Webranking and Italian transperancy

One of my best friends (Joakim) is very busy today as the yearly Webranking 2005 - Italy Top 80 is published in Corriere della Sera and the Financial Times (he has been working a lot with this for a few years now). The idea is simple but important:

Now in its ninth consecutive year, the Webranking Survey – conducted by Hallvarsson & Halvarsson in cooperation with Italy’s Corriere della Sera and the Financial Times – is the most comprehensive survey of corporate online communications in Europe. The survey focuses on 82 of the largest listed Italian companies, using a checklist of 131 criteria to evaluate their English-language web presence. The list incorporates feedback from a questionnaire that asks 400 European financial analysts, investors and journalists to describe how they access corporate information online.

Joakim and I both started studying economic history at Stockholm University in 1993, and we ended up pursuing our Master degrees at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center. Back then I would never have guessed he would end up comparing Italian transparency (among many other things), running a consultancy business in Milan. It was somewhat more predictable that I would end up working at the Social Democratic party’s HQ in Stockholm…

Anyway, you can read more about the Webranking survey Joakim has been working on here, and you can read my latest column here. That's the way life ends up, and as it is cold and rainy in Stockholm today, I do agree that I miss living and studying in Italy.