There are a motley series of behaviors we individually
recur to in resolving current, persistent and longer-term
difficulties. For some, these entail trying at all costs
to rebuild a mythical past in which, anesthetized by
wealth and comforts, we have excessively basked in,
without seizing those signs of change that we ourselves
have contributed to creating. There are those who spend
late hours managing an area of relationships, apparently
without confines because supported by potentially
global social networks, but that in reality feed the
narcissist pleasure of restricted groups. The more
attentive ones express the need to interpret reality
by questioning their own lifestyles in the quest for a
possible future.
These trends suggest that in the hierarchy of needs,
individual ones always come before social ones. And if
we are going through a period of economic tension, the
individual’s priorities are further accentuated. Attention
to personal details increases.
In proposing solutions, companies living an analogous
distress vis-à-vis the market must consider a greater
and more mature sensitivity of the customer/consumer
who, in this scenario, elaborates the economic
difficulties with a lesser propensity towards quantities
in consumption, more carefully checks quality and
price, consistently confers greater value to the ethical
behaviors of producers.
It is in the folds of these aspects that innovation must
find positive spurs for the challenges that current
changes demand: flexibility, constant attention to real
market conditions and, sometimes, the ability to see in
difficulties a chance for improvement and growth.
And since the push towards innovation at times stems
from an idea by a person, and more often a group, that
shares passions and knowledge looking for that spark
that turns on the new, we should remember that the
raw material of all progress is man when he takes part
in the elaboration of a positive result to propose to his
peers.
We must observe with more benevolent eyes who is
walking beside us, because our future may also depend
on that very person, and remember that man’s best
friend is man.
Maura Leonardi