Communication Strategies Lab

Research

Communication Strategies...

The Communication Strategies Lab (CSL) of the Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali is a community of teachers, students, researchers, and professionals of various backgrounds. Founded on the values of innovation and creativity, the lab focuses its attention on the invention, development, and monitoring of communication strategies for a range of institutions and organizations, both private and public.

The aim of CSL is to study, explore, and experiment with communication strategies, carrying out experiments into theoretical models and developing concrete applications. The greatest attention is paid to any new possibility offered by ICT and to

investigations directed at a new model, a new communication paradigm, called "generative". See: www.comunicazionegenerativa.org.

The CSL’s activities involve, in few words, the essential and fundamental research into the field of communications as it evolves as a theoretical and applied science.

For this reason, the CSL positions itself (literally and scientifically) at the intersection or confrontation between intellectual concerns and specific problems and concrete needs.

For over ten years, the CSL has served as consultant and support for companies, institutions and various types of organizations.

News, events

Now on sale! The Last Book edited by Communication Strategies Lab:
“A source of useful information and a research tool aimed at exploring the new frontier of digital communication” ›› more...

Research model

The CSL implements a Generative Model of Communication based on this fundamental principle: any institution - public or private, large or small - willing to plan, develop, and realize its own communication plan operates to its best advantage when it effectively employs internal and external resources to generate innovation.

In devising a communication plan and monitoring its results, it is fundamental to ensure, while respecting the distinct roles of the participants, an active and creative exchange of ideas, according to a cooperative vision of knowledge within the particular institution and beyond it.

The CSL has advanced technological strategies by which it can analyze and construct effective communication processes. In this perspective, communication is always the fundamental value.
Within Generative Communication, the fundamental contribution of

communication experts is in creating conditions - above all, operative conditions - so that a communicative process can materialize and strengthen in a particular context: this is the only guarantee for a strategic and efficient management that takes looks toward long, middle, and short term objectives.

Projects

Active projects

Luca Toschi, La comunicazione generativa, Apogeo, Milano 2011

This volume collects Professor Toschi’s reflections and thoughts over many years as a scholar, first within CRAIAT (Centro Ricerche e Aplicazioni dell’Informatica all’Analisi dei Testi) and later with the CSL.

"In this book we talk about communication: communication among people, among groups, among people and things, facts and opinions, imaginary and factual, computer systems and organic systems. In short, this book is about “that immense strength that unifies and separates everybody and everything and creates the history of humanity.

We talk about networks and languages, about texts and grammars, we talk about how new technologies and communication proceed alongside the generative strength of the human imagination, and about how invisible scripts hidden behind the apparent neutrality and necessity of machines can address our actions, ideas, and choices, even before we know that this is happening".

ComunicazioneGenerativa.org

At www.comunicazionegenerativa.org, Professor Toschi along with his team of CSL researchers and other experts in the field, hosts a digital space, a virtual space for practical advice and theoretical reflections arising from La comunicazione generativa.

On a daily basis for ten years, we have been advocating the notion that communication, by virtue of the social function of writing/reading and its vitality, is capable of building our common and individual history. Society today needs this sort of shared communication, and it needs this not merely as a doctrine to be preached. Today we are forging links between communication and community that never existed before and taking action on them. Special attention is being given from this perspective to the construction of what we refer to as communicative identities.

Languages and experimental areas

In our current research, we assign the central role to ICT, whose automation and constant evolution we consider both a resource and font of strategic complexities from which we write the future of our culture, society, economy, and democracy.

The CSL, therefore, focuses its attention on linguistics – not tools, technical issues, or software. Our research on digital languages explores a whole series of convictions related to the use of new technologies within the perennial context of communication, expression and writing in the broadest sense. It is similar to other experiments on Augmented Reality being conducted in many different sectors of our society, from museums to commercial shopping malls, from the world of sports, to publicity and territorial marketing for business.

