The Memory of Tree E-Book

Ulla Hirvensalo

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 350

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The Memory of Tree is "science fiction”. Main task is to find information (vibrations) from annual rings. the Spearhead cluster (Keihäänkärkiklusteri) started and financed the project Secrets open. The Leader of the group is Berit, information scientist (Biolnformation). Other members are: Pekka,dendrologist, Kalle, the sculptor, Niilo, M.S.C in nanotechnology Heikki,BA, Tellervo, theologian, Iivari student of Technology and Sirkka,composer. The key tasks of the project were the following: 1. Set up a multi-scientific group and start inventing new innovations with it 2. Choose one of these for implementation.

Leseprobe

Acknowledgements

to my friend Merja Malkki, who encouraged me to write this novel

to my husband Matti Hirvensalo, who translated my book to into English

Content

Interlude

Overture

The Octet to Lead the Project

Adagio – Allegro

Adagio – Allegro

Adagio

Allegro vivace

Andante con variazone

Menuetto: Allegretto

Andante molto - Allegro

Life after the project Secrets open

m/s Tarjanne and Helvetinkolu

Postlude

The Dance of the Dragonfly

Interlude

Song about the Spider by Jean Sibelius

Yonder, hiding amongst dark forests lies a lawn,

And lit by the rays of the sun,

crawls a spider, huge and black as the night,

spying on its pray and then devouring it.

The daylight, shy after the night, falls at its victim,

when this monster casts its deadly web in the evening.

On the nightfall, it starts working,

and it is capable of capturing every living soul,

torturing them, and finally taking their lives.

Berit had never before felt such a great anger, and yet been under so dreadful a fear as now, when she was about to land on Stansted airport. The air hostesses bid her a good day. Berit looked at her fellow passengers, mainly students, who were using cheap flying companies. For them, the good wishes were welcome, but she did not feel so. The shining floor of the airport felt awkwardly slippery. Berit walked slowly, dragging her suitcase, which was making a funny, murmuring noise. The taxi should wait outside, equipped with a sign with her name on it. Its destiny was unknown to her. There was no taxi around. Berit wanted to turn back, but she did not have the courage to do so. Some eye had certainly picked her, there was no return. Berit felt a hand, covered by a trench coat, fall on her shoulder. A voice, using bad English, ordered her to step into a taxi, which did not look like the black, spacy Rovers, so common London. The driver, smoking, hit the road. His mobile phone was clicking orders, unintelligible for Berit. At last, a turn for Dockland was made. A transparent building was there. Berit was escorted into a landscape elevator, where she tried to relax, improvising some remarks, but she only managed to mumble in Finnish:

“Tieto maailmanrauhan tueksi”

“Information to guarantee piece in the world”

before they already reached the top floor, where she was pushed through the biggest door. The reflection of the sun from the windows of the opposing tower came straight to Berit´s eyes. For a moment, she saw nothing. Then she heard a voice that she would not have wished to hear ever again. The voice reminded her about sweaty hands. "Are you ready to sign the secrecy agreement?”

Overture

The flight of the bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Duration: one minute + six months, during which

Berit was hit by a spearhead

multi-scientific ideas were sought

cross-over sounds of the tuba were listened to aboard m/s Tarjanne

the possibilities of recognising the worm as a spearhead idea

the components of a multi-scientific verse were recognised

Hardly had the world been through the chaos caused by the turning of the millennium, when a new threat was faced: the world falling short of ideas. Finland took heed of the threat, and started to act as an honest member of the EU. The government summoned a committee of wise citizens to compose a list of means, by which Finland was supposed to be lifted to be the number one country of the scientific world. At first, the word ´idea´ was replaced by the word ´innovation´, and then things started moving. Innovation waves struck over the whole of Finland. Not a single spot of the country remained intact. Single Lucky Lukes did not make their way in the waves without interconnection. From the splashes of the waves, new Vaisalas, Nokias, and elevators rose. Nanotechnology passed biotechnology. Transportation of timber in lakes and rivers, as well as sawing and cooking pulp belonged to the past as means of bringing prosperity.

