Pier Massimo Forni, a native of Italy, was a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he taught since 1985. Forni published several books, including his 2002 best-seller Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct. He co-founded and directed the Civility Project at Johns Hopkins, the purpose of which is to assess the significance of civility, manners and politeness in contemporary society.
In 1997, he co-founded the Johns Hopkins Civility Project, whose aim was to assess the significance of civility, manners and politeness in contemporary society. He was also co-director of "Reassessing Civility: Forms and Values at the End of the Century," an international symposium which took place at Johns Hopkins University in March 1998. Forni was to become the director of The Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University—which he founded in 2000. He frequently lectured and conducted workshops on the rewards of fostering a culture of civility in today's workplace and the connections among civility, ethics, and quality of life.
Publications
In 2002, Forni published the best-seller Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct. Since then the book has acquired the status of a little classic within the American civility movement. His second book on civility, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude provides examples on how to respond effectively and civilly in different day-to-day rude encounters. He contributed to a chapter on ethics and international protocol in the Convention Industry Council International Manual. His article "The Other Side of Civility" appeared in the November 2005 issue of the . "Why Civility Means Business: A Memo to the B-School Dean " was published in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of , the magazine of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. In 2009 the Association of Image Consultants International awarded him the Image Makers Merit of Industry Excellence Bravo Award, which counts among its past awardees Oprah Winfrey, Michael Bloomberg, and Target Stores.
Forni's work has been mentioned by numerous publications including The New York Times, The Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and Forbes magazine. He was interviewed on several high-profile radio and televisions shows, including the ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Sunday Morning, The Gayle King Show, BBC's Outlook, and Oprah. Forni's contribution to the civility movement that started in the United States at the turn of the millennium is featured in Benet Davetian's Civility: A Cultural History. In a profile which appeared in 2008, Smithsonian magazine stated that P.M. Forni "will be remembered as one of the greatest generals in our nation's struggle for civility."