Digital Writing

Many of the projects CSL currently directs have the common interest in Digital Writing, a rubric applicable to much of what we do. For many years, our research projects involve reflections, initiatives, and experiments oriented towards the digital declination of writing practices. We offered the first Masters Degree on this subject (Digital Writing - Writing with New Media - edition 2004-2005, 2005-2006 and 2006-2007). Post-graduate advanced courses have been centered on the nexus between writing, reading and interactive surfaces. Outside the academy, we have offered training for corporations in which the practices of digital writing find their application in forms of collaborative writing.

The research centered on Digital Writing originated in the 1980’s when CRAIAT (Centro Ricerche e Aplicazioni dell’Informatica all’Analisi dei Testi) was founded at Florence University in cooperation with the Italian IBM Foundation and IBM-SEMEA.

One result of this collaboration was the Hypertext edition of Carlo Goldoni’s comedy La famiglia dell’Antiquario. Conceived in 1991, this project was brought to fruition in 1996 by Marsilio Press in collaboration with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Bassilichi Group. The most recent outcome is the web channel ComunicazioneGenerativa.org.

At first our aim was to experiment technically with new solutions to resolve a specific critical-philological issue: Goldoni’s play had been published many times in various redactions, and thus offered a very complex and problematic text to edit by traditional methods. Today, instead, we need to face a confrontation with dynamic, interactive and multimedia writing that has gone far beyond the margins and borders of paper and codex. This new world imposes a re-definition of the roles of reader, author, and publisher, and it demands a much more sophisticated and dynamic understanding of writing design, execution, and page display.

An important and recurring element, which has arisen in recent years, is the reflection on the operational tools and necessary competences to make organizational communication more efficient. We are developing innovative solutions to bridge the gaps between internal and external communication.

Augmented Reality Program

The Augmented Reality Program constitutes for us at the CSL a particularly fertile and exciting area of research. We are conducting surveys and experiments on Augmented Reality that uncover the effects and changes that manifest when the Internet converges with things and environments. These studies are pursued in the context of territorial marketing, in on-the-job training for business (as well as traditional learning in school), and in the management of our artistic, cultural and environmental heritage.

150 Digit - Italy of the schools

150 Digit is a project conceived and managed by Luca Toschi, with the team at the CSL and financial support of Comitato Italia 150 in collaboration with ANSAS (ex Indire), CIRMA, and VRMP. It is promoted by the VRMP. È inoltre promosso dal Ministry of Education, University and Research, which has included it among the innovative project involving Interactive Whiteboard and ICT.

With 150 Digit, CSL is experimenting with the application of generative communication model to the different realities of educational institutions. It is rooted in an online training space where the official celebration for the 150^th anniversary of the Unification of Italy - as expressed through the exhibitions of Esperienza Italia - can be brought to bear on the daily experiences of students and teachers.

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MemorieCooperative.it

Since its earliest research, the CSL has had special interest in inquiring into relations between business and memory, inquiring into how to valorize past and recent memory in order to enhance the presence of an organization within its own field of action and institutional character.

Communication, cooperation, memory, and digital grammars: these are the central aspects that some researchers at the CSL have been carrying out since 2009 with Archivio Storico Unicoop Tirreno through the blog MemorieCooperative.it. This online space is dedicated to cultural discussion centered on using memory to prepare for the future.

Besides this area of theoretical and experimental research, following a bottom-up communication model, MemorieCooperative.it also collects filmed witnesses of individuals that have made the cooperative history, with the purpose of reinforcing communal identities.

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AugmentedSport.it

This web portal - along with a series of satellite events such as conferences, seminars, workshops - offers the opportunity for discussion and investigation. Case studies, experiments and trials in which the practices related to sport are transformed into the digital dimension: from Web Marketing to Social Media to Mobile Applications to Augmented Reality.

» further information (under construction)

Training area

Among the many areas of interest at the CSL, Communicative training is foremost.

Specialization Courses

This is the first Italian training support on Interactive Whiteboard offered in Italy at the university level.

In the 2006-2007 academic year, the CSL started to offer an advanced course on the pedagogical use of IWB (interactive whiteboard) and other interactive surfaces.