Spearhead Cluster Ltd had decided to be one of the winners. It had cast webs, starting from Oulu, all over to Keilaniemi, and as the prey, almost fifty young promising researchers were sitting in the auditory of Hanasaari Cultural Centre. As a delegate from the Bioinformation Centre, Berit had been sent, whose doctoral thesis was still in its preliminary stage. The director of the Centre stated that all the strings had to be pulled while the money was on the move. The company logo jumped from one screen to another. The walls became arenas of javelins. The final crescendo of Ravel´s Bolero was resonating against Berit´s lung bones. Its last measure flung the spears into the sky. The silence brought the spears back to a cluster. The patriotic finale of Sibelius´ Finlandia made the spears form a flag with a blue cross. Berit sighed with relief. The dimensions of the flag were right. After the applause, the company spokesman told why the spear- heads played such a big role in the logo. Each of them corresponded to a new idea, and, when regrouped to form a cluster, they would give birth to new innovations. The question, why the music consisted of Ravels´s Bolero, repeating the same theme with increasing tempo without variations, was answered by the spokesman with the explanation that this music was ideal, when the force of cooperation had to be described. This was to be the way to create a strong spearhead product. Berit was not satisfied with the answer, but she remained silent, in order not to lose the financing possibilities. From the previous innovation meeting Berit remembered only the mantra of the government, or, to be exact, that there was nothing to be remembered about it. The text had aroused cheering and sighs in the audience when it had appeared on the screen, word by word, as if the weight had been on every single word.

“The capacity to innovate is needed when even better productivity as well as new, more economic solutions are sought. Organisations capable of innovation are able to constantly gather and focus the creativity, know-how and other resources of the staff, producers of services, and customers, to form new solutions that bring about economic benefits. The steering of human capital calls for good management of allying and purchasing as well as networking capabilities from the organisation.”

The words had flown like a spring creek, burbled for its time, and then vanished.

Berit was fed up with self-steering meetings, where only the loudest were able to boast with their new pieces of information. The conversation launched at Hanasaari had not differed from the ones elsewhere, where she had had to spend her time. New projects, tasting of paper, were developed, and they revealed at once that no one had given them any deeper thought. A number was needed for the statistics. The registering of the result as zero would be left for others. Finland had so far lived by producing paper, but from now on, new means of creating wealth would have to be developed.

“Diffusion is needed”, some wise guy snapped.

“Wrong faculty”, was heard from the back row.

“Innovation is an organic growth process, whose breeding calls for innovations of leadership”, continued the wise guy from the front row.

The first speaker did not lose his mood, but continued drawing his colourful ideas on the flap board.

New ideas will be coupled with old ones; think about electricity or plastics

Innovation journalism is the science of tomorrow, and we here in Finland can be its forerunners

Information and know-how are the fuel of innovation cascades

Finland to the world map!

A multi-scientific working group!

Berit became sleepy, her ears were hissing. She surrounded her notes with innovation spheres and penetrated them every time she heard an old idea. In her thoughts, she already built methods of describing and searching information based on semantic webs, when her ears picked the idea “multi- scientific working group”. The innovation cascades, whatever they were, brought Berit back to this world. The Spearhead cluster had a new demo on the screen. Dancers, mathematicians, composers, medical doctors, visual artists, biochemists and other scientists, engineers, singers, musicians, orchestras, small rock bands, planners of dash codes, nanotechnologists, carpenters, timbermen. After this, Berit was too tired to follow the performance. All were doing their jobs in their own corners, until a mutual understanding was started to be described with red idea spheres which were drawn together to clusters, and then exploded by the spears in order to conquer the world.

Berit remembered another session, where she tried to introduce a similar idea by stating:

“One of the basic principles of innovating is the fact that there is no judging without knowing all the details, e.g. one has to think broadly, with open eyes, “by forgetting oneself”, she was about to say, but, thinking the better of it, continued: “by thinking beyond one´s own field of expertise. Medical doctors and engineers, sociologists, and chemists, historians and futurologists, etc., have to be brought together to develop new productive innovations.”

This meeting did not end with conventional serving of wine and sandwiches nor with promises to send reports. The participants were allowed to choose their own favourites by filling out a questionnaire. Berit studied curiously the innovator´s lunch bag, which contained mini-pyramids formed by shrimps and pieces of sword fish. For desert, the innovators were ushered among water lilies. Icebergs had been built of strawberries.

