Experimental area

TREVISO, A FORMER FOUNDRY, REFURBISHED.
We are standing on a loft from which we can see a group of young people at work and only a few metres away, others are playing pool, having a break from the project.

E-TREE, ALSO CALLED THE “NOSLEEPING COMPANY” IS KNOWN MORE FOR ITS EXPERIMENTS WITH WORKING ENVIRONMENT DESIGNING THAN FOR ITS PRODUCTS. WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ABOUT THIS?
Experimenting with the working environment started naturally and perhaps it is what mostly strikes people. At the beginning it was extremely important to create a place, an opportunity, where responsibility and creativity were the basics of our projects. I suggested on going for an open space with a very high ceiling, to avoid feeling the burden of the work place. Each one of us then personalised his/her own space. Harmony with the environment mostly, but there is still a lot left to experiment with.

A GYM, A BOWLING LANE, THE POOL TABLE, THE BAR, THE PARTIES. IN A WAY, HERE YOU DO NOT PLAN ONLY YOUR WORKING HOURS BUT ALSO YOUR LEISURE TIME. DON’T YOU FEEL THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PLANNING YOUR COLLABORATORS’ LIVES?
Actually, all of this started spontaneously, it was a way of rewarding ourselves for the work done.
E-Tree was set up in thirty months. At first there were only a few of us, today there’s over 150 of us. The young should not perceive their work as a limited timetable: it means shifting the working sphere into the sphere of passion and at E-Tree this is possible.
When a job is done with passion, one should rightly receive proper gratification. What the young often complain about is not the money they earn, but the fact that E-Tree’s soul is lost. To some, the soul is much more important than immediate profit.

SOME ASSOCIATE THIS TYPE OF PROFESSION WITH TELE-SHOPPING. DOESN’T YOUR SITUATION IN SOME WAY CONTRADICT THIS FORECAST?
You’re right, team work is of paramount importance in our company, although I find tele-shopping fascinating. Indeed, together with Telecom we are analysing the case of “tele-workers” who manage to work their 6/7-hour shifts, with various interruptions during the day. Having to be at the dentist’s at 11 is not a problem at all for them. To us, being together means dealing with complex projects calling for synergy between 4/5 persons. Parties are synergies.

DO YOU FEEL THAT YOUR ORGANISATIONAL MODEL COULD BE APPLIED ALSO TO “OLD ECONOMY” COMPANIES?
Some “old” companies half seriously and half jokingly ask us for organisational advice and this amuses me. I believe that our model can easily be exported to service companies, whereas it is more difficult to apply it to productive firms: for the latter I envisage a longer timing. It is a matter of generation.

THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF TALK LATELY ABOUT CODES OF CONDUCT. HOW DOES A YOUNG COMPANY LIKE YOURS BEHAVE IN THIS RESPECT?
Although our company was established only recently, right from the start we tried to make it clear that our assessment criterion was not the amount of money earned but the awards received for projects. We also participated in a project envisaging the construction of a multimedia hut in Tanzania and our young staff members immediately underwrote 80 remote adoptions. I am trying to realise a sort of ethical technology and we are just at the beginning stages.

THE INTERNET WAS THE “FRONTIER” AND TODAY WE ARE ALL EXPERIENCING THIS REVOLUTION. IS THERE A NEW FRONTIER IN THE NEAR FUTURE THAT WILL CHANGE OUR HABITS AND BEHAVIOURS?
The Internet has not reached its fully ripe stage yet. As a form of technology, it still has a lot to give; take, for example, the “always on”, i.e. the Internet always on in homes: one can always be reached, just like with mobile phones, except that it is not invasive.
Then there’s the wide band with all the opportunities it offers, UMTS and the fourth generation mobile phones. We will be doing things we hardly can imagine right now. The revolution goes on.

IS THE INFORMATION ONE GETS ON THE INTERNET MORE OF A QUANTITY OR QUALITY TYPE?
We are talking about an immature, bidirectional, complex tool and this will go on for a long time. At first, everything seemed profitable, today some cleaning up has been done: no one is willing to pay for some types of information. In the future, the contents will be redesigned.
In any case, if there weren’t millions of independent sites, it would no longer be the Internet and, in order to be a free space as it is today, it will have to stay like this.