TwentyThree Summit 2025 Interview: Gianfranco Chicco, Curator & Storyteller

I actually would like to hear more about your experience because your resume includes a wide range of creative experiences and different interests from strategist to writer to expertise in technology, design, craft. I have a certain background and I'll get into that in a second, but I see myself as a generalist. And often what came out of my life experience is that I'm a cultural translator. I studied industrial engineering, I did an MBA, I worked in different countries. And that could mean a lot of nothing, but actually what it gave me is the flexibility to think and empathize with very different people within organizations. One of my early jobs was in, we didn't call them startups back then, but it was a tech company. And it was the nexus between the people that were coding, the journalists, the business, the sales. And I was the one speaking those languages, so I became kind of a connector, even though I was very young in the team. So I think that beyond whatever the labels I use and I change how I describe myself depending on the context, this being a generalist has become my thing. I really love connecting people or bringing them together. Often this happens within the context of a formal event, but not necessarily. But I realized that became my superpower. The TwentyThree Summit is a global event, right? Last time I counted, we were 31 nationalities here. And you also have a very diverse background. So if I got it correct, I have to read it. You were born in Argentina, right? And you have Italian roots, based in the UK, and with a deep interest in Japanese arts beyond, yeah, much more, right? So when crafting stories, I wanted to ask, especially when using video as a medium, how much is important to have this diverse cultural perspective? I think it's not about video specifically, but because one of the challenges of video compared to in-person is that you're not connecting with the other person in real time, in the moment, unless it's a live session. So what I find that all these different experiences, all these different cultures help you to try to think in advance who's going to be on the other side, even though you might not see them if it's live or you are not really in the same moment if it's purely recorded. So what is going behind my head or when I'm running initiatives where there is video, that is trying to find that. And I don't want to on purpose use the target audience because the whole goal is not to bomb them, but the humans on the other side and how to connect them, even though you're not in the same place or in the same time. And I think that's where my background kicks in. Because of course, if I want, as an industrial engineer, speak with other industrial engineers, that might be very narrow and specific. But even within that, if I'm talking to people, I'm talking with industrial engineers from a different culture. Some things are the same within discipline, but others might be different. When I am doing something with Japan on live video and I'm going to be hosting, facilitating a session in the next few weeks with artisans in Kyoto. First of all, English is not their main language, but especially they are people that make, not people that talk. So by being able to connect with them through this video, I try to, if I'm facilitating, is to be the representative of the audience and make sure that whatever they want to transmit as a message is landing with this audience. But at the same time, it's imagining who's on the other side. And often, if I'm not the speaker, but the moderator, I'm almost the ambassador of the other side. This empathy, right? The power of empathy and putting yourself in the place of empathy. And often, you know, we talk about empathy as something that happens in person and it's true. I mean, we are built, as human beings, to pick all the signals which are not conscious, which are not rational. But the same thing happens with video. We still recognize, you know, if it's a talking head on the other side, we do recognize cues which are here. We don't have some of our other senses involved, but there are still ways to create empathy through digital. I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that we see digital as technology. And sure, there's a technological aspect to it, but until the moment that all the content is going to be synthetic and there's a machine behind them, there is a human behind them. Even if it's just moving the knobs or recording as we have someone here operating the cameras, right? And you can make that be felt through video, even though, you know, you might not be seeing these people. Super interesting. You were just now talking about, yeah, the human operating, the crafts, and you often emphasize the importance of craftsmanship. Your goal is to make video more accessible and that also means velocity, which can be the opposite of craftsmanship sometimes. So when working with video, how can companies bridge crafts with velocity? And even beyond video, right? When we're talking about velocity in the world in general, which is a demand in our times, how to bridge craftsmanship and velocity? When I think about velocity, I think of two kinds of velocity. One is velocity seen as a speed. It's, you know, how quickly things move. But the other one is about direction or change. So I think that craft and velocity works in different ways. On one side, and when I say craft, it's not necessarily just physical craft, people that master their space, their domain. Actually, it sounds counterintuitive, but the better you are at what you do, the better you know your art, your craft, your discipline, not just intellectually, but with your whole body, the quicker you can move. So in that sense, you can deal with velocity. For example, in live video, being prepared for lots of different scenarios is very important because, especially if it's live, it's very unlikely you'll be able to stop. So this training that has become unconscious because you are a great craftsperson will allow you to move velocity. Now, the other kind of velocity, the one that is change, is for you to reassess within your craft. Everything has a cycle, you know, starting with life. