The Contradiction of Our Time
When we launched Conflombardia’s multilingual campaign in October 2026, the first question I asked myself was not how many people we might reach or how many countries our message would travel to, but what would happen after that initial contact. This may seem a minor distinction to those who judge a campaign by its reach statistics, yet to me it goes to the heart of any association or collective endeavour: we now have tools capable of connecting people thousands of kilometres apart, while still struggling to establish dialogue between individuals and organisations that share a street, an industrial district or problems they could address together. No technology, however advanced, can in itself create a willingness to listen or remove the effort involved in understanding needs and perspectives that differ from our own.
This contradiction is not confined to the wider debate on digital transformation. It arises whenever a small business owner needs to discuss an organisational challenge but does not know whom to approach; whenever a worker possesses valuable experience but has no place to share it; or whenever a local association recognises a problem in its community yet cannot find other parties willing to tackle it. I do not offer these examples as achievements our network has already delivered, nor do I wish to attribute to the campaign capabilities we have yet to demonstrate. I see them as familiar situations that compel us to distinguish between contact and relationship. We can send a message, receive a reply and add another name to a database, but a relationship begins only when we are willing to understand what that person needs, what they might contribute and what responsibility we ourselves are prepared to assume towards them.
It is from this question that V.E.R.E. takes shape: a project embracing both Italy’s local communities and Conflombardia’s international outreach. The aim is not to place more names on a map, but to discover whether we can follow through on encounters that technology now enables with an ease unimaginable in the past. What matters is not simply reaching new people, but understanding whether the conditions exist to turn that first contact into a useful exchange, respectful of each person’s needs and expertise. The reflections that follow arise from the need to give substance to this responsibility, without mistaking a worthwhile intention for an achievement already made.
Why V.E.R.E. Exists: Recognising People Without Idealising Them
Throughout my experience, I have seen the word value used in very different ways: sometimes to acknowledge expertise patiently acquired over time, and sometimes to confer importance on a position or on the reputation of the person holding it. I do not regard those things as irrelevant. Competence is essential, experience deserves recognition, and certain responsibilities require a clear and legitimate mandate. The problem begins when these become the only measures that count, making less visible those who, without occupying prominent positions, sustain the everyday life of a business, a workplace or a community. I have met people able to analyse a practical difficulty with remarkable precision but without the polished language of a public speaker, just as I have listened to impeccable presentations from which it was difficult to identify any verifiable commitment. The distance between appearances and what is actually accomplished is one reason I believe we must question how a network recognises people’s contributions.
Recognising value, however, does not mean pretending that every idea carries equal weight or that every offer of help can immediately become an immediate appointment to a position of responsibility. It means separating the respect owed to every person from the equally necessary assessment of the skills required for a particular role. Someone may know their local area exceptionally well and still need support before representing an organisation; a professional may have advanced technical expertise without yet understanding the difficulties of a particular industry; a business owner may identify an opportunity whose implications can only be properly assessed through dialogue with those who know working conditions first-hand. None of these limitations diminishes the possible value of a contribution. Ignoring them merely to appear inclusive, however, would be a superficial form of recognition, potentially placing people in roles for which they have not been prepared and leaving the network making promises it cannot keep.
Trust, upon which initial collaborations so often depend, also needs to be freed from a common misconception. We cannot demand it as a preliminary test of belonging, and we should not confuse it with personal rapport or agreement on every issue. Trust grows when people can compare words with actions, observe how commitments are honoured and see whether difficulties are addressed openly or concealed behind excuses. This process takes time and may involve setbacks, misunderstandings and corrections. That is why I envisage V.E.R.E. not as a selection of people deemed better than others, but as an environment in which credibility is not presumed on the strength of a title and can instead be earned through work, discussion and results that others can recognise.
This approach also places responsibilities on those who lead. It is easy to claim that we listen when people confirm a decision already made; it is much harder to acknowledge expertise that challenges an established habit, or to accept that a significant contribution may come from someone without influential connections within the organisation. In my view, this is where the difference becomes apparent between an organisation that talks about people and one that genuinely seeks to understand them: in its willingness to distinguish prestige from usefulness, personal closeness from reliability, and initial enthusiasm from the capacity to make sustainable commitments. We will not always get this right, but we should at least have the clarity to recognise when our judgement has been influenced more by someone’s position than by the quality of their contribution.
