. Business is in fact removing ever larger slices of existence.

In our work we are merely cells within an Organisation Chart, occupying a certain Position, called on to execute orders, often a matter of sending out further orders to whoever occupies the cell below ours. In this manner of work, we leave our real selves at home, well away from the factory gates, from the door of the office. Our enthusiasms, our passions, our knowledge, our ideas and our potential remain at home, are not called for, indeed would prove an unwelcome interruption; and whoever tries to bring such qualities with him will either be marginalized, or tolerated as a simple fool, at least for the most part. Such is all the time we spend at work.

But the working day comes to an end, thank goodness, and then... Free Time! And now, having divested ourselves of our Work uniform, we are suddenly required to put on the uniform of the Consumer: to choose a particular scarf (and no other), to buy that particular car, and no other (or not buy one at all!), see that film, eat that snack, watch a TV programme, make a certain journey... ah yes, free time!

And so, once again, if our enthusiasms, interests, passion and knowledge have no real function, cannot be exploited in the pursuit of this type of consumerism, they are left far behind from the nub of our lives. And along with them we ourselves, our most authentic being, which finds itself caught up in days filled with matters of little interest, delivering no spark of enthusiasm. And that way lies despair.

The Internet does not offer a solution to such angst. The Internet is, however, a place where, and thanks to which, we can once again see clearly our situation for what it is. And we have the possibility of making peace with ourselves again. Via the Internet - and only if we wish to - we can meet others who share that certain passion for Viennese secessionist design which we have never dared confess to anyone. As we start to talk, our heart leaps, and we feel alive. On the Internet we can, if we wish to do so, talk about that which is close to our hearts. Each of us has a 'listening public', quite different from a passive audience - on the contrary, our listeners are attentive, sincere, authentic. Because each of us brings our real selves to the Internet encounter, and engages that self in dialogue with others.


In Conclusion (Top)

The Internet has the capacity to spell an end to this type of Marketing, to completely destroy it, and with it the kind of total claim Business has been making on our lives. And to hand back to us a more authentic and true form of Commerce, one that forms a more integral and natural part of our lives as buyers and sellers. A type of Commerce that is in itself one of the many means by which human beings can recognise themselves as such, a means of encounter and of dialogue. For myself and my friends, I have chosen one particular way of siding with, and fighting my way towards this direction: that of Internet Commerce. Our 'mission' (to use corporation business-speak), the mission of Esperya, can be simply stated thus: to carry out honest commercial activity by giving the best of ourselves, with the sole aim of encountering a wide variety of outstanding personalities, and thereby enriching our lives. We are putting our money on the notion that a business created according to such suppositions will increasingly be sustained not merely by the enthusiasm of those who work 'on the inside', but also via the support and involvement of all those who cannot be considered separately: our clients and our suppliers. And we are counting on having the ability and wisdom to make of it an economically interesting business. Can the advent of the Internet guarantee a positive outcome? The answer must simply be, no. But let us do our utmost to succeed. In any case, we're already having a lot of laughs on the way…! As free men and women, we are demanding something of a backward step in our Business dealings, and the Internet is our ally. We ask that Business renounces its total invasion of every aspect of our existence, becoming instead, to take the prime example of the Renaissance in Italy, a moment in our lives, a means of encountering other human beings, which presents a pretext for entering into dialogue with others.

In those days you went to the market to buy and to sell, certainly. But such commercial activity actually functioned as a means of meeting others; its true aim was one of encounter and dialogue. It was for this that one went to the marketplace. Nowadays, the 'most advanced' form of Marketing - for which I heartily wish a thousand deaths - has the sole cynical aim of turning things on their head, suggesting that the big bad wolf should masquerade as the sweet old lady, in order to establish a good relationship (one-to-one, of course, you understand) and present to the innocent Little Red Riding Hood, at the time when she's least expecting it, an offer (custom-made, and highly personalised, naturally) which she cannot refuse.

But our innocent Little Red Riding Hood happens to have opened an Internet-access account, and is considerably more canny than before... as more and more of us are becoming.

Antonio Tombolini

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