“Berit, you are known to be interested in the behaving models of projects. You fit into this project.” Matias, a member of the Spearhead cluster, took Berit by the sleeve, while her hand was caressing the mermaids. In the beginning of their studies, they had met a couple of times, but soon their studies had taken them apart. “Well, into what?” was Berit about to say, but she did not have the time to do so, when her name was already on the laptop, and its lid closed. Then there was a long pause without anything new to happen, until, one evening, Berit had a new voice mail, which started with the whistle of a steam ship. It could not go unnoticed. Berit could not anticipate the importance of that whistle to her career.

“The word ´innovation´ came from the word ´innovare´ - render new. That is supposed to suffice for getting ready for the meeting”, a thought that made Berit satisfied.

The message from the Spearhead cluster came with an animation. Berit had been named “the top of innovators”. The orders for service had been evaluated, and accordingly, she had scored by far the highest marks. She had been elected to the group of innovators, from which the next project leader of the Spearhead cluster would be chosen. Her final work in the Bioinformation Centre had just been accepted, so that she had good time to participate in the numerous tests. The next two weeks were full of assignments, filling of forms, and interviews. The Spearhead cluster was not short of test material nor of ideas. The questions dealt with anything else but the character of the candidate, the ability to get along with difficult persons, or the logic of series of numbers.

Berit had been curious since her childhood, to the point of getting on other people´s nerves; this was an early sign of her possible future as a researcher. Her period of making questions had started immediately after she had learned to pronounce the word “why”. The observation of nature had started at the same time as crawling. The baby crawling in the yard, watching ants, had aroused gaiety and wonder. “Muuhai” was the first word she had learnt about the wonders of the sandbox. In addition to thirst for knowledge, she had had an exceptionally strong desire to get things done in time. She remembered, amused, when her teachers had sighed: “Oh, Berit, please, just concentrate a little better on what you are doing, don´t jump from one subject to another.” She had only laughed and moved to solve another problem.

In her university studies Berit had begun to suffer from her lack of perseverance. Why, she asked herself, and she would have wanted as quick an answer as the one she got from her grandfather as a child. In her studies, it was her own duty to dig deep into the whirlpools of books and databases, to face and solve problems, and to suggest new ways to proceed in research. She had found in herself new qualities that in her youth had been considered as bossing. It was called leadership. Even if she was unable to address herself to the same problem for years, she kept inspiring her group to work in a disciplined manner, with the goal clearly in their minds. She quickly learned to find the good properties in people, and use these in project work. The bio information branch of science was exactly meant for her. Team work, combining of new ideas, tearing down fences, as well as hectic work; she was at her best in all these fields.

The most important message came two days after Berit had sent her answers. The voice mail of the Spearhead cluster read:

“You have been chosen as the project leader. Come to the spot shown by the map. We will go on with the planning there.”

Led by the navigator, Berit wandered in the corridors of the Cable factory. When she pulled her together and started to observe her surroundings, her gaze focused on spearheads hung on the walls, for guiding those who were lost. There was no more doubt about the right door. She knocked on the spearhead that served as a handle, and the door opened. If she had expected to see tables full of Coca-cola bottles and nerds with their legs on the table, she was badly mistaken. The office was small, and the feeling of lack of space was highlighted by the presence of modern pieces of art, which filled almost half of the high room. In the back of the office was a speaker´s platform, which consisted of butterflies made of plastics. Behind it stood a man dressed in a pinstripe suit.

“Hello Berit! Take some fruit. I am Matias, you probably remember me. I am the only living soul working in this office. When this butterfly moves its wings, something important will happen.”

A pattering sound was heard, when the wings started fluttering.

“It resembles the cone sculpture outside Dipoli. When a button is pressed, the cone slowly opens its scales.”

Berit and Matias made room for their computers as well as for their thoughts. The fruit were consumed while Matias sorted out the operating conditions of the innovation project.

The setup words of the project were the following:

Set up a multi-scientific group and start inventing new innovations with it

Choose one of these for implementing it.

Berit was supposed to name the project, but first, the group should be together. A research freedom for five years felt like a dream to her. The financing would be guaranteed, and the facilities had been rented from the Innovation Centre. There was not much more in the research contract. The ideas as well as their potential commercialization would belong to the Spearhead cluster, as could be read on the lowermost row of the text. The font size was as small as in the list of side effects, given in the leaflets of medicine packages. With this paper in her hand, she left with light steps to launch the Innovation project.

