I don't have much excuse for bumbling around the Web for a year and a half before happening upon on the work of Bruno Giussani, author of the EuroBytes column for the CyberTimes section of the New York Times on the Web.
But I'm glad I finally found it.
Giussani, based in Switzerland, goes way back on the Web. He helped launch one of the first major online Swiss news magazines, and lately he's the head of online strategy and operations at the World Economic Forum. His Web site isn't especially ornate (a necessity when one's site is alternatively in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian), but it does have links to most of his EuroBytes columns, which on their own are reason enough for a visit.
I know the CyberTimes section gets tons of visitors from around the world, but I also suspect most are like us Americans: full of noble intentions on getting studied up on events unfolding beyond our shores, but generally never getting around to it. You're free to hit the BACK button if you're among the 2.37 percent (my blind guess) of non-Europeans who've been dutifully reading Giussani's column ever week, but the rest of you may want to stick around.
Giussani's columns are worth a look precisely because there's nothing particularly foreign about them. Granted, he has to cover issues dictated by the geography, tradition and politics of the continent, but his writing has an evenhanded tone that makes you think these things could be happening anywhere.
That's why it was a joy to read about how Europeans who don't speak English as a first language are interested in developing a hybrid called Europanto. Using words from four or five of the major languages, Europanto would allow anyone with a passing knowledge of, say, English and Spanish, to convey at least the main points of a conversation to an Italian who knows a smattering of German and French.
He also writes of disturbing reports making the rounds detailing a European study of digital surveillance that would be worthy of an "X-Files" episode if it were fiction rather than fact. Crime fighters across Europe, the study says, have broad capabilities to intercept electronic transmissions and monitor who says what to whom. It's great for nabbing criminals dumb enough to discuss their activities online, but scary for law-abiding citizens who are worried that there is no democratic oversight of such official snooping.
In another article he links American paranoia over the "millennium bug" with a very real technical problem in Europe: the conversion to a single "Euro" currency. Many computers aren't equipped to handle the conversion, and most fonts (to say nothing of keyboards) don't include the "Euro" symbol. It had me wondering if the move to a single currency might fall on the face of its own complexities.
Giussani is plugged-in to the European tech scene like few others, but that's not really why his column works. The explanation is more basic: He makes the foreign seem familiar, which is what we're all supposed to be doing in this business.
(copyright Editor & Publisher, 1998)