That is why I see V.E.R.E., above all, as a choice about how we regard people: recognising the complexity of their experience without mistaking human dignity for automatic suitability for every role, and without reducing individuals to their immediate usefulness to an organisation. Such an approach obliges us to look more carefully at the circumstances in which a contribution can take shape, rather than assuming that its value can be determined by a title or a first impression.
Four Dimensions of a Different Kind of Network
The four words behind V.E.R.E. are not qualities we can claim simply because we have chosen them. They are standards by which to examine our decisions and, when necessary, question their outcomes. Value, Enterprise, Regional and Excellence describe different aspects of the same undertaking, which would lose its meaning if we treated them as little more than headings in a presentation.
The first dimension, Value, inevitably concerns people, but it would be reductive to limit it to recognising individual skills. The value a person can generate also depends on the circumstances in which they are able to express themselves and on other people’s ability to understand and make use of their contribution. Professional experience may remain untapped for years if it never encounters someone willing to listen, while knowledge acquired by dealing with a problem day after day may become especially valuable when shared with someone seeking a similar solution. This does not mean that every experience can automatically be transferred elsewhere or that every proposal should be accepted. It means that an organisation ought to be able to distinguish what genuinely has value from what simply attracts greater visibility. In our project, this responsibility also concerns the relationship between people and opportunities: we cannot merely ask what someone can contribute to Conflombardia without also considering what conditions we can create so that their contribution benefits them and the community in which they work.
The second dimension, Enterprise, adds a further consideration: recognising a skill or identifying an opportunity does not yet mean being able to turn it into a sustainable initiative. Business is an essential part of our association’s identity, but it cannot be understood exclusively through its financial performance, even though economic sustainability remains fundamental to its survival. Behind every productive enterprise are decisions, investment, organisational capabilities, responsibilities towards employees and relationships with suppliers, customers and local communities. Above all, there is the daily necessity of working within limited resources and facing the real consequences of decisions made. Seen in this light, collaboration cannot end with exchanging names or promising new commercial opportunities. It should help bring complementary expertise together, provide access to reliable information and make it possible to address problems that a small business would struggle to solve alone. The reference to enterprise also reminds us that an association must know how to move from reflection to organised action and take responsibility for the resources it uses and the results it achieves.
With Regional, we reach a question I consider particularly important now that Conflombardia’s name is being introduced to people beyond Italy. The regional dimension is not an attempt to restrict the network’s possibilities. It reflects an awareness that economic and social activity takes different forms according to the setting in which it occurs. The needs of a company in a Lombardy industrial district are not necessarily the same as those of an agricultural business in southern Italy or a small manufacturer in another country. A solution that works well in one area may require substantial adaptation elsewhere; ignoring such differences risks producing proposals that look consistent on paper but prove of little practical use. Here, attention to place becomes a working method: understand before proposing, listen before representing, and establish whether a solution fits the real circumstances of those it is supposed to help. The national and international networks can then communicate, not because every region is expected to act alike, but because each can contribute knowledge of its own circumstances while learning from the experience of others.
The fourth dimension, Excellence, may demand an even greater effort of interpretation, since we live in a climate in which excellence is often proclaimed before the results in question have been examined. I do not believe an organisation should call itself excellent merely because it has announced ambitious goals, or that people’s value should be measured through relentless competition in which someone must always be judged superior to everyone else. I see excellence as a discipline of continuous improvement: defining clearly what we intend to achieve, checking what has actually been accomplished, recognising mistakes and being willing to correct them without turning every difficulty into a search for someone to blame. This is demanding precisely because it applies to leaders as well, and because it requires us to distinguish the effectiveness of a decision from the authority of the person who made it. If we mean to use the term seriously, we must accept that Conflombardia’s own work can be assessed by the quality of its responses, the consistency with which it fulfils its commitments and the usefulness of its initiatives to the people they were designed to serve.
None of these dimensions exists independently of the others. Recognised expertise remains unused if it is given no opportunity to contribute; an economic initiative that ignores its surrounding community may generate limited or uneven benefits; an area that does not engage with other experiences risks becoming inward-looking; and a claim to excellence that refuses scrutiny becomes self-serving. This interdependence is the most demanding aspect of V.E.R.E., because it prevents us from regarding one positive result as sufficient when the overall process still has weaknesses.