Goodbye budget negotiations, follow-ups and explanation meetings. Ahead, freedom of research, not shackled by hour accounting nor by writing monthly reports. Berit´s dreams were still dominated by experts of financial management, who, waving their cheese slicers, wanted to put the numbers in the files. The deviation reports had jumped around and sneered at her with their red eyes. To Berit, the proposition of the Spearhead cluster seemed like a pipe dream she had never had before. A multi-scientific research project; she was even allowed to define and decide what kind of group she would need. This was exactly what she had been suggesting for many years.

Did it go right - the establishing of the group - Berit kept pondering, sipping her cappucino. She remembered the biblical phrase He who seeks finds, him who knocks it will be opened! But also as often the door was closed for him who knocked. The Cluster, as the financier had named itself, at first criticized the fact that the various disciplines were not in equilibrium. How on earth could more researchers have been engaged, when already the present ones would pose their own problems? And more; there were not too many aspirants, either. It had been a surprising disappointment. Curling up in the own sandbox was still the prevailing mode of action both within cultural and scientific circles. Who would risk their own credibility in a project that had no agreed goal, but only a vague proposition to innovate Finland on the map of the world? The Medical Faculty said a strict “no”, as did the Faculty of Political Sciences, against Berit´s greatest wish. A social view would have been valuable. The Faculty of Law answered that experts would be provided in case of legal problems. From this particular angle, problems were anticipated. Nobody would have time to attend to unnecessary meetings. Statisticians and IT technologists stayed out without explanations. Future research was the field that Berit wanted to take care of personally. Dancers, carpenters, plumbers, as well as other experts of hand and foot work informed their interest, but they shied away the academic nuance. They only promised to perform or participate in the building process, if needed.

The first project meeting would take place in two weeks. Berit felt a little excited, because she was not used to working with other scientists than naturalists. How would an arts student, a theologian, a composer, an engineer, a sculptor, a nanotechnology researcher, and a dendrologist integrate? Based on the tests of the Spearhead cluster, she had been chosen because of her interpersonal and scientific analytical skills. Scientific analytical skill, she pondered, what was it supposed to mean? She hated verbal trickery, especially when she noticed that the speaker was unaware of the meaning of the terms used. A multi-scientific research project, where the ideas were limited only by the imagination. The rising talent of Finland in the field of science and art. She noted that she could control all this. Her dreams started to be true. She was responsible for motivating the idea generators and for keeping their spirits up. She thought very carefully, how the project should be introduced, so that it would be understood in the right way at once. The scientific world was already full of money- spending hatcheries created on very light grounds, which only resulted in piles of bills and reports. Their common feature was that their practical results would hardly have filled an A4 even with sparse spacing.

The opening words of the project “Secrets open” were voiced on board m/s Tarjanne, while a summery rain was sprinkling and blurring the famous Finnish lake landscape into a monotonous row of trees. The ship was half-empty. With the experience of a hundred years, it pushed ahead on Lake Näsijärvi, from Tampere to Virrat. The newest technology on board the eldest ship in Finland was represented by the taps of beer and the machines able to read Visa cards. A few tourists were shivering on the deck with cameras on their necks. The Finnish long-term rain had continued all the way. Not even the Japanese were eager to take photos of the landscape. The scenery was just shores, trees, and capes behind and ahead.

Berit was excited almost to the point of explosion. At long last, hands-on work was about to start. The leaders of the different teams of the Cross-over project had been summoned to get acquainted with each other as well as to plan the contents of the project. Their assignment was loose. The purpose of the group was to model multi-scientific research in the development of new ideas and products by utilizing the various areas of expertise of the group. The principle of the Spearhead cluster was that an industrial peace of five years was guaranteed to the research group. It meant that no questions about results, reports, or costs would be asked from the group. This was modern innovation research. “There must be no tightened fetters around innovating persons” had Matias stressed to Berit many times.

Berit had chosen seven persons to the group, and she had published their names and photos. She also had obtained in advance the description of the members of the project team from their closest colleagues.

Thus, the personalities of the members of the group could be summarized as follows:

Kalle, the sculptor, had drawn his own picture. He thought that it was better than his fellow students´ inferior description of his noble character. He had set up himself in a gel. As a head, he had a pike head with enormous cheek bones, and his teeth were ready to devour anybody who tried to touch him. His body consisted of a curling eel with a perch tail. As his hands served eight octopus tentacles (bottles).

