Pagare le tasse nel mondo: 175 paesi a confronto.

Dove sono piu' alte, dove ci si mette di meno, quale legge fiscale e'
piu' lunga... tutto in questo report.

"Complex tax systems cut tax revenues for government and make it very
hard to assess the true tax burden on firms, says a new report
launched here today by the World Bank Group and
PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report presents quantitative indicators
on the tax rates, payment frequency, and time to comply with taxes
compared across 175 economies - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Top
reformers are identified and best practices in how to reform tax
regulations are highlighted. This report gives policymakers the
ability to measure tax regulation performance in comparison to other
countries, learn from global best practices, and prioritize reforms."

http://rru.worldbank.org/paperslinks/open.aspx?id=7381

L'impresa senza confini nella complessita' della competizione.

L'EIU mette in evidenza una realta': l'impresa senza confini. Non la
gerarchia dei buoni vecchi burocrati di casa, non il "cooperare per
competere", ma senza confini. Pensiamoci.

Companies believe collaboration with other companies has become
critical to their long-term survival, according to new research from
the Economist Intelligence Unit. More than half of the 187 executives
polled for this report say collaboration will either form an
important part of their firm's competitive advantage or will actually
be central to its survival over the next three years. In addition,
51% say that they have changed their business model over the past
three years to take greater advantage of collaborative partnerships.

http://graphics.eiu.com/files/ad_pdfs/eiu_BT_collaboration_wp.pdf

Etichettatura dei contenuti multimediali.

Nell'ambito di un progetto comunitario comincia l'analisi automatica
e l'etichettatura dei contenuti multimediali tramite un processo di
riconoscimento automatico.

http://istresults.cordis.europa.eu/

Boom degli acquisti on-line.

Boom degli acquisti on-line in Emilia-Romagna, che negli ultimi 5
anni hanno raggiunto un fatturato di almeno 153 milioni di euro.
Questo su un valore complessivo delle vendite a distanza di 194
milioni. E' quanto risulta da una indagine realizzata dalla societa'
specializzata Gmpr Group per conto del Comitato regionale per le
comunicazioni. Secondo la ricerca, gli acquisti via web si
concentrano in gran parte a Bologna e Modena e il consumatore-tipo e'
una donna sui 36-45 anni.

Troppi cani? Ci vuole piu' KM!

Dechen is looking for solutions to deal with the growing number of
stray dogs population in Thimphu, a concern of almost all residents
of the capital.

Since this is an issue close to her heart and could also have
religious implications, she wanted to avoid mistakes that the early-
starters would have made. Further, since more heads means more ideas,
she wanted to share the query with the right set of people. How could
she do that? Knowledge Management Partnership (KMP) could be the answer.
KMP is about sharing knowledge and experience through an internet-
mediated forum. It connects people sharing similar concerns and
interests towards the common objective of problem-solving instead of
reinventing the wheel.
KMP is an internet-mediated forum using an "e-consultation" format.
Communities of Practice (topics of discussion) can be selected based
on people's interest and of national development concern.
Each community is guided by a group of eminent persons working in
that sphere. Members to the community can come from different sectors
- government, non governmental organisations, development partners,
private sectors and academia.
So, when you put your query in an e-mail the moderator posts it to
all community members who will offer advices, experiences and
contacts and in about 5-10 days, the moderator will post a synopsis
of responses to the mailgroup (called a Consolidated Reply). These
contributions and additional resources can be made available on the
website.
A similar initiative in the UN office in India last year resulted in
the government changing its compulsory HIV/AIDS testing before
marriage in one of the states.
Many would argue that KMP may not be effective in Bhutan because of
inaccessibility of technology in rural areas. However, KMP could be
tailor made to suit the current IT status of Bhutan. It could be
adapted using existing facilities such as the national radio to reach
remote Bhutan.
Knowledge management's potential can be gauged by reflecting on the
various levels of society. To an organisation, KMP helps enhance the
delivery, relevance and effectiveness of their work and advisory
services; to a thematic community, it allows for the development of a
common language and understanding of thematic issues and for an
individual, it helps to do their jobs better, build bonds with peers
and keep up to date.
In this fast developing world, where people find it difficult to find
time to meet and discuss issues physically, perhaps, KMP can be a
solution.
Contributed by Sunita Giri

KM: praticarlo o perderlo.