Italy Is Not a Set of Roots to Leave Behind
The relationship between Italy and the international dimension provides an early practical test of this approach. Increasing the number of countries in which Conflombardia meets new people may indicate growing interest, but it does not yet demonstrate that our local communities have gained new opportunities. The question is under what circumstances a relationship established elsewhere can become useful to an Italian business, professional, worker or community, and vice versa. Only then does geographical expansion acquire a meaning beyond visibility.
For Conflombardia, this question matters particularly because our history and identity are rooted in the world of small and medium-sized enterprises and in local communities where economic activity is not separate from people’s lives. I think of towns where a business has provided employment for successive generations, areas where professional knowledge is passed on through long-standing working relationships, shops and services that help keep town centres active, and associations that often notice social difficulties before they come to the attention of public institutions. These realities cannot be understood through economic figures alone, nor would it be right to assume that all their needs are the same. What they share, if anything, is the fact that decisions concerning production, employment and organisation have consequences extending well beyond those immediately involved.
If a small business owner is considering entering a foreign market, for example, the name of a contact or a presentation translated into their own language is not enough. They need to understand the rules governing that market, the costs and risks involved, the checks required and whether the scale of their business is compatible with the opportunity identified. Equally, an international relationship need not begin with the prospect of a sale or investment. It may be valuable because it allows people to compare production methods, identify training opportunities, learn about an organisational practice or understand how another area has dealt with a similar problem. These are examples of what a network should try to make accessible, not achievements we can prematurely attribute to a campaign that has only just begun. Keeping that distinction clear is essential if we wish to present a network still building its relationships with credibility.
The same attention must be paid to Italy itself. It would be contradictory to imagine connecting communities on different continents while being unable to encourage dialogue between businesses and communities within our own country. The needs of a Lombardy business may differ considerably from those of a company in Apulia, Calabria or Veneto, and even within a single region there are distances that have little to do with geography. Some areas benefit from established professional networks, while in others particular expertise may be harder to access; some companies are accustomed to operating internationally, while others, despite considerable production capabilities, have never had the opportunity or resources to undertake such a journey. A national network should learn to recognise those differences before proposing solutions, rather than reproducing internally the very divide between centre and periphery that we often say we want to overcome.
For this reason, Conflombardia Italia and Conflombardia International should not develop as two unrelated structures. The former can bring local knowledge, documented needs and production capabilities; the latter can foster meetings and exchanges beyond national borders. Connecting these dimensions will nevertheless require methods for collecting requests, verifying information, identifying reliable partners and supporting collaboration after the initial exchange, without presenting a newly established relationship as an agreement already consolidated.
I am fully aware of the considerable organisational challenges such a model presents, particularly when it must deal with legal, linguistic, cultural and economic differences. Not every opportunity can be developed, not every contact will lead to cooperation, and it would be irresponsible to promise that membership of Conflombardia can, by itself, remove the obstacles businesses and individuals face. What we can do is commit ourselves to a method that does not mistake a request for a solution, an expression of interest for an agreement, or an institutional relationship for an automatic benefit to local communities. I believe that discipline is especially necessary during a period of growth, when excitement about new possibilities may tempt us to assess our work by the number of initiatives launched rather than the quality of the relationships actually established.
I would therefore like the V.E.R.E. campaign to change how we view our own local network. A delegate who understands the needs of a small community should not consider their contribution less important than that of someone maintaining relationships internationally, just as a representative abroad should not be judged solely by the geographical scope of their position. Both can fulfil different functions within a common effort, provided we are capable of connecting the information, skills and opportunities each encounters. I do not wish to romanticise that reciprocity: it will require rules, clear responsibilities and checks that we must develop over time. But I believe it needs to become a working principle from the outset. Otherwise, internationalisation could turn into a prestigious activity detached from the network’s everyday life, while Italian communities might be reduced to receiving news of initiatives they had no opportunity to shape.