Sirkka was a composer, glowing of zeal, after being allowed to brainstorm the impossible. She also played the piano and the violin, composed baroque music with a computer, and bubbled with speech and new ideas. She was the only person who was known to speak and laugh at the same time.

Tellervo was described to be a very sensitive and profound theologian, who dreamed of joining the development aid troops, but as yet, had lacked the courage to do so.

Iivari´s introduction contained only musical notes and the picture of an enormous tuba, behind which peeked a head with a cap on.

Heikki, a BA, expressed himself with long, elaborate phrases. When he finally was allowed a hearing, he could not finish. His speech often went here and there, and then finally, to everybody´s surprise, to its starting point.

Pekka, the dendrologist, a silent wanderer in the woods, mostly spoke to the trees. A die-hard worker. No ear for others. Ambitious.

Niilo´s passion was nanotechnology. He considered himself as a superb expert, whose ego was untouched by the nickname nerd-Niilo.

Berit was an extrovert, a researcher, who observed life and its phenomena in a versatile way. Her hobby was poems and aphorisms. As an ambitious researcher, she wanted to progress more rapidly than the others, and get publicity as well as publications, with a doctoral thesis in sight. (Her obstinacy and sharp tongue she omitted, as she thought her colleagues would observe these qualities later).

The introduction supplemented the drowsy effect; dull commentaries - no one told anything about themselves. All were looking at each other with suspicion, like from behind a protecting wall. And, besides, Iivari was missing, although he had promised to attend to the meeting, even if it was, according to him, quite useless. Berit had to milk ideas of the meaning of the importance of multi-scientific research.

The following synopsis could be drawn:

Nobody could care less. A coffee break in the ship´s restaurant followed. Kalle mumbled to Pekka that if this was supposed to be innovating, he would fall asleep before they could catch any single idea. His mumbling was so loud that Berit could not avoid hearing the criticism. Kalle wondered what the tourists might be seeking from Tarjanne, when he watched them. Monotonous, monotonous. He thought that it would have been better to take some reading and own drinks to the ship. The beers were more expensive than on the ships on Tallinna link. He took a look at the apathetic group, whose task was to plan innovations that were supposed to revolutionize the world. Suddenly, a man two meters tall entered the restaurant, pulling a bulky, black case. Both of them had difficulties in fitting through the door. Calmly the man opened the case, dug the bronze instrument from within and, after some preliminary sounds, started to growl the drinking song In deep cellars with his tuba.

The multi-scientific group woke up to listen. There was nothing else to do. The playing brought a change. The next piece was a waltz. Kalle bowed to Sirkka, and they began to dance. It was good exercise for the stiffened limbs, Kalle defended himself. The others remained sitting passively in their seats. The player decided to wake up the audience. Rimsky- Korsakov´s Flight of the bumblebee was the right choice even for the most unmusical person around. Little by little, everyone´s lips started moving. Iivari received a thundering applause.

“Here we are braking limits” rejoiced Berit.

“Yes, Flight of the bumblebee with the tuba was a brilliant performance” admired Sirkka.

“Bumblebees, where?” awoke Niilo at his laptop.

“Were you not listening at all?”

“I´m allergic to a bee sting, did you already kill the bee?”

The missing tuba player turned out to be Iivari.

Berit abandoned her manuscript and threw herself upon the inspiration. “What have you hated most in group works?” was the next theme considered. The old good flap board technique, now modernized, saved the day. The flap boards had been replaced with working stations and projectors, and on the walls, texts, pictures, and slogans appeared. While the participants were wandering from one screen to another, adding their own pet peeves, Berit was drawing a summary that instantly appeared on the big screen. The evaluation was realized by a white animating mouse. It rolled cheese balls, whose size was proportional to the abomination of the idea. Or that should have been the case, but nothing worked. The mouse kept eating pieces of information at random, added its own ones, and contaminated the screen with its droppings. “Here, work like this should not be carried out, but, instead of it, poetry, music, and art, belonging to our national property, should be created” exuded Kalle, moving to the era of paper and coal to draw caricatures of tourists carrying cameras. Also the other participants were repressed, some of them willing to leave. Niilo and Iivari threw arrogant glances at Berit. Oh, women; what do they know about information technology? At once, she presented her ace:

“This is my pet peeve; we trust too much in technology, so that human thoughts drown, vanish. Of course, you expect that I would start fixing problems, but there aren´t any. This has been planned like it is now. I wanted to emphasize that the human comes first, and only then, the tools.”

