foursquare day Italy in Bologna: read our report!

Couldn’t be at foursquare day 2011 in Bologna, ITALY? We’ll tell you about it here, on InTime blog! Take your seat. Location: Bologna, Neptune’s Square. Venue name: “Neptune’s Butt” (to be precise!)

The pleasure of meeting, the love for the splendid Medieval and Renaissance City of Bologna, happened to be a sort of excuse for celebrating our small – but superfast growing – Italian 4sq Community. The magnificent setting of “Piazza del Nettuno” (Neptune’s Square) had been chosen as the perfect set for the foursquare day 2011 (#4sqdayita for twitter); we can’t believe it’s just the second celebrating day connected to the geo-loc-app created by Mr. Crowley and Mr. Selvadurai… and the first – ever – for Italy, organized by foursquareitalia.org (alias Mimulus) and WeAreSocial.

So, follow us in this Tale of the Day…
Truly eager to participate, we were there since 10:30 AM, in order to breathe and listen to atmosphere and feelings of the location, long before that special event, that the 4sq Community waited for… nearly a year!
Despite the bad omen linked to a meteorologically uncertain week, the day was promising: crispy air and sunny sky, with a bitter wind that, made unfold more than one raincoat lapel. But who cares… it’s 4sqDay, as we said before, the most “geo-ref-day” on the Planet!

In dribs and drabs, in the early afternoon, dozens of backpacked guys, with eyes glued on their smartphones started to appear and then began suspiciously to glance each other: «Ahm, are you here for the foursquare day?» «Really? Where are you from?». Presentations and cheerful smiles became a common habit; Modena, Milan, Vicenza, Pesaro, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Macerata, Florence … lots of places then!

«So, this is not a Bolognese event only!!» was people’s most frequent thought; as time passed and check-in increased … at 15:54 the SWARM BADGE was unsurprisingly unlocked!

We recognized familiar faces (lots of Twitter and 4sq avatars, indeed, that suddenly became 3D) and several new entries, letting us wondering about how rapid was the spread of this “Explore your City” tool, thanks to its ease of use and its actual ability to involve real people like in that day!

We must be sincere: for lots of us, the 4sqday event, in fact, started a few days earlier and some of us literally went crazy tweeting on Twitter in deciding which exploring path was right to choose.

Some of us formed alliances and teams; some other offered car sharing options; the most geeky ones shared tips on how-to optimize battery endurance; others suggested the very best parking place.
(In the end, the “Bologna, oddities and mysteries” path resulted to be the most popular).

Hey! Here he came… Mr. Roberto Cobianchi co-founder of Mimulus… he’s the Organizer! (Some of us asked «Where is Francesca Fabbri?» (Mimulus co-founder) «She’s a justified absent» we were told. Real pity for her, we sadly thought).

With the valuable help of several assistants and co-organizers (mentioning few above all: @Tommaso @Luca2D @ilbisbetico @suonatorejones) we received gadgets, instructions and all the material needed for the “geo-discovery of Bologna”.

Everybody felt as a little boy o little girl once again, when we received the fantastic pins with the 4sqday Italian logo (design by @Luca2D) and the “Mayor aboard” Car decals!

We could feel the pure desire to have fun, to meet and to be together: it was the right opposite of a “community of misogynist geeks”! We had the opportunity of meeting bloggers, users and tech-enthusiasts, with the pure aim to stare each other’s sight and share ideas, dreams and amenities… not necessarily related to the digital life!

The “foursquar-ers” divided themselves in 3 groups, with the common aim to follow the paths created by Francesca (BTW, thanks for this excellent job!), as to say to discover Bologna under three points of view: “Bologna for Students”, “Bologna for history lovers” and “Bologna for Mystery fans”. Last one was the favourite.

Once received the first cryptic clue, we had to move between faithless wives, statues of saints, ancient “tortellinis” codes and old Towers turned into B & B. Diverse fellowship gathered: the “heavy runners”, eager to win, the “Ask Google” ones, the group of family pushing their “babies-on-wheels”, amidst laughs and contagious merriment.