The new course, titled Teaching and Communicating with the Interactive Whiteboard, the e-book and the Digital Contents, has the following objectives:

Preparing teachers to effectively use these new technologies in creative ways through on-the-job training.
Offering visibility to national and international best practices through a space dedicated to sharing knowledge about, and experiments with, new technology.

The training offered in this course is blended: instruction can be followed in a traditional face-to-face environment or through distance learning within an online space especially designed to respond the needs of users. On the LMS (Learning Management System) platform, the contents of the course are always accessible: this ensures the highest degree of interaction and participation for all those enrolled, including those who are able to attend only virtually.

The Course also published a blog called Interactive Surfaces that invites contributions and reacions from the researchers of CSL, teachers, and users.

Starting with the 2009-2010 term, the course runs in collaboration with the Italian University Line (IUL).

» further information

Update Courses

By studying and using Interactive Whiteboard and the E-book, the update and professional training course titled Teaching and Communicating with the Interactive Whiteboard and the e-book aims at providing participants the necessary theoretical and practical skills to prepare lessons, seminars, and conferences. Logo Aggiornamento

Interactive Whiteboard and E-books are changing the way we plan and present lessons, as well as changing the interaction dynamics and the communicative relations of students. For this reason, teachers need to develop their communicative skills and reach their potential with the new technology.

As with the Advanced Course, the Update Course takes place in a blended mode (face-to-face and on-line) and is offered in collaboration with the Italian University Line (IUL).

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Cl@ssi 2.0

Cl@ssi 2.0 is a project dedicated to schools and teachers through on-the-job intervention aimed at developing new channels of communication among teachers.

The goal of Cl@ssi 2.0 is, in fact, the valorization and facilitation of the process of technological innovation inside the schools, placing knowledge at the core of the educational process.
CSL is entrusted with the training phase foreseen by the project, and with the ongoing support of the initiative at national level. This coaching phase arises from the close collaboration between three specific subjects: MIUR, ANSAS (ex INDIRE), USR and Universities.

Of fundamental interest to the research carried out by CSL is the ability to monitor, in the context of the Cl@ssi 2.0 project, the process of transformation of the learning environment when technologies take on a vital role in the learning process

Completed projects

Santa Croce Communicates

Year: 2008 - Link: www.santacroceopera.it

The research project Santa Croce Communicates proposed a communication model for exhibition and museum spaces. The strategic priority was welcoming the visitor and then monitoring behavior while visiting a museum.

External and internal communication have been re-thought, as we consider the needs of the visitor before, during, and after experiencing the monumental complex of Santa Croce in Florence. The welcome strategy became a generative force that could shape the overall organization plan with regards to the learning needs of visitors.

» further information

Institution Information of 3W of University at Unifi: Monitoring, Analysis, Development

Year: 2009 - Link: www.unifi.it

On behalf of CSIAF, the CSL has worked on the evaluation of institutional communication strategies of the website of the Università degli studi di Firenze.

After an initial phase in which we analyzed university communication in Italy and abroad, and after monitoring how the current website was being used, we devised an elaborate Communication Strategy Plan. This plan took into account the communication needs of all the stakeholders: students, teachers, administrative and technical staff.

Communicating Safety and Security (Toscana region)

Year: 2007

With the project Communicating Safety and Security, the CSL has created a model of organizational communication capable of valorizing all the resources that deal with security and safety within the Tuscany Region. This involved developing communication procedures and methodologies that would result in more effective internal communication, as well as strengthened external lines of communication.

For this reason, the CSL has created the tool CSK (Communication Strategy Knowledge). It allows the Region to communicate in real time any event relative to security, and concurrently monitor how media are used, before and after each alert.

» further information

Careggi Communicates (Azienda Ospedaliero-Univesitaria di Careggi)

Year: 2007 - Link: www.aou-careggi.toscana.it

This project developed a communication strategy and the tools for internal/external communication for A.O.U.C. It involved an extended training period on communication for the concerned, and the development of dynamic communication strategy for improving as much as possible, and linking together, the external and internal lines of contact. This resulted in a common knowledge base that will be a reference point for all those involved with respect to the division of rights, powers, labor, and duties.

Altri progetti

Iniziative remote, partner e committenti di progetti del passato.

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