Big&Small 7.0_Changing Scenarios

EDITOR'S NOTE

Luca Broncolo 

Small but it opens to a largest content; traditional but it also travels through the digital.

This, what you are browsing now, is the latest editorial product created by Big&Small and it provides contents emerged in the latest edition, proposing them with a dynamic and innovative style.

Big&Small is a think-thank dedicated to the production activities, aimed at promoting supply chains main players to meet and confront each other, understand the evolutionary scenarios of the socio-economic system and develop new business. Born in 2008 from a Methos idea of starting up an annual event dedicated to the retail formats and supply chains analysis, Big&Small has introduced through the time further moments of confrontation and opened the debate also on different areas, such as credit, subsidized loans and communication. Evolution is marked from the entrance of specialized partners in these sectors – Studio Valla and Archi’s Comunicazione – with which it has started continued monitoring of the market dynamics, which has led to surveys publication aimed at identifying new development opportunities for enterprises.

In 2014, Big&Small has taken a big leap forward marked by theinauguration of the new website with a new form and expression to the editorial contents, with multimedia and integration of social networks: they have defined a new upgrade tool to economy, easy finance, markets and distribution. Starting from this digital impulse, we continued all the way in order to realize this year an edition that traveles well beyond national borders: with the hashtag #BS7 we told the emotions and the solutions of the VII edition through twitter, not reaching only our many followers but also involving new internet users who roam in the network world. The 2014 edition has been the edition of records: record of foreign guests, audience record, record of contacts one offline.

All this has been possible thanks to the centrality of the issue addressed – internationalization of SMEs as well as the authority of the speakers from Europe, China and America gathered in Big&Small to provide concrete solutions to the development of Italian companies and the promotion of the “Made in Italy”, without disregarding the expectations expressed by the title chosen for this year: “Internationalization, Instructions for Use.” And it due to the desire of summarezing the main information for growth in foreign markets, this year we wanted to give a new approach to the proceedings of the conference, improving readability. Infact, we have chosen to tell the VII edition no more with the usual formula of “acta”, but using the communication style of the story: a unique story as it was the only one day of workshop – divided into two moments dedicated to specific themes – which brings together and summarizes the most significant and interesting thoughts and opinions emerged thru the intense work. The story alternates

with textual citations, highlighted by the use of italics in order to bring the thought to its author. For each of the expressions you can choose whether to proceed with the reading, or to discover more of the topic. In the second case, the integration of digital with the traditional editorial plays an important role. Each speaker is in fact associated with a QR code readable by smartphone or tablet that, in a few moments, wil lead you to a multimedia content (interviews, #B&SPlay, press releases) available on Big&Small website.

But this new version does not stop there: the vocation to change and the willingness to reach an increasingly audience led us to translate the volume into English by choosing a non-invasive method in order to avoid the interruption of the flow by the time you will read it. The two versions – English and Italian – are separated from the credits iconographic where we chose to give ample space to the inititive “Unica Italia” dedicated to the internationalization of Italian SMEs, baptized in the previous edition of Big&Small and currently it is active as we are supporting the agri-food businesses to develop in the overseas markets. Big&Small, traditional and digital. Big&Small grows and innovates, reconfirming with every form of communication, the philosophy that has seen the birth and progress. “It’s not the big that exceeds the small, but the fastest to follow the change.”