We wondered «What do Bolognans think about all this excitement, as they are unaware walking around, window-shopping or tasting their first ice cream of the season?» In fact, to them, it must have been a strange and awkward show, staring at people out of breath, running here and there, looking like their smartphones were a sort of natural extensions of their hands, taking pictures of churches, towers, shops, roads (Check-ins HAD to have a picture, to be valid for the game!). What would they have thought, watching us suddenly changing our way, walking back on our footsteps, stopping elderly on the street, preferring their valuable historical memory to online-search engines? As paths weaved, tips becoming progressively more enigmatic we stressed our thumbs .. and our low knowledge of the places!

As it was previously arranged (but we didn’t, in fact!) within the team there always was someone giving his/her spontaneous contribution, according to the single abilities: locals knowing the streets, Google’s “super-quickies” revealing clues, interceptors of twitter’s hints sent by @4sqDayITA and also guys “scouting” for the next venue-to-locate… briefly… we became a true Team!
(Eleonora reporting, truly excited about this unique experience).

Although there was no true race, everybody fell in the mood of a good competition: everybody wanted to get the clues, or squeeze the best from Google (a player was heard screaming «I feel lost without Google!») but it had also been an opportunity for sharing opinions and decide, together, the path to be followed.

Checking-in right in front of Coin (together with Kodak, one of the main sponsors of the event) made us consciously shiver: it is one of the top Italian brands starting to believe in foursquare. Small first step for a Brand… looooong jump for the Country? Who knows…

Once back to the Venue “Neptune’s Butt” players and their new friends stressed out – with large smiles and noisy laughter – the several anecdotes of the geo-loc treasure hunt. The strong feeling of living something good and new, together with new-born friendships, gave us the true proof that the 4sqDay event had been truly social!!

Then the “lucky ones” (those quick enough to enter the in-3-days-fully-booked VIP Lounge Dinner List) got their seats for this “sold out Event”: that showed how deep was (and still is) the interest in such initiatives!

Hardly able to stop the chit-chatting, laughing and contact-exchanging between the Mayors (yes, the event was open exclusively for 4sq Mayors!), the Organization finally managed to declare “Ready, steady, go!” for the two prize-winning games: “4sq Super Expert”, sponsored by Coin and “Most voted #4sqDayITA Pic”, sponsored by Kodak.

We can’t skip to mention other sponsors: WeAreSocial and foursquareitalia by Mimulus … these guys made an impressive job!

As it usually happens, the evening ended with exchange of digital identities and phone numbers, together with the sincere gratefulness for those who, no matter how, worked hard to make sure that Bologna managed to celebrate its 4sqDay, sharing the joy with the rest of the Planet!

See you in next in 2012, obviously on 16/04 of course, remembering all year long the “motto of the day”: every Check-in counts!

Bologna’s 4sqDay stats:

• contribution to reach the 3M World-Check-ins: 4sq’s all time record!
• almost 2,000 tweets including Twitter’s hashtag #4sqDayITA
• approx 1,000 check-in in Bologna surroundings
• 150 (originally 50, then re-opened two times) tickets sale for the “Treasure Hunt” (95% confirmed on location )
• 50 tickets for the Mayors’ Lounge reserved to Mayors (sold out)
• 6 prizes (3 from Coin and 3 from Kodak)

• official #4sqDayITA web site
• official photogallery on Flickr
• official #4sqDayITA video
• our original Italian article

Let me add a personal thanks Laura C. from “Osservatori” Institution (Milan Polytechnic) for her trip to Bologna, for having “personally tested” not only our beloved APP, but also for her “observation” of this unique phenomenon: users interfacing with such a super-fast new growing Community like Foursquare!
Last but not least, let me thank my “pen-mate” Eleonora Rossi for her invaluable contribution to this article in the Italian version.
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(You can read here how everything started).

Franz Russo Blogger, Digital Strategist

Franz Russo, fondatore, nel 2008, del blog InTime, ho collaborato con grandi aziende nazionali e internazionali, come consulente per strategie di comunicazione e come divulgatore. Da sempre impegnato nella comunicazione digitale, cerco di unire sempre una profonda passione per l’innovazione tecnologica a una visione olistica dell’evoluzione dei social media e degli strumenti digitali. Il mio percorso professionale in questo campo, iniziato nel 2007, è stato caratterizzato da un costante impegno nel raccontare e interpretare i cambiamenti nel panorama digitale. Il mio approccio si basa su un mix di analisi strategica, creatività e un profondo impegno per il racconto e la divulgazione.

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