Sabrina Bresciani

Visualizing together for creating new business models

Sabrina — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:57:06 +0000

Our study on business model innovation through visual collaborative technique has just been published on the International Journal of Innovation Management. In this preliminary research we propose a model in which artefacts (visual templates, schetches and objects) affect the team processes in developing new business model ideas. The results of an illustrative experimental study shows that artefacts have the power to shape collaboration and creativity in innovation tasks.

Reference: Eppler M.J., Hoffmann F., Bresciani S. (2011). New Business Models Through Collaborative Idea Generation. International Journal of Innovation Management. Vol. 15 (6). Imperial College Press. DOI: 10.1142/S1363919611003751

Brand Early

Sabrina — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:46:17 +0000

The website “Fast Company” recently featured an article on branding for start-ups: “brand early, not often“. Expert blogger Emily Heyward observed that “when a client is starting a business, everything is top priority, and it is often easy to think “logo” and “design” should come later.”

Her observations and advices are very much in line with the findings of our study “Brand New Ventures? Insights on start-ups’ branding practices”. The entrepreneurs she interviewed stated, for instance: “We just want to get it out there; we’ll see what sticks and make changes as we go”. Although this kind of statements can make sense from the perspective of the entrepreneurs, our research revelaed that after only a few years from establishment, more than half of the analayzed companies already perceive their names as too “small” and thier logos as outdated. For instance, one of the companies had the logo developed by the wife of the founder. Only after a few years their relized that the logo, the Greek letter Alpha, was not protectable nor distinctive.

They asked a professional agency to develop a new logo, however – having now over 200 employees wearing uniforms with the company logo – they told us: “it would be a big expense and at the moment there are no concrete plans for substitution”.

Thanks Martin for the hint.

NIC symposium presentation: The Geography of (Visual) Thought

Sabrina — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 06:17:49 +0000

Here you can find our presentation at the NIC symposium, Helsinki, December 2nd 2001: http://prezi.com/6on7jj6wye3p/the-geography-of-visual-thought/

BSI Communication

Sabrina — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:05:41 +0000

BSI is one of the largest Swiss banks, and it is an interesting company case for its unique corporate communication activities. At Franklin College, Organizational Behavior course, we had the pleasure of having a guest lecture by Mr. Zueger, head of Corporate Communication at BSI. He talked about the rebranding of BSI and the merge with Banca del Gottardo. In recent years the bank had a new logo and extensive rebranding actitivties. The violin was selected to represent the core characteristics of the bank, and widely used on all the bank’s information material.

Eurocampus in Castellon

Sabrina — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:52:51 +0000

Eurocampus is an intensive and international study period on intercultural communication of one semester organised jointly by ten European Universities, members of the EMICC-network (European Master in Intercultural Communication). In the Eurocampus programme, students from the partner universities attend classes and study together (Source: USI website).

This year the Eurocampus program is taking place in Castellon, Spain, at Universitat Jaume I. I have been teaching a module on “Intercultural Aspects of Visual Communication: Conceptual Visualization, Visual and Audiovisual Documents and Information” together with prof. Stockinger (Paris).

The fantastic warm weather and the wonderful support of Professor Patricia Salazar made my stay very pleasant.
The city of Castellon is about one hour from Valencia, near the sea.

DGPuK Organizational Communication 2011 Fribourg

Sabrina — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:36:14 +0000

The Annual Divison Conference of the German Communication Association
PR and Organizational Communication took place November 3-5th 2011, in Fribourg, Switzerland. I presented the results of my latest study, comparing the reception of strategy communication in Europe, East Asia and South Asia: “Organizational Communication in Europe and Asia: enhancing commitment to the strategy with culturally appropriate knowledge visualization”.
The topic for this year conference is “International and Comparative Research in Organizational Communication and Public Relations”, organized by Prof. Diana Ingenhoff.
The opening panel discussed the definition of PR and Organizational Communication in different cultural context (U.S., U.K., Germany).
Then researchers presented their latest studies: Andreas Schwarz had a very interesting presentation on “Crisis communication across borders: A culture-sensitive approach”. Useful insights and tips for publishing in PR and Organizational communication have emerged by the study of Swaran Sandhu, who presented “Publishing abroad? The international visibility of PR research from German-speaking countries”.
Dennis Schöneborn adopted an American perspective on Organizational Communication for discussing recent organizational phenomenon, presenting “The communicative constitution of global partial organizations”.
I was very plesed to see that he both Dennis and Swaran made extensive use of visualization in their presentaton and have also conducted research on visualization for organizational communication.

Finally, I enjoyed the presentation of Prof. Ingenhoff research group on “An international comparison on the influence of culture on online communication by Non-Profit-Organizations”, where they have used Hofstede dimensions for assessing and comparing NPO’s websites in different countries.

Network and career

Sabrina — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:32:12 +0000

Working hard is not enough. We might all have had the feeling that networking can help in career development. But how? Who should you network with? Is networking equally effective for men and for women? Prof. Carnabuci gave a very interesting seminar on the topic, organized by the Equal Opportunities service of the University of Lugano. Based on insights from recent research in social network analysis, it seems that being a “broker” is a successful strategy. Perhaps for men only.

Green timeline

Sabrina — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:14:52 +0000

The Guardian has created a nice interactive timeline of green movements. It portraits the major events of WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth in the occasion of their 50° and 40° anniversary, respectively. Click on the image to see the interactive version.
(Re-posted from Rahel’s blog Kosmos 9)

Brescia Dialect. Or rather, Lombard language.

Sabrina — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 10:36:30 +0000

A series of lectures on “Dialetto Bresciano” (Dialect of Brescia) is taking place in Lonato del Garda every Friday of October. I appreciate and support this cultural initiative, aimed at saving the cultural heritage of this land, without linking itself to secessionists parties. Indeed dialect is often and erroneously associated with the will to differentiate and divide the various Italian regions. The lectures, titled “Un passo nel futuro - Quater venerdé de dialèt” is aimed at preserving this language which is very much threatened by modern times. Indeed most people below thirty years af age do not speak the local language and the Bresciano dialect might disappear in a few decades.

The dialetto Bresciano is a Lombard dialect, or rather, a lombard language, similar to the Milanese. What in italian are called “dialetti” are actually languages and not just dialects of Italian. They are the heritage of the history of the Italian peninsula, fragmented in many states until 150 years ago. When Italy was created, one of the languages was chosen, which we now call Italian. However it was not until the time that TV spread in the 60s that most of the population of Italy actually learned the language. Indeed my grandparents, born in the 1920s, expressed themselves in dialect only, and could barely speak Italian.

The lectures, given by Claudio Bedussi, give insights on reading and writing in dialetto bresciano, and give voice to prestigious local poets, including Dino Marino Tognal, Fabrizio Galvagnini, Dario Tornago and Armando Azzini.

Management Atlas book

Sabrina — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:17:17 +0000

Management Atlas is a new interesting book on knowledge visualization for management by Martin J. Eppler and Jeanne Mengis (in German). The idea of the book is to make management methods, strategies and tools more easily accessible to practitioners by representing them through visual metaphors. The 37 colourful metaphors are grouped together in three continents: methods for the individual, methods for the team, and those for the organization. The authors have chosen often unusual and fun metaphors to think of management problems and approaches: information overload as a dam lake, team development as a rollercoaster, risk management as a black swan, or the polarisation effect in teams as a swing. More information can be found on the book blog or editor website.