Technology Can Translate Our Words, but Understanding Remains a Human Responsibility
Our multilingual campaign has made use of technologies that, until only a few years ago, would have demanded far more time, specialist knowledge and resources. This change allows a growing organisation to prepare materials in several languages, compare texts and begin conversations internationally at a speed that would once have been difficult to sustain. Yet this advantage does not automatically bring knowledge of the contexts we are addressing: language that reads smoothly may still be culturally ambiguous, legally imprecise or simply unsuited to the expectations of its audience. Our reflection should begin with this limitation, rather than with admiration for the speed of the tools available.
This leads me to consider a shift that may be more important than technological progress itself. For a long time, the main obstacle to many activities was obtaining the tools needed to carry them out. Today, at least in many areas of communication and work organisation, more of the challenge is moving towards deciding how those tools should be used, verifying their output and accepting responsibility for the consequences. Automatic translation is a telling example: a text can appear linguistically correct while conveying a different meaning from the one intended, particularly where it refers to institutions, professional titles, legal concepts or expressions whose significance depends on a country’s culture and conventions. Presenting an association role in another language, for example, requires care to ensure that readers do not attribute powers, recognition or functions to it that it does not possess. Similarly, describing a service or a potential collaboration means avoiding wording that might be interpreted as guaranteeing outcomes that have not been established.
This is precisely where the V.E.R.E. campaign will have to show its consistency. It would make little sense to speak of respecting people and their identities if we used languages merely to make recruitment more effective, without caring how our proposals are understood. Every language carries different ways of conceiving work, business, authority, participation and the relationship between the individual and the community. It would be naive to imagine that even an excellent translation could erase those differences or make them immediately compatible. I do not believe we should give up the opportunity to communicate with people whose languages we do not speak. Rather, I believe that opportunity calls for a more rigorous method: messages must contain verifiable information, uncertainties in interpretation must be clarified and, where the subject matter requires it, people familiar with the language and local context must be involved. Artificial intelligence can help us open a conversation, but it cannot take responsibility for what may follow in our place.
There is another question, more directly concerned with how organisations use technology, that in my view deserves critical examination. The ability to create content quickly, distribute communications, collect requests and organise information can give the impression of intense activity and constant growth, yet that intensity does not necessarily amount to a greater ability to meet people’s needs. A system may send hundreds of messages without resolving a single complex request; it may record numerous contacts without creating the means to follow them up properly; it may produce detailed analyses while lacking the people needed to check its conclusions or turn them into decisions. That is why I believe we must distinguish the efficiency of a process from its actual usefulness, particularly in a network such as the one we are developing, where innovation should make opportunities more accessible rather than simply multiply administrative and communication tasks.
The same reasoning applies to the relationship between technology and organisational accountability. When a system helps us collect information about people, classify requests or suggest possible connections between businesses and professionals, we must recognise that every simplification also introduces selection criteria and may push into the background qualities that cannot easily be expressed as data. Informally acquired expertise, knowledge of a local area, the ability to mediate a conflict or reliability demonstrated through cooperation may be extremely important even when they are difficult to capture in a form. Added to this is the duty to handle information carefully, respect privacy and ensure that increasingly powerful tools do not make it less clear who is accountable for decisions. I do not want a Conflombardia that rejects innovation out of fear of complexity, but neither do I want an organisation that considers a decision correct simply because technology recommended it. Human judgement must remain identifiable, reasoned and open to correction when necessary.
These changes also affect relations between generations and between people with different levels of digital confidence. If we envisage a network capable of valuing very different experiences, we cannot assume that everyone possesses the same tools, skills or willingness to use them. A business owner who has built a company through decades of face-to-face relationships should not be considered less valuable because they find a digital platform difficult, just as a young professional accustomed to advanced tools should not be judged less competent merely because their experience follows a different path from traditional ones. An association should help bring these perspectives together, ensuring that accumulated knowledge is not devalued by innovation and that new skills have real opportunities to be applied. Technology, in this view, should not become a new barrier to participation, but a resource accompanied by training, a willingness to listen and ways of working that do not exclude those who move at a different pace.
From Membership to Participation: The Commitments a Network Must Honour
When someone joins an organisation, a membership entry is recorded; when they begin to participate, a relationship opens up that requires continuity on both sides. I have seen people approach collective initiatives with genuine willingness and then withdraw because they did not know whom to contact, what contribution was expected of them or how decisions were made. A campaign can therefore succeed in attracting new members while failing to create a sense of belonging. To avoid this, we must take what happens after the first contact just as seriously as the contact itself.
