“Who are we going to ask for a preface?” When my publisher decided to release Wikicrazia he asked me this question, which I had manage to overlook completely. A journalist? Well, the big names tend to have care little and know less on such specialitic matters. A politician? They are by definition partisan, while I am very keen on maintaning my profile as a bipartisan advisor.

The solution we fund was a lateral move: there is no preface. It was replaced by short endorsements written by people who know me and whom I exchanged ideas with on the topic of public policies in the times of the Internet. I ended up collecting eight of them, from a true Legion of Superheroes of internet-enabled policies. I am very proud to parade their contributions on my book, and to be able to boast a little: wow, I actually hang out with these people! They are my colleagues!. In alphabetical order:

• Beth Simone Noveck. She teaches at New York School of Law and is the founder of Peer-to-Patent, the original 2.0 project of the U.S. federal administration. She is also the author of an excellent book on the topic, called Wiki Government, published in July 2009 as I was writing my own. I am sort of following in her trail!
• David Lane. American probabilist, he is a member of the Santa Fe Institute‘s Science Board. I mention often his thinking in this blog, because he is one the scientists I admire most, and I hope to be able to collaborate with him someday. He has been living and working in Italy for the past few years.
• David Osimo. He is a leading European expert on e-government 2.0. He worked for the European Commission, and has since moved on to start his own company in Brussels.
• Filippo Solibello. In Italy he is the most famous of the bunch: a radio and TV host, with whom I share an approach of looking at our country bringing to the foreground the things that work and the people who make them work, rather than concentrating on scandal-mongering.
• Gilda Farrell. She is the director of the Social Cohesion Research and Development division at the Council of Europe. She has a global outlook, and carries the flag of innovation in the public sector.
• Giulio Quaggiotto. He works at the World Bank in Washington D.C. His work is focused on the role of the private sector as an engine of economic development, and he is one of the authors of one of my favourite blogs
• Marco Magrassi. He comes from MIT, the Inter-American Development Bank and windsurfing. He now works in the Evaluation Unit at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development.
• Tito Bianchi. He, too, comes from MIT and works at the Evaluation Unit. He is also the man I answer to for Kublai, and my coauthor.

To all of them goes my most heartfelt THANK YOU. Up, up and away! 😀