The dismay turned to relieved laugh and babble.

“Let´s begin from the starting point. Tellervo, you can start by telling, what would be the most important thing in this project, in your mind.”

Tellervo noticed that she was telling about her doubts for technocrats, her fears concerning peace in the world, victory of the evil, and then about her will to enter a group of this kind. That was the beginning of mutual understanding and refining of common language. Berit was relieved. The risk was worth taking. The wall technique program had been well planned, but its implementation had been planned only for a later stage of the project.

Berit continued to inspire the group:

“Let´s already start to develop crazy ideas, which could lead to brilliant inventions, hits, healing medicines, towns of new kind, anything. Niilo, you could create an idea bank based on the principle that the crazier an idea, the more points it scores. Then, on the way back, the ideas will be distributed to different groups for execution.”

"The first idea: mushroom radar combined with worm identifier” started Berit, using chairman´s rights.

The group exploded to laugh.

“The first rule: if the other participants laugh, the idea is worth of further development.”

"How do you combine this with theology and philosophy?” tried Heikki to sneer, but the others started to warm up gradually.

Iivari wanted to know more about the mushroom radar.

“The mushrooms emit a specific odour, which the radar is able to identify, and at the same time it points out the direction, where, for instance, most boletes can be found” described Berit. “Then, the worm identifier growls, when it finds mushrooms contaminated with worms. You do not have to bend down to each one of them. The grabbing unit of the identifier radar neatly flicks the mushroom from the ground into the basket, so that the picking speed is multiplied.”

Berit felt the pride of an inventor, while Iivari already started to develop a further version of the product, enabling the picking of more mushrooms at the time. The journey continued, and a cheerful babbling drowned the pitter-patter of the rain. Niilo was occupied by writing down the ideas to the extent that he had no time to tell his own ones. Yet, on the return journey he introduced the databank he had created, where every idea was described and scored. Kalle had had the time to attach a cartoon to every idea. Now, the introduction of the ideas followed. Berit´s worm identifier was joined by an electronic fishbone remover, preach writer, a method for finding the score or the music of Sibelius´ Eighth symphony, a gel ball eating dust, and a system for recording and analysing debates in pubs, suitable for assisting in voting.

Tarjanne berthed to Mustalahti port. Behind it, noise from Särkänniemi Amusement park could clearly be heard. The rain had turned to a gentle drizzle. Berit and Sirkka headed for Sara Hildén Art Museum. The others adjourned. Pekka took the route to the station. The merry-making should be over. A dendrologist could not get rid of his bark. The trees and the sounds from the environment, they had some link. A tree collects - some species do so even for centuries – information from the environment, earth, climate.

The idea bank simply chokes. Fortunately, Tarjanne had left behind, the ideas stayed on dry ground, in the old Cable factory. There, Berit had obtained a temporary workroom. In the former facilities of heavy industry, a great variety of small companies and artists flourished. The sea cable hall would have space for idea coils 200 meters long. Berit rolled Niilo´s list and comments on the screen. Niilo had chosen very scientific subjects on his list of preference. Berit decided to compile her own list. Her number one idea was still the worm identifier for the boletes.

The cascade of ideas:

1. Electronic remover of fishbone

2. Pet cats developed for washing windows

3. Gel ball devouring dust

4. Automatic preach writer

5. Remuneration system for musicians, based on note cleanliness

6. System for registering and analysing pub debates meant for monitoring political climate

7. Repairer of an opera singer´s note cleanliness – everyone could become an opera singer!

8. Non-fattening chocolate

9. Aerosol, injectable into the air conditioning system so that it stops coughing in concerts and theatre performances

10. Forehead band emitting Burana and refreshments for a suffering person

11. Collector of respiration energy, suitable for the driving force of mobile phones

12. Recorder and simulator of ants´ activities, suitable for development of living circumstances in cities

13. Robot that chops killer snails

14. Pelletizer for instant use in dry closets

15. Clothes changing their colour according to body temperature

16. Reconstruction of Sibelius´ Eighth symphony

If Berit had believed that her organizational abilities would take care of screening the ideas point by point in clear order along with well-founded propositions, she had better look in the mirror and find out that the multi-scientific group, when left out of control, was really worth of its name. The restaurant Hima&Sali, which was situated in the former high voltage laboratory of the Cable factory, was a proper milieu for innovating. The sounds echoed and the secrets bounced from floor to ceiling and back.