That is why I believe V.E.R.E. should encourage us to distinguish at least three stages that are often treated as one: welcoming someone, enabling their participation and entrusting them with responsibility. Welcoming means providing understandable information about what Conflombardia is, what opportunities are genuinely available and the limits within which it operates, so that the enthusiasm of a presentation is not mistaken for a promise of an appointment, a service or a particular outcome. Participation means having real opportunities for discussion, being able to offer a proposal and receiving a reasoned response, even if the proposal is not accepted. Assuming responsibility, finally, involves more than expressing willingness: it calls for suitable skills, a clearly defined mandate, explicit objectives and accountability for decisions taken. Unless we distinguish these stages, we risk asking some people to carry far more than they have been prepared for while leaving others without any meaningful way to contribute, despite abilities that could prove valuable.
I think, for instance, of someone who knows a local industry in depth and wants to draw attention to its problems but has no desire to become a local coordinator; or of a professional willing to contribute a few hours of specialist expertise without taking on an ongoing representative role. A thoughtfully organised network should be able to value both offers without forcing people into positions that do not match their aspirations or the time they can realistically give. At the same time, anyone who agrees to represent Conflombardia in dealings with businesses, workers or institutions should be supported by appointment criteria, training and assessment proportionate to their responsibilities. Respect for people, which we placed at the beginning of V.E.R.E., is not diminished when we require preparation and accountability. On the contrary, one of its most serious expressions is refusing to leave someone alone with duties for which they do not yet have the necessary tools.
This approach also imposes clear obligations on those who lead the organisation, and it is here that we must avoid any temptation towards self-exoneration. We cannot demand prompt replies if participants’ requests are left to accumulate without anyone knowing their status; we cannot ask local branches to take initiative if every useful decision remains suspended pending hard-to-obtain authorisation; and we cannot speak seriously of training if knowledge of our processes depends solely on a handful of individuals being personally available. We therefore need clear routes into the organisation, identifiable responsibility for responding, tools for recording and following up proposals, and ways to review periodically not only what has been announced but what has actually been completed. I do not present these as achievements the campaign has already secured. I regard them as organisational commitments against which we must assess ourselves, starting with a precise understanding of what works today and what still requires improvement.
A mature organisation should also know how to handle disagreement, a subject too often addressed only once a difference of opinion has become a personal conflict. Loyalty to a project is not demonstrated by automatically approving every decision, just as the right to raise criticism does not justify ignoring agreed procedures or other people’s responsibilities. Between these two requirements lies a space for discussion that must be supported by clear rules: explaining the reasons behind decisions, allowing evidence-based objections, distinguishing mistakes from failures to fulfil obligations, and providing opportunities to correct what proves ineffective. If someone who identifies a problem has nowhere to raise it, we can hardly expect them to continue feeling responsible for improving the network. Conversely, if those holding office lack clear criteria for deciding, debate can become permanent paralysis. Participation and the ability to make decisions are not alternatives; they must be held together.
Results, too, must therefore be examined more carefully. Membership numbers, new local representation and the number of meetings held are useful information, but they cannot be the only measures of a network that aims to generate value. We will need to ask how many people received adequate information after their first contact, how many proposals were followed up, which initiatives produced lasting collaboration and why others came to an end. We must also distinguish a request left unanswered from an opportunity that could not be pursued for objective reasons: not everything that fails to materialise is evidence of an organisational failure, while hiding poor service behind the complexity of a problem would mean evading responsibility for improvement. The aim is not to multiply controls for their own sake, but to use the information needed to prevent people’s efforts from dissipating without leaving knowledge that others can use.
In time, I would like those who join the V.E.R.E. network to recognise this distinction not because they have heard it explained in a presentation, but because they experience it in their dealings with the organisation: they understand what to expect, know how to offer a contribution, recognise the limits of any responsibilities entrusted to them and can receive a response even when it is not the answer they hoped for. This is an ambitious goal, requiring people, procedures, training and, above all, consistency in everyday management, away from the most visible moments of public communication. But if our ambition is to build a community capable of lasting, I believe it is in this everyday work that we must look for the measure of participation. A name on a list records membership; the opportunity to help shape a shared undertaking responsibly is what can transform membership into belonging.