Posted By: Jeffrey Mann, Research VP
Many of my discussions with customers about knowledge management (KM)
initially focus on how to capture knowledge as it is created or flows
through an organization. Users want to know how to convince employees
to share their experiences or take the time to document best
practices or other insights. They ask about the best systems to
store, classify, search and distribute this information. All of that
is important, but often misplaced, I find. It's generally far more
useful to concentrate on how the organization will use knowledge
rather than just how to collect it. Ironically, emphasizing how
knowledge will be used usually ends up increasing the quality and
amount of information collected as well.

One of the reasons many people are hesitant to spend the time to
document what they know is because they don't know how, or even if,
it will be used. Too many KM initiatives gather great material, which
then sits unaccessed on a virtual shelf in some repository somewhere.
Focusing exclusively on how to capture knowledge means not building
knowledge access into daily business processes, training users how to
find information that can help them make better decisions faster,
publicizing how the use of someone's insights has led to success or
other steps that would encourage knowledge use.

Visibility into how captured knowledge will be used can be a
tremendous incentive to participate in knowledge capture efforts.
Subject matter experts are more likely to participate if they know
that their efforts will actually be used. Individual recognition can
often be the best incentive, in fact; far better than the clumsy
efforts to financially reward contributors that I have seen. It is a
cliché (but nonetheless true) to say that nothing succeeds like
success. Ringing the bell to highlight wins and successes, with
recognition for the user and contributor, can multiply this value.

Of course, exclusively focusing on how knowledge is used would lead
to a chicken-and-egg paradox: How can we use knowledge if we haven't
captured any? Often, this presents an excuse to dive into technology.
Many KM planners, especially those from IT departments, are more
comfortable dealing with the technology-driven issues of how to
capture, catalogue and store information in repositories than the
people-driven issues of how it gets used throughout the organization.
As with so many high-performance workplace concepts, finding the
correct balance is important. A good rule of thumb is to focus at
least as much attention on using knowledge as capturing it. This
would go a long way toward swinging the balance the right way.

Microsoft sulla gestione dell'identita' in rete

Dopo avere per anni cercato di imporre uno standard unico, finalmente
Microsoft riconosce la necessita' di una architettura generale che
garantisca un quadro unico di riferimento. Ma alla fine proporra' una
soluzione sua.

http://www.identityblog.com/wp-content/resources/

Identity_Metasystem_EU_Privacy.pdf

Usabilita' dei siti.

L'usabilita' dei siti secondo le ultime linee della ricerca.
Un rapporto voluminoso (154 mega) dal Governo USA.

http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html

La ricerca finanziata dal pubblico in europa

In uno studio delle nazioni unite emerge che la ricerca finanziata
dal pubblico ha un livello di sfruttamento commerciale molto
importante, contrariamente a quanto di pensa, piu' elevato di quello
degli Stati Uniti.

Come deprimere i knowledge workers.

Department of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration
"We study how complementarities and intellectual property rights
affect the management of knowledge workers. The main results relay
when a firm will wish to sue workers that leave with innovative
ideas, and the effects of complementary assets on wages and on worker
initiative. We argue that firms strongly protected by property rights
may not sue leaving workers in order to motivate effort, while firms
weakly protected by complementary assets must sue in order to obtain
positive profits. Firms with more complementary assets pay higher
wages (and have lower turnover), but such higher pay has a
detrimental effect on worker initiative. Our analysis suggests that
strengthened property rights protection reduces turnover costs but
weakens worker initiative."

http://www.nhh.no/for/dp/2006/0706.pdf

Far crescere l'innnovazione senza far crescere la complessita'.

"As companies struggle to innovate in today's competitive
environment, they need to continually guard against adding to their
"clutter" -- the creeping impact of complexity on efficiency and cost-
competitiveness. In this three-part special report, experts from
Wharton and George Group Consulting discuss how management can
approach this problem by thinking "ambidextrously" -- that is,
focusing on innovation and broad exploration while minimizing the
impact of clutter on operational processes and costs. Also, in the
accompanying podcast (with transcript), Mike McCallister, CEO of
Humana, discusses balancing innovation and complexity in the health
care industry with Wharton management professor Michael Useem and
Stephen Wilson, engagement director in George Group's Conquering
Complexity practice."

