Cesare Brizio
A worklife spent in small and medium IT service companies and software houses, in the variety of roles typical of their small multi-purpose technical staffs, has deprived me of specific vocations and top-notch competences, but has taught me many important lessons. Essentially, I am a communicator with a technical background, and I have prevalently been employed in a niche of activity whose most fitting definition is "technical marketing" - with a strong public relation flavour. With equal ease, I can manage teams and projects. I consider myself a self-taught organizational consultant too, whose effectiveness has been succesfully tested, at least in small / medium businesses. Last but not least, I am fond of quality management, a role that I played in two different companies with remarkable success. I've spent about half of my professional life as an analyst/programmer in several languages, but since 1995 my prevalent technical engagements include data mining, business intelligence (Business Objects), Oracle SQL and PL/SQL development (but I'm not an Oracle certified professional).
My most relevant recent areas of activity include:
a) Project team
b) Software
c) Business management
d) Quality Assurance
Although lacking any certified qualification, I currently read almost only english language publications, and I keep my correspondence in english. I can define my spoken english as "reasonable".
I am contributing to the company growth by defining marketing targets and strategies, and by preparing technical/economical proposals to participate to call for tenders from the public sector. I conceived and set up a "sustainable business model" leveraging on the open source software qualities, and involving key customers in the dissemination of standard, customizable open source solutions. My action in Italy caught the attention of the ZEA Partners international business network, that endorsed my role as a contact person for the PloneGov initiative in Italy.
I promoted the organization of a consortium - presently in its making - among the Italian ZEA Partners, aimed at the collective management of marketing and promotional activities.
In the first years I spent in programming (this is very usual for a beginner) I obtained a good degree of autonomy in the analysis, installation and maintenance of program packages that Softwest produced for the industrial sector, dealing with - and resolving - problems related with computers interfacing to a variety of industrial PLCs via serial board in zootechnical food plants like the Purina's in Portogruaro. Then I took charge of increasingly difficult application software packages (since 1986, first in the industrial automation sector and then in the Public Agencies IT sector), and then also of general information systems, acquiring a solid practical experience in MS-DOS / MS-Windows environments and on Novell Netware LANs (I installed and managed Novell Netware servers since 2.0 up to the 4.10 release) on thin ethernet physical support. As the technical manager of Galileo firm I was directly involved in - and then responsible for - the coordination of the assembling of PCs, so I gained a good first-hand experience on the IBM-compatible hardware. After a long period spent on the IBM Series/1, I had a less articulated activity on the IBM computers of the S\36, S\38 and AS\400 lines, about which management I attended technical courses, but soon I was diverted from these machines. Since 1987 I was involved in image processing software and hardware tools development, at first working with Truevision Targa 16 Boards, then with the CO.RE.CO. Oculus 300 boards (I projected and programmed application for the management of CATs and Echographers) in the Public Health Agencies. Then I was involved in the pictorial and architectural image digitalization for cultural resources popularization and management, programming and installing applications for museums and other Public Agencies. I devoted a lot of time to the touch-screen technology applied to general public information services, conceiving and installing several interesting prototypes. In 1995 I was in charge of the software managing the Orlando 1996 World Wide Launch - a convention of the New Holland Group, developing Microsoft Access programs. In 1996 I began working as an external consultant to Delta Informatica, and this is also presently my main source of income. I work as Senior System Analyst for PC applications. Apart from that, I keep on analyzing and programming multimedial database solution under MS-Windows with Borland Visual dBase RAD tool, and doing digitalization services for several customers of mine. In these last years I have a contract with Delta Informatica (see http://www.deltainfo.it/): I have been concentrating on the development of RDBMS solutions (Access, Oracle) and I have coordinated technical teams in body-rental activities for private and public customers.
In 2000 and 2001, I was designated the technical manager of a regional support service to the Italian Ministry of Justice. My activity involves the integral technical management of all the physical and logical layers "from the AC socket up"; I coordinated a dozen technicians mamaging the following areas of activity:
Obviously, apart from performing all administrative maintenance and installation activity, I directly cared for any of those activities when my teammates' experience didn't suffice to solve the problem. My team, the first in its kind in Italy, gained the highest level of approval and customer satisfaction, and its operating model was extended to other regions in Italy.
In 2002/2003 I was involved in a business intelligence prototype for the Italian Ministry of Justice: using Business Objects, I developed a system of "directional dashboards", a national first, with the aim of analyzing the composition of the Judges' work load, and to devise a strategy for load balancing among different judges and courts.