The Network I Hope to Help Leave Behind
One final question feels particularly close to me: how much of the work we are doing will remain useful when those who lead Conflombardia today are no longer personally overseeing every initiative? A network’s growth and its ability to endure are not the same thing. We can launch projects, build relationships and gain visibility without yet making what we have learnt transferable to others; and knowledge that cannot be passed on risks being lost precisely when it is most needed.
My own experience has taught me how difficult it can be to separate the commitment invested in a project from the desire to oversee every part of it personally, especially when so many decisions, relationships and insights have developed through years of everyday work. Yet experience itself should point to the limits of that habit. If important information remains in the memories of a few individuals, if a procedure works only because someone steps in every time to put it right, and if a local area constantly waits for guidance from the centre even on matters it understands better than anyone else, we have created dependence rather than continuity. I do not see this as a risk that applies only to other people. It is a test that anyone in a leadership position must first be willing to apply to their own way of working, because even the best intentions can create fragility when they are not accompanied by a willingness to share tools, decisions and knowledge.
I am therefore interested in a network in which passing on experience is not confused with repeating choices already made. Preparing others to take responsibility does not mean finding people who think exactly as we do. It means enabling them to understand why particular decisions were taken, what consequences followed and which mistakes it would be wise not to repeat. It means leaving intelligible records of the work, making verifiable methods available and recognising that those who come after us may discover different, perhaps better, solutions without thereby erasing the contribution of those who began the journey. Continuity based solely on obedience or identification with a particular leader may appear orderly while that leader remains in place, but it inevitably runs into difficulty when circumstances change and independent judgement becomes necessary.
This reflection also applies directly to the relationship between the National Secretariat, delegates, local communities and the people who may join Conflombardia’s international network. I do not want growth to produce merely a larger structure managed through an ever-increasing volume of communications. I would like it to enable a problem arising in a small community to reach someone who can help address it, a successful experience to be documented and made useful elsewhere, and every appointment to have sufficiently clear limits and responsibilities that it does not depend on a personal relationship with the person who made it. All of this requires work less visible than a public campaign: documenting, listening, checking, training and correcting. I cannot present it as a fully established system, and doing so would contradict the spirit of V.E.R.E. I can, however, put it forward as a standard against which to assess the organisational choices we make.
There is one further point on which I feel the need to be equally clear. A community does not become more authentic merely because it uses words such as trust, participation or belonging, any more than it becomes more open simply by communicating in many languages. We may claim to value people while continuing to listen to the same voices; opportunities may remain more accessible to those with time and personal connections; and the speed of digital tools may make activities appear complete before their effects have been assessed. If the V.E.R.E. vision is to serve a real purpose, it must also help us recognise these contradictions when they concern us directly. A credible organisation is not one that manages to present itself as free of errors, but one that does not seek to shield its decisions from scrutiny of their results.
At fifty-seven, I view this prospect differently from how I would have done at other stages of my life. It is not that my desire to initiate projects has diminished; on the contrary, that desire remains an important part of how I understand commitment. Rather, I have become increasingly interested in what can acquire a life independent of the person who imagined it. The value of collective work should not end with the satisfaction of having started it. It should also be measured by whether people with different abilities, outlooks and experiences can find the means to continue it, and the courage to change it when necessary. This is not about abandoning a vision, but about making it clear and open enough to be discussed, tested and developed instead of treating it as a private possession that cannot be shared.
The network of genuine people I hope to help build through V.E.R.E. is therefore not intended to end with a map ever more crowded with names, or an organisation able to recount only its successes. I would like it to be recognised over time by the quality of the relationships it sustains, the seriousness with which it addresses a problem even when no publicity follows, its willingness to prepare people for new responsibilities and its ability to make knowledge acquired in one place useful in another. The multilingual campaign we have launched today may open many doors, but what we do after opening them will determine the project’s real significance. And if one day people who were not involved at its inception can use this network to connect, work more effectively and assume shared responsibilities, without needing to know every decision made by those who founded it, then we will be able to say that an important part of our work has created something capable of enduring beyond us.