Nov.25th: R(h)ome recap & Vision Board

November 25th, 2024: 5x5 serie

A year ago today I finished my 5x5 serie, a set of LinkedIn posts which summarized my Charlemagne Prize Fellowship year. With those posts I tried to capture 5 instants for each of the 5 last months of the fellowship. Then, last August, I created a blog post which was a small recap of such serie and you can find it here.

The last post of the 5x5 serie came out exactly a year ago, November 25th, and it was titled R(h)ome, so I thought it was a good idea to give an update on the same date a year later.

November 25th, 2025: Italia XXV

I am very thankful that, a year on, I am moving from a simple 5x5 serie on LinkedIn to having my book published by Italy's biggest company in this sector - Mondadori - under their most prestigious brand which is Oscar Bestseller. You can find more about the book online and order a copy, for any update about the events please visit the dedicated section I created on my website: Italia XXV.

There, you will find also the complete list of pictures of the event in Rome which I am not going to upload on any other social media as post (I might upload a sneak peak only on LinkedIn. or my Instagram stories, but complete content is available only on my website).

📸 Birth of Venus (on the bag) & Venus by Botticelli (in the background)

R(h)ome recap

The pictures uploaded are five and are a bit of a recap of my time in Rome last week, during the book presentation which was around my 30th birthday: I was able to find my book in display in the store at Galleria Alberto Sordi (right next to Montecitorio, seat of the Chamber of Deputies) and get interviewed by Giulia from the Rome Future Week, a conference about innovation held in Rome every year. I wanted to have a representative from the conference not only because I admire them (I am myself an ambassador), but also because the book aims at bridging the gap between tech and paper books. Indeed, the main character, Lia (which is short for "Italia"), writes the story of Italy in her blog, which is actually this book: this is why I often refer to this book as a "meta book" or "paper blog".

Vision board

Lia, also has a vision board where she sticks polaroids and post-its she finds that inspire her. To make sure that readers could see what I saw and, most importantly, what Lia sees, I am relying on Pintrest's team and starting to create my vision board inspired by the book with them.

You can find the vision board of Italia XXV at this link, it is divided in 5 parts, like the book is. I hope it helps creating the right atmosphere and I suggest checking the vision board while listening to Lia & Leo's Spotify playlist, which I had made earlier. The links to both the playlist and the Pintrest profile are available also in the "Italia XXV" section of the website.

📸 New Pintrest profile pic

Economic violence against women

Finally, November 25th is also the day of awareness regarding violence against women. When I first started my blog, my idea was to write in November about finance topic, so in this post I'd like to highlight that we often think of violence as verbal or physical, but not having the freedom to use your own resources is also a form of violence. Many powerful, famous and rich women to this day are still micromanaged by family, friends and manager who are often men and do not have their best interest at heart. It is one thing to have a mentor who empowers you and sees an intellectual equal in you, another to have someone who takes advantage of you finances thinking that you are not going to stand your ground.

This is why I wanted to write a character like Lia who is a young woman who, also thanks to her male and older mentor (who does not take advantage of her, but empowers her) finds economic freedom and independence. I also think that anyone, not just women, should try to use the internet in their favor to gain knowledge instead of settling for an algorithm that objectifies bodies.

I hope this will inspire other young women.

Love,

Elena