Environmental protection and climatic change were abandoned as too popular topics, however hard Kalle tried to defend the usefulness of the chopping robot. Around the summer cottage of his grandparents, the killer snails were a nuisance. Kalle had often slipped on them and fallen down with a beer mug in his hand. Even his deep sigh did not touch the others, and the environmental problems were left on their own. They are studied by everyone, was Niilo heard to say; his first commentary so far. Also common well-being was Kalle´s field, especially the forehead band that relieved hang-over. It was abandoned, as well as the aerosol, preventing coughing. Heikki defended fiercely the replacement for the Gallup polls, the system analysing pub debates. At least the party True Finns would buy it; they need to know, what the deep rows of the people think, was his unswerving opinion. On the same pile was thrown the automatic preach writer. Iivari wheezed into his tuba and wondered what would be in the way of writing with a random generator and Bill Gates´ innovations. Tellervo was deeply hurt. She told that the pelletizer in the dry closet was the most stupid thing she had ever heard of. Throwing insults that had been started half-seriously threatened to question the basic principle of the innovation project: “No one´s idea shall be criticized.”

The subject ´ants´ has already been drained out, Berit had to state about her own idea. She was inspired by the remuneration system for musicians, but Iivari fell in a conflict of interests with Sirkka.

“You are only jealous to us wind instrumentalists; when we have something to say, all are listening. The violins always whine in the background.”

“Everybody is waiting for your next crow” sneered Sirkka.

The word ´crow´ needed an explanation that differed from the one most people had in mind. It means a misplaced sound, which comes from a brass instrument, most often a French horn, when the player cannot produce the right sound, explained Sirkka. “Blow an example”, she asked Iivari, but he told that it was missing from his basic know-how. The remuneration system of musicians was abandoned as a problem of a marginal group. Homework was not a part of the project team´s way of living, because only Sirkka was interested in Kalle´s dusteating gel ball. The facilitator of homework was bound not to produce money, was Pekka´s unwavering opinion.

After the screening round, only the mushroom radar and worm identifier as well as the finding of Sibelius´ Eighth symphony (somewhere, added Pekka) were left. After voting (seven to one), the reconstruction of Sibelius´ Eighth symphony won. Iivari was disappointed, because his mushroom radar got only one vote. “You can make your own mushroom radar; the idea is free for use” consoled Berit.

Sirkka proposed that the project be named Secrets open, while she remembered the enormous zeal of the musicians belonging to the group Ears open towards new cooperation between music and other arts. Her cheeks glowing, she told that the group energy had been palpable. Composers were also interested in literature, theatre, and arts. The name Secrets open was accepted unanimously after Sirkka´s arguments. This is a good start, sighed Berit to herself. Yet, the subject felt utopian even to the free innovation climate of the Spearhead cluster. It was, in the end, the most innovative of the lot, because nobody had the faintest idea how the problem should be approached.

Secrets open – Sibelius´ Eighth symphony!

The members of the group Secrets open were picnicking on Karhusaari beach. It was a gentle moment of early summer, the sea was glimmering without its icy cover, birch trunks shined in the sun, green leaves were in mouse ears. Ahead was the difficult task to get everybody to consent to keep the secrecy of the project. After the last meeting the project had become livelier, and Berit did not want the cooperation to die. “Making fun must not be forgotten” reminded one leadership guru.

“The aspen leaves have not yet been delivered” joked Kalle, but nobody was listening.

“Why are the birch leaves called mouse ears; it is quite the wrong comparison, because the mouse ears are disgusting” Tellervo broke the silence.

“The mouse ears are not disgusting at all, they are curious listeners of the world” contested Berit.

“How many mouse ears have you seen?”

“I have seen and touched them with my own hands; white mouse.”

Before the conversation about the pointlessness of animal tests had time to begin, Pekka stood up, put his left hand behind his ear, and asked for silence.

