Open Standards Drive Innovation

I’ve recently read a great article by Tim Berners-Lee, titled “Long Live the Web“, about why the web is crucial for the continuation of our liberty.
It’s a six-page article; if you have time I’d recommend reading it; this is a commented abstract of my favourite paragraph.

Definition of an Open Standard:

A committed expert involved in the design;
Widely reviewed;
Available for free to be viewed and used;
Open Standards drive innovation because they underlie the diverse richness of the web.
Opting for not using Open Standards means building a(nother) closed world, that is far less in richness, diversity and innovation compared to the whole open web.

Universality is the most important design principle underlying the web.
Despite universality could seem an anstract concept, it goes to the basic standard of the web: the URI puts in practice the principle that anything should be identified by a string of characters, and this is key for universality.

HTML + URI + HTTP can be read as Decentralization
Standards are there because anybody can use them and decide independently to publish some content on the web, without asking anybody to do it or to give her permission of doing it.
And because Hypertext allows linking between two URIs, anybody can enter the universal space of sites on the web.

So anybody can build a site and put data into it; but there it comes Isolation, because most of the times data are constrained in a site like in a silo.
De facto: URIs identify pages and not single pieces of information.
Connecting data, pieces of information, on the web, could bring us to build huge systems of federated information, that can be crucial for innovation in many fields of our society.

My New Job At Adobe

It has been some time since I wanted to write some lines about my new role at Adobe.
During the last week of January I had the pleasure of transitioning to the so called ‘Technical Marketing Team’ within the Digital Enterprise Solutions Business Unit at Adobe.
The official role name sounds like ‘Sr Product Marketing Manager’, but I’m still not sure about what it really means :-)

My team is responsible of keeping an effective bridge between Engineering and the Field; we primarily work with Presales Consultants to generate, nurture and close the most challenging deals.
Our triple mantra is Evangelism, Engagement, Enablement.

I already had the chance of meeting most of my team-mates in Ottawa, few days ago, and it was a blast. It is pretty easy for a European guy to feel comfortable in a French/American Canadian city, but they definitely made me feel at home… despite the 35°C difference between Ottawa and Como!

Since I’m the only European member of the team, so far, first thing, I had to change a little bit my decathlon training time (used to be late afternoon); fortunately I convinced my (athletics) team-mates to join me in the new training hours… thanks guys!