Who and what does Vision represent? We have been asked these questions many times. And we have both tried to avoid answering - knowing that in this country, as in many, one risks being invisible if one is not seen as representing someone or some thing “politically” relevant – and answered in many different ways. Since Vision was not born to be reduced to a label, it has never enrolled on any kind of list or, worse, proposed itself as the leader of a ‘movement’.

Vision is a think tank, a “factory of ideas”, as our web-site states; tenacious, proud and definitely independent. It is for this reason that we have never deliberated about who we might ‘represent’. This may have sometimes produced short lived “identity crises”, similar to the many that can mark (and animate) the work and life of many organizations or individuals. But having failed to associate Vision to any of the mainstream political families, has not prevented Vision from growing, from comprehensively renovating the people who animate it. Nor has it stopped our associates from catching ideas, coalescing in the pursuit of innovative projects, and turning ideas into new proposals, in line with our mission statement.

However, if the exercise is uncomfortable, even dangerous in some instances, it could be useful to understand if we, in fact, do represent some “class” or segment of people or if we are a “representation” of some new social form of aggregation. We need to know if our ideas, analysis, and the proposals about which we seek logical contestation with the rest of the world also express something which is more widely agreed. At the end of the day, Vision is also a “solutions oriented” think tan and to understand how much energies Vision projects can aggregate and leverage on, is fundamental in order to know whether our ideas can be transformed ultimately into actions.

In reality we are part of a very specific group - maybe a “category” within a “class”, probably even an “elite”, with very specific demographic and professional connotations. Our ages all range - with some useful exceptions - from twenty-five to forty; we have all studied with success in some of the best universities around the world; some live in Italy, more in some of the European capitals (mostly London, Brussels and Paris). We work for prestigious consulting agencies, institutions both public and private, schools, national or international organizations. We are used to “earning our space”, without waiting for permission, and to engaging with those who are ready for tough debate. We all have a dynamic and fun professional life that drives us to continuously acquire new experiences, competences, and skills.

Nevertheless, people like the ones Vision aggregates, are still not politically relevant and such irrelevance becomes even sharper if we measure it in our ability to be “represented” within the mainstream, institutional political areana in a country like Italy. Both as a “body” and as a “category” of individuals, we are not able to share with our country these experiences and these abilities, even if at the same time many of us do influence – individually and as a think tank – “choices” made in the political domain. This is an important limitation, even if we pretend to ignore it when surrounded, in gatherings of our professional tribe, by colleagues from elsewhere.

We are, therefore, not politically relevant because we cannot “define” ourselves. This inability creates a risk: being less effective on relevant choices stimulates for many people the sensation of being invisible.

Certainly, our “limitation” is the consequence of some of the demographic elements that describe us, which is to say that people like us tend to be strongly individualist, dispersed over different cities and professional roles, and who as a result find it difficult to congregate in more stable and institutionally-relevant ways.

The lack of political relevance of a whole generation is largely a result of forms and mechanisms of political participation, representation and decision-making that were designed in an industrial society which has now vanished (see our current project The End of Democracy). These mechanisms are now technically inadequate to valorise the contribution of a class that can now and in the future play a major role in the political (and not just professional) entrepreneurship and decision-making of our society (a thesis we develop in our forthcoming book The Revolution of Generation X). .

Vision may still not represent anybody. But it is, in fact, a rather significant representation of this part of society. It is the expression of the most dynamic “body”, or “sector” in society – but one which because of its great mobility and dispersion risks being “left out of the system”. Vision is not a representation, an will never be represent neither the “younger generations” (without any further qualification) nor the “civil society” (without saying anything about what this term should mean). And it is even less an expression of the “yuppies” because they did not have any political prospective, or of the “NGOs constellation” because, as a think tank, we do seek to influence political choices through research projects and the interactions with traditional politics. We do not represent such “antropological” and political groupings even if we do share with them many of our interests, expectations and anxieties.

Vision is a laboratory for this new elite; of projects, but, most of all, of the methods necessary to make the different professional cultures and languages spoken across today’s societies to communicate and elaborate possible solutions to complex problems. In this sense, Vision is - more than a “platform” of the future “ruling class” - a lab where the method necessary for ruling the future gets researched and experimented.

We can now answer another question strongly tied to our initial one. What do we want to become, what do we aim to be? We want to be Vision: a unique experience, that for some reason (it could be despair, or our innate Italian propensity for creating sophisticated innovations out of one of the less innovative-friendly national environment) was born in Italy. Even if almost all our projects are international, many of our friends are not Italian and Vision itself is one of the most active think tank in promoting european and global network of think tanks. We want to be a producer of ideas and projects that are original and independent and effective. A reference point for many of the people who understand as we do the deepness of the challenges that, as a society, we are about to face.

**** To receive publications or to apply to the association you can either
· send an e mail to the home page address or
· write to Vision – Via Nizza 100, 00198 Roma or also
· call 0039 06 85358461 or
· send a fax to 0039 06 85355925