“Listen and tell us what you hear.”

“Humming of the motorway.”

“Sea splash, it is the thinking of the sea” was Sirkka´s poetic comment.

“Barking of a dog.”

“Iivari opened a beer can and said: “The nature is hissing.”

Pekka did not let the remarks disturb, but started his monologue.

“Life is vibration, it begins with the common vibration between a man and a woman, it leads to the vibration of the colliding spermatozoon and the egg sell, and ends, when the vibration shakes the world off the human. Everything is vibrating, heart, brain, cilia of lungs, and caecum. Human vibration is visible, as is animal vibration.” Pekka held a pause, took a sip from the beer can offered by Kalle, and continued:

“The feline moustaches vibrate, indeed; dog ears, frog, sheer vibration. The ants move so fast that no distinct vibration is visible. The sloth and a resting snake hide their vibration, the sloth because it is lazy, the snake due to its craft. The birds are oscillating all along, their vocal cords are full of oscillation in spring.” Another gulp.

“The trees vibrate. They have a heart and blood vessels. In the woods you can put your ear against the trunk of a tree and listen to the vibration. The birch trees are the most sensitive ones, while the spruces hide their vibration almost totally. Even the pine tries to hide its sensitivity, but aside its bark you can easily hear whispering.” A third gulp. “The trees are full of knowledge. Their age can be calculated from their growth rings, or annual rings. Is there another natural being whose age is so open and bare?”

Kalle swallowed his comment on horse´s teeth. “The vibration is a soul, but if the soul is immortal, how is the vibration displaced to eternity? Can you say?” Pekka went on without waiting for an answer. “From the vibration of the annual rings we return the past through the energy they have conserved.”

The Octet to Lead the Project

Duration: 2 x 60 minutes and one month, during which Berit

sought a management tool for a multi-scientific project

jumped over booby traps and escaped rats

thought about the inner fire of an innovator

found Schubert´s Octetto

tested Matias´ ability of innovation

Berit´s desk, bed, and computer hard disk gushed of project manuals. During the last couple of weeks, she had done nothing but wander in the jungle of management tools. The planning and management of multi-scientific research are not carried out with traditional methods. She browsed the headlines.

Innovations and innovators shall inherit the Earth. Money making from scratch using intuition. A knowledge-intensive environment calls for interpersonal skills and listening to others, as well as management of expertise. The challenges of information management at work. The management is always connected with people. The human is always a self-thinking subject, without tactic or corrupt opinions. Humanity and idealism.

The project Secrets open did not seem to fit in to these phrases. Berit went on in net-surfing.

The rat-like behaviour of people; manipulation, plotting, and dirty tricks are everyday activities at work. How do I become a rat? - course. Berit browsed the teachings of the book. Bribing. In this project, beer would be the best bribe. At least there was no shortage of resources. The closing of the way in such a manner that one´s own goals can be realized and command of reputation maintained. The direction of fears; weaknesses could be taken advantage of. Care must be taken so that the whole project would not collapse to mutual manoeuvring of fears. More of rat-like behaviour: humiliation, shaking of the manager´s role, leaking information, slander, lying. Berit decided to put an effort to the protection of innovations. Secrets open did not mean that the information be spread to the wrong hands to benefit someone else. Rat realism. At this stage she got tired and gave Ms. Fortuna a chance. She took scissors and cut in pieces the directions she had printed and spread them on the floor. With her eyes shut, she turned around a few times and picked up the first direction:

The most important thing to do is to choose the right kind of people into the project and be aware of the skills they must have

Hints of desperation crawled into Berit´s thoughts. The choice of the members of the group went as it did, no personal tests could be done. A good thing was that seven persons were found. How to define the capability of multi-scientific innovation? She sought help from the directions:

Also in the Agile development culture ´stretch goals´ is an important part.

Berit remembered a meeting held long ago, where the word ´agile´, when it had been spat out from the speaker´s mouth, had changed into the expression `a child´ in the ears of the audience. The curiosity and lack of prejudices of a child would certainly be better than agility.

The next direction that arose from the floor was the following:

The whole team must be taken care of, and having fun shall not be forgotten

The project was launched by having fun, but how to keep up the constant joy of research?

The fourth paper contained, finally, demanding aspects of management: