Some years ago we used to deliver three items every Saturday with our pickup, me, my Uncle Angelo and my neighbors Tony and Laudino and I could not even expect the amount of products delivered by our company in 2017.
And I had not read yet this beautiful phrase of the poet Gibran:
“Work is love made visible”.
During those years, actually not really so far away, our work let people know not only how much love we put in it (a main characteristic in our work) but also something more.
It made some possibilities visible.
Sitting on that pickup waiting for the customer I was used to imagine – and tell my sweet uncle Angelo – and see dozens and dozens of deliveries, and not only on Saturday, but every day of the week.
Our work and our love for it allowed us to see some things that did not exist at that time, but we were able to imagine them.
In short, we could imagine a different company.
When we drove our pickup for the Saturday deliveries we could actually see the streets in Brianza where our customers used to live, but we were able to imagine something beyond all that.
We could perceive new things, different ideas still to be created.
If we recall those memories, we can say now that by that time we saw a possible future.
We perceived the future we thought we deserved.
If we had kept the high road on, doing the right choices and training the right people.
If we had well driven that pickup with the courage of using the blinkers und turn to the web, at some point.
What Khalil Gibran meant when he wrote that beautiful phrase, that is also the title of this post, we actually do not know, but we think it perfectly fits to describe our company today.
First: “Work is love”.
Even if it might sound too sweet, we belong to that kind of people that love their work.
The passionate love for our work allows us to have customers that return – yes, return is the right word – our attachment, commitment and care for an object.
An intense relationship that starts from the first choice of a model, then goes through the custom made proposals (customization, finishing, interpretations), goes on with the people who produce the model and finishes when we deliver the item to your flat for your daily life.
Years spent together, life goes by. A love story, nothing more, nothing less.
But Gibran writes something more that leads us to our second concept.
He says: “Love made visible”.
Made visible.
In this few words we recognize our company as it is today, the coming and going of trucks in our warehouse (many more deliveries compared to some years ago, not only on Saturday, but also on every single day of the week).
And what about our experiences in New York and at the Triennale in Milan.
There is the new showroom BertO in Turin, new openings to come.
There are the contract projects we have done one after the other during the last weeks of the year
There is a great team of people that can work and perform excellence at the highest levels, even if they have been under pressure for a long period.
Such a revolution has not happened during the last 15 days, but it has developed in time e space and we have tried to govern it (even if “govern” actually sounds too strange after the last day of 2017…), but today there is a big difference compared to some times ago.
All this is wonderfully, extraordinarily, clearly visible.
In the past years the success we have got from Internet made us possible to meet people from all around the world and supply them custom made products, totally designed according to their wishes and needs and created on the basis of a digital virtual meeting.
But what we are doing today is visible to everyone.
It is not virtual, it is real.
Like a light when it turns on, something you can see, something that really stands out. It is visible.
Hard work, many years, much talent and great effort.
So much love from all of us: either form the “old” team and from the new entries, already working at full speed.
All this puts us today in the center of attention of many people.
Internet, an important strategic factor, is giving us the best result ever: we meet so many faces, we can shake hands, smile and talk with so many people.
And more: shops, products, lights, meetings.
Logistics, distribution, sales, after-sales.
Media, PR, events, invitations.
We have the feeling – we are producers, we spend most of our days in our laboratories even when we are in the showroom – we are visible; we have the feeling we have left our original dimension and become (finally) a part of something bigger.
Maybe it is about a bigger company. Maybe it is about the verse of a poem.
Maybe it is about the fact that we like what we do and – as our founders taught us – a good work is, actually, always visible in the end.
Another year is going to end.
We are exhausted, we admit that, but we would like to share a special wish with you for the coming year 2018: we wish you all a nice work, that special work we are so lucky to do.
A work that makes us visible and, above all, happy.
Filippo Berto
