We are now more than ever in the Internet age: thanks to our computers, our tablets, and our smartphones and we are always in constant contact with the world.

That is why today I want to tell a very personal and particular use of the web, and especially social networks. They call themselvesPuntodock are a cooperative society that takes care of local development through the use of participatory tools and techniques, we have known them last June interviewing them for our business section stories, and we had a chat on their way to be the web.

Second we have something special that is worth telling.

What does it mean for you, as a cooperative society, be social in 2013? And how are social in 2013?

For Puntodock social identity is an integral part of corporate strategy.The technical aspects are taken care of by the Christian, our communications manager, but all members are helping to build the message PuntoDock: everyone is aware of the communication strategy, knows what content must produce, what are the targets, what language to use and how to work the social networks with which we are present.

Everyone has the task of telling his perspective with respect to the role it plays in the cooperative and professionalism that it expresses.Each has its own specificity, and tell this diversity is an essential piece of communication to build the complete sense of PuntoDock. That's why a few months ago, we launched the new site where the novelty of the blog: four headings that represent our four points of view, different stories but united by the common thread.

We immediately decided to invest on the presence in social networks, we have realized the importance and the potential, the opportunities that we could reserve. We knew that to be present online would not have been a joke, but a long and laborious and the results would be seen only in the medium term.

Be social , however, gives us the ability to constantly innovate - not only in content but also in the way - our communication, scattering in unconventional themes that have remained up to now "niche", but that we believe should be brought to the center of the debate.

Our goal is ambitious: to trigger a cultural change.  Social networks are one of the tools we use to achieve this goal.

What prompted you to tell and tell what you do through these media 2.0?

We started from a need: to make the public understand our work, make tangible what we do. We are not a company that creates objects or offers traditional services, our product is both a solution, a methodology, a new culture.

The initial question was: "how to perceive our reality and the usefulness of our services?" The challenge is to make communication accessible to all concepts such as participatory processes, participatory local development, innovation, co-active design ...

What we felt it was more immediate to do was build so many stories told of images, thoughts, documents, videos that tell our story, the stories that we meet, the stories that are helping to build. Collect small fragments of our reality and make them with a pinch of creativity, elements of a single narrative flow. And the social networks that they could become the channel through which to pass this stream.

Instagram is a social network where you gradually become more active: it speaks for photos; images that are shared in your profile and contain a very short descizione in which the hashtag reign supreme. Why did you choose to talk to you this way? It is not more difficult than the simple tweet or status on facebook?

All the fault of our social media manager! Seriously, yes, Instagram is a social not easy, especially for a company like ours, because the most popular hashtags are difficult to incorporate into our shots. But even this is a challenge, a creative challenge.

The presence on many social networks (not all, mind you) is a strategy that we have set ourselves. In this way we reach out to diverse audiences, we seek to understand our issues and our stories to many users as possible. In addition, through Instagram is more easily straddle national boundaries: if you find the right hashtag for your shooting maybe you get a like from a design studio or an American teenager in Berlin. You know, the pictures are a universal language, and then like a lot of things can turn into ...

 Your job is to offer in sectors as diverse: Public Administrations, Businesses and non-profit associations, which use different languages ​​and have well-defined methods of communication. How can you reconcile them with this particular way to inform you that you have chosen? Encountered difficulties and resistances?

Resistors would not say, indeed in many tell us who remain affected by what they read us on social networks. Clearly, our work is not limited to communication on the web: know that it is essential to integrate virtual communication with the communication offline. Much of our work is carried out within communicative numerous local events and theme to which we are present, in which we aim to carve out moments of discussion with potential partners, employees or clients.

The difficulties come when, if anything, we propose to integrate this way of communicating between the strategic choices of our partners or customers, not everyone is willing to invest resources, regardless of whether they are being followed by us or by an agency of communication.

To win it indoriamo the pill in the service offered: storytelling becomes an integral part of strategic planning, participatory process, the measurement of impact.

The next challenge to be taken to social Puntodock? A social network dedicated just to your industry ...

We do not believe there is a social network dedicated to our work.Probably there would not be too useful. As mentioned earlier, our work produces new approaches and prospects for change. We define ourselves as "generators of collective solutions" , and we are all looking for solutions. There are no thematic or geographical limits. So no, we do not feel the need for a social network for all of us.
Definitely a social in which we aspire to enter is Pinterest, which we are planning to use to collect infographics and graphic material made ​​by us (and others) on issues that are tune with our work. Our social media manager is thinking about it .. wait for the next internal meeting devoted to social and short-'ll know if you can even "pinnarci."