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. There's a learning, there's an adapting, there's insisting on something, but then there might be the learning again. So I think what is important is to train that self-reflection, to understand when your craft is out of sync with change. And sometimes, you know, you decided you want to keep that craft because there's something you believe in and times might change, but you might not agree with, you know, the values of the direction. In other ones, by having that element of self-reflection, you can recognize, usually, it's very rare that you have to throw your whole craft away. But you realize, oh, now I need a different tool or to add some skills, you know, to your craft to make it evolve. Often, when I'm talking about physical crafts, and I'm researching Japanese crafts, there's a misconception with the words tradition and traditional. And I make this distinction. Tradition and traditional. Okay. So traditions are alive. Of course, sometimes we look at a tradition that is 400 years old and it feels everything is done. But if you zoom in into it, you see that a tradition is constantly changing and adapting. Sometimes it's small changes, but within a large period of time, those things change because lifestyles change, materials change, the conditions change. And then there is tradition. And then there's traditional, which I find traditional for me means, oh, make it look old. When someone says, oh, can you make this look traditional? It means old, but in a way dead. It has stopped changing. You know, it doesn't deal with velocity. But all traditions, all great traditions are alive and moving and somehow, you know, swing and swerve with this velocity. Because velocity, and this is the engineer talking, is a vector. Velocity is about speed and direction. And I think you need both those things. That's the speed and the direction. So we're talking about crafts and this material, right? We're talking about Japanese crafts, for example. But if we are to go back to the digital aspect of it, the web is inherently digital, right? But yet, I believe that many brands haven't really fulfilled how to make it more video-driven, video-first. And it can feel a bit traditional. If I got it correct from your concept. And what advice would you give for brands that are looking forward to reinvent these websites and through a more engaging video content and more engaging experience digitally? What brand is, branding is based on a series of principles, which are independent of the media and then can adapt to those. For example, you made an announcement here of the Brand Studio, which finally is going to allow a lot of brands to, for example, personalize how that video is experienced. And you have to have a certain standard player. And you have to have a certain standard player. And that is brand, right? That is how can you align with those principles that you already have. And you're not trying to imitate print, or you're not trying to imitate a different version of something digital. Video has its own principles. It has its own principles behind it. But there are those universal elements of what makes a brand. Now, recently, one of the big online advertising networks has said that they're going to use AI and allow the users to put all the elements there, you know, the copy, the call to action, the images, and then it's going to automatically generate ads for them. And I was thinking about that and said, you know what, I think this is going to work for a lot of companies, but they never had a brand. If whatever copy, you know, with whatever random image that you don't have much control of works, it means that you never had a brand. You know, maybe you're the only company selling water in the middle of the desert. The brand is irrelevant, you know. Others are going to discover that actually how they say things, how they present things, the imagery they use is a very conscious decision and it's part of what they care about. When Instagram started, the whole analog old school filters, were very cool. But then after a while, the novelty wore off and everything looked the same. With video, had a similar thing, you know, video online used to be very, very, very difficult. So we outsourced to others how things would look. Now we realize, well, now we can decide how it is, you know, and there's no, sure, know the best practices. They're important. You can learn from them. But who says that a webinar has to be half an hour or one minute, you know, and that makes the brand, you know, maybe part of your brand, of your principle is about immediacy and clarity and go straight to the issue. You know, that is going to inform how your video works. And it might be less about, you know, the colors and the look and feel. So I think that going back to what are the universal principles of a brand is very important. You know, even check out one of those old, very boring brand manuals, because I thought there was a lot of wisdom there. Then think of what you are trying to do with your organization and what your brand principles are. And then what is new with video? You know, because some of those principles, if they were made for prints, you know, and if you read a manual from the 60s or 70s or even the 90s, print was king. And then maybe you'll have to invent. But branding principles haven't changed. You know, the medium has. And video can totally embrace them. But you have to really step up your understanding of branding. It's not just sticking stuff, you know, and colors and fonts and then you have a brand. Yeah. Earlier we were talking about empathy. And this really resonates with the theme of the TwentyThree Summit this year, which is the Human Side of Digital. What is the importance for that for you? Why should companies care for that? I think you just mentioned the key word, which is care. Why should a brand care? Why should people care? I would argue. Care is the thing that is possibly the highest way of appreciation that a human can show on both sides. I was giving a session today about hosting, the art of hosting or tips for hosting an event, a gathering, a webinar. And of course, not knowing what is it that you're hosting is very difficult to have universal tips that work for everything. Is it a 10,000 conference in person? Is it a wedding? Is it a dinner for three people? Or is it a webinar? So it goes back to care. If you care for what you're trying to communicate, if you care for your audience, if you care for the medium. There's always going to be things that go wrong. There's always going to be mistakes of some sort. You cannot control everything. So if you work on the care side of things, you know, people on the other side will feel it. Now, I often say, and I picked up this from Jessica Greenwood a lot of years ago at an event I was involved with. And she said, she was, I think, talking about messaging for advertising and comms, that things have to be either relevant or useful or entertaining. And that would be even better. If you don't care for what you're doing, why should the people on the other side care? Care is that thing that I think should be your guiding principle. And this is not, for example, you could have a recurring series of videos that you do every single time. And maybe you have the one-on-one video explainer that happens live and you do it once a week. And it would be very easy for you to go on autopilot. You know what you have to say. You know what is the brand message and stuff. People will feel it on the other side. You know, they are there for the first time So you have to care about that and somehow find a way to connect with people that are there for the first time. So brands, you know, why should you care is because otherwise, why should someone on the other side care? And that's the only thing you have. At least, again, as long as there's humans involved in the process, care is a driving force. I could be listening to you here for half an hour, but I'll thank you right now. And yeah, it was super great. Thank you very much.