From 2003 to 2005, I have been the coordinator of Xenia Consulting, a company acquired by Delta Informatica to manage all the services and software development activities for the Ministry of Justice.
I am also involved in the prototyping of new technical solutions like the following:
In May 2005 I was hired as technical consultant by the National Health Service branch of ESEL - Engineering Sanitą Enti Locali S.p.A., initially for my experience in Business Objects OLAP technology, then I became product specialist and customer trainer for the JBF-based software suite named "IRIDE" and more recently "AREAS". I also gained some experience about SPAGO BI, an open source business intelligence tool, and I constantly use my knowledge of Oracle SQL and PL/SQL for data maining and RDBMS maintenance purposes.
In October 2006 I begun my collaboration with RedTurtle Technology S.r.l., based in Ferrara (www.redturtle.it), one of the Italian ZEA Partners (www.zeapartners.org). A small but rapidly growing business, RedTurtle - a company whose business centers on Web portals, Intranets and groupware - put me in contact with the Open Source world and with Zope Plone CMS in particular. I am presently quite active in the promotion of PloneGov (www.plonegov.org), a no-profit initiative uniting all the Public Administrations who chose Plone as a CMS or application framework.
In my teens I practiced Track & Field sports as an hobby but also at local, competitive level, with a particular interest for long distance running. I took part to two editions of the FIRENZE-FAENZA "CENTO CHILOMETRI DEL PASSATORE", succeeding at the second trial in completing the 107.5 kilometers course. Then I got involved in my lifetime passion of amateur bicycle races, with good results at the provincial level. During a pause due to my increasing involvement in my professional working activity, I also qualified as Softball Coach at the Italian Baseball and Softball Federation, and I coached a team of girls - the Big Apple Softball Club - for three years with good results at regional level. On the bicycle again, I began doing very long distance non-competitive races, completing among many others the following: NOVE COLLI (200 km), FAUSTO COPPI (246 km), MARATONA DELLE DOLOMITI (186 km with a total gradient of 4704 m), DODICI ROCCHE (215 km). I also enjoy mountain biking (I made the CAIUS JULIUS BIKER, 86 km long, and a 24 ore MTB race for teams of three). Presently I own three bicycles I use whenever possible, and I enjoy jogging and physical training.
In the years 1970/1980 I set up a collection of about four hundred 8"x10" B&W photographs of American military planes of the years 1945-1955, obtaining the pictures from the National Archives and from the Defense Audio Visual Agency in Washington, as well as from the history offices of the various aircraft firms in the USA.
Between 1978 and 1983 I set up a collection of some hundreds of Pliocene fossil shells I collected in the Emilia Romagna hills.
My present-day seashell collection includes about 700 different species.
In 1982, at the Third National Prehistory and Protohistory Convention, I presented a communication about my findings in the High Bolognese Appennines - the discovery of a lithic industry referrable to Late Mesolitic, a site at an height of 1600 m where I found a total of more than 400 microliths.
Recovering my university times' paleontological interest, I obtained admission to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (1993) and to the Società Paleontologica Italiana (1996). I joined The Dinosaur Society in 1994, and I am a member of the International Society of Cryptozoology since 1988. I have a quite complete natural history / paleontology library. With the professional paleontologists friend of mine I took part to paleontological expeditions like the joint American/Rumanian Great Transylvanian Dinosaur Expedition of 1997. I use to take part to selected Symposia (recent participation include the 3rd Symposium on Mesozoic terrestrial Ecosystem in Buenos Aires - October 1999, and Paloecology and Paleobiogeography 2001 in Castell'Arquato)
Practicing macrophotography since 1994, I have set up a collection with over 3000 slides representing about 1300 different arthropod species, almost all from the Bologna Province.
In 1995 I designed a prototype bicycle, that was manufactured from the famous Moser firm of Gardolo. This prototype I own remains unique, as no serial production was ever attempted. On this bike I made a 24-hours MTB race and the Dolomiti Marathon.
For quite a long while, I have been a collaborator of the Museo Paleontologico Cittadino of Monfalcone, and I regulary contribute scientific popularization articles to the magazine "Natura Nascosta" issued by the Museum, writing about evolutionary biology and paleontology. From time to time, I also collaborate with the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale of Milan.
Since October 2002, I am editor of "Systema Naturae", magazine issued by the Italian Association of Theoretical Biology.
All the data about my collections are constantly updated on my webpages, where information about my bioacoustics interests can be found.
CESARE BRIZIO, March 2008