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/download/BalancingInnovationTechnology.pdf

Km board pubblica commenti sulla provacy e il diritto d'autore

"It has become commonplace to say that we have entered the age of
information. The words conjure up images of a reader's paradise ~ an
era of limitless access to information resources and unlimited
interpersonal communication. In truth, however, the new information
age is turning out to be as much an age of information about readers
as an age of information for readers. The same technologies that have
made vast amounts of information accessible in digital form are
enabling information providers to amass an unprecedented wealth of
data about who their customers are and what they like to read. In the
new age of digitally transmitted information, the simple, formerly
anonymous acts of reading, listening, and viewing ~ scanning an
advertisement or a short news item, browsing through an online novel
or a collection of video clips ~ can be made to speak volumes,
including, quite possibly, information that the reader would prefer
not to share. This Article focuses specifically on digital monitoring
of individual reading habits for purposes of so-called "copyright
management" in cyberspace, and evaluates the import of this
monitoring for traditional notions of freedom of thought and
expression."

http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/2794

Salario minimo e occupazione.

There is a growing view among economists that the minimum wage offers
substantial benefits to low-wage workers without negative effect.
Although there are still dissenters, the best recent research has
shown that the job loss reported in earlier analyses does not, in
fact, occur when the minimum wage is increased. There is little
question that the overall impact of a minimum wage is positive, as
the following facts make clear:

If the minimum wage were increased nationally to $7.25:
o 14.9 million workers would receive a raise,
o 80% of those affected are adults age 20 or over, and
o 7.3 million children would see their parents income rise.
Families with affected workers rely on those workers for over half of
their earnings.
46% of all families with affected workers rely solely on the earnings
from those workers.
Some minimum wage workers remain in low-wage jobs for substantial
periods.
The best recent research on the economic impact of the minimum wage
shows positive effects without job loss.
Even the research that suggests a negative labor market effect shows
only a minimal impact that is more than offset by the higher wage
levels.
The states that have adopted higher-than-federal minimum wages have
seen low-wage workers' incomes rise with no negative side-effects.
Over 650 economists, including five Nobel Prize winners and six past
presidents of the American Economics Association, recently signed a
statement stating that federal and state minimum wage increases "can
significantly improve the lives of low-income workers and their
families, without the adverse effects that critics have claimed" (EPI
2006).

Italiani tra le popolazioni più longeve.

Gli italiani restano tra le popolazioni più longeve al mondo,
nonostante la relativa frenata della speranza di vita alla nascita
nel corso del 2003: 77,2 anni per gli uomini e 82,8 anni per le
donne. Rispetto al 2002, gli uomini guadagnano soltanto 0,1 anni in
termini di vita media mentre per le donne si registra una perdita di
0,2 anni.

La decelerazione non è però da interpretare come un'inversione di
tendenza rispetto alla crescita regolare osservata negli anni
passati, ma è legata a eventi di natura congiunturale. Il 2003 è
stato infatti contraddistinto da difficili condizioni climatiche - un
inverno assai rigido e una successiva estate torrida - che hanno
condotto a una mortalità molto accentuata, soprattutto tra gli
anziani e, in particolare, tra le donne che ne rappresentano la
maggioranza.

È quanto emerge da una indagine dell'Istat sulla mortalità della
popolazione residente in Italia nel 2003 Nonostante l'anno non
positivo sotto il profilo congiunturale, la popolazione residente in
Italia si conferma una delle più longeve sul piano internazionale.
Nel 2003, nell'ambito dei Paesi Ue25 aspettative di vita migliori di
quella italiana si registrano solo in Svezia (77,9), limitatamente
agli uomini, e in Spagna (83,6) e in Francia (82,9) per quanto
riguarda le donne.

Inoltre, afferma l'Istat le previsioni per il 2004 e il 2005 sono
incoraggianti. Nel 2004, in virtù di un effetto "selezione" dei
soggetti più deboli prematuramente scomparsi nel 2003, la speranza di
vita alla nascita dovrebbe salire a 77,7 anni per gli uomini e a 83,7
anni per le donne. Nel 2005, invece, le stime della speranza di vita
alla nascita suggerirebbero un ritorno alla crescita regolare
conosciuta nel recente passato. La vita media degli uomini
raggiungerebbe, infatti, i 77,8 anni (solo 0,1 anni in più rispetto
all'eccezionale 2004, ma ben 0,7 anni in più rispetto al 2002),
quella delle donne gli 83,4 anni (rispettivamente, meno 0,3 e più 0,4
anni).

Netdimension annuncia modulo di e-learning

NetDimensions, provider of the Enterprise Knowledge Platform (EKP)
learning management system (LMS), has announced a new software on
demand appliance in EKP Server Plus, a stand-alone server that ships
preinstalled with the EKP LMS to deliver, manage and track training
programs.

Statistiche regionali europee

In which region of the EU is the population increasing and where is
it decreasing? Where can you find the highest labour productivity?
Which regions have the highest employment rates for the age group
55-64? Answers to these questions and to many more can be found in
the Statistical Yearbook of the EU Regions published by Eurostat, the
Statistical Office of the European Communities.

The publication presents data which cover the 254 regions of the 25
EU Member States, defined by level 2 of the Nomenclature of
territorial units for statistics (NUTS 2003). The publication also
covers the 14 regions of Bulgaria and Romania

The publication contains chapters on population, GDP, household
accounts, labour market, labour productivity, urban statistics,
science, technology and innovation, business, health, transport and
agriculture. New this year is the chapter on labour productivity. In
the other chapters, efforts have been made to focus on aspects not
recently covered.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-AF-06-001/EN/KS-AF-06-001-EN.PDF

Esselunga e Coop

Esselunga non vuole finire sotto l'ombra della Coop. E respinge con
forza le proposte presentate dal governo e dalla Coop stessa per un
eventuale matrimonio, definendole "tentativi di ingerenza nelle
proprie scelte strategiche". E rincara la dose dicendo che "Esselunga
e Coop sono due aziende inconciliabili". Spiega la sua posizione in
un annuncio a pagamento su numerosi quotidiani.

La posizione dell'azienda guidata da Bernardo Caprotti viene esposta
nella nota, pubblicata nel weekend, in cui si replica alle
dichiarazioni fatte nei giorni scorsi sull'opportunità che la catena
di supermercati rimanga in mani italiane. Secondo l'azienda, dietro
la pretesa di mantenere l'italianità della catena c'è "il disegno di
Coop di acquisire Esselunga". Nell'annuncio l'azienda spiega poi che,
rispetto alla Coop, "sono differenti i modelli industriali,
commerciali, logistici, le logiche alla base del business" e "sono
differenti i valori che ispirano le persone". Differenti sono anche,
secondo i vertici di Esselunga, "i modelli industriali, commerciali,
logistici".

Per spiegare tutto questo l'azienda ha comprato una mezza pagina su
32 giornali italiani. La nota precisa che la sua "specificità
consente ad Esselunga di offrire un livello di qualità eccezionale
che trova riscontro nell'elevato grado di soddisfazione dei suoi tre
milioni e mezzo di clienti abituali, la maggior parte dei quali
rivela un grado di fidelizzazione che non ha paragoni in Italia e in
Europa".

Poi, sottolinea il gigante alimentare milanese, "sono differenti i
valori che ispirano le persone. Duecento di queste persone che hanno
responsabilità nella gestione quotidiana dell'azienda hanno
recentemente manifestato la loro contrarietà all'ipotesi di
integrazione con Coop".

Le regole della rete

Le rete ha le sue regole, chi le conosce sa cosa usare, cosa evitare, come trovare quello che gli serve.
Sono regole vecchie, comprendono il buon senso, l'osservazione della realta', molto sano realismo.
Sono regole che di solito non si raccontano in giro. Molti guru e contro-guru infatti si fanno beffe di loro. Arrivano e ti spiegano loro come vanno le cose.
Per fortuna i guru e contro-guru durano poco.
Io ho cominciato a scrivere di internet qualche anno fa (era il 1995) facendo recensioni di siti e poi sono passato a scrivere di regole della rete. Lo faccio prevalentemente su questa rivista: EconERre. Qualche volta si dimenticano i miei articoli, o mi dicono proprio che non e' il caso di pubblicarli. Ma non lo fanno spesso, sono bravi ragazzi. Comunque, per sapere veramente come la penso dovete venire qui...

L'economia politica e in particolare quella applicata allo sviluppo regionale resta comunque cio' per cui ho studiato e per cui lavoro principalmente.
Solo che non va proprio piu' di moda, e' terribilmente sorpassata.
E' stata punita perche' non sa fare molto bene le previsioni, o meglio le sbaglia, o meglio ancora le sbagliano gli economisti, a volte in buona fede a volte perche' li pagano per quello.
L'informatica invece la pagano di piu'. Provate ad andare in Commissione Europea a presentare un progetto dove si parla di economia. Quando si parla di informatica invece...
Per fortuna informatica ed economia hanno delle relazioni, altrimenti sarebbe un guaio.