1. Otaniemi has its own beer laboratory!

Yeap it’s true, we do our research on just about anything – not like there wouldn’t be enough field testing during Vappu around here, but 365 days a year. Since 1959 we have been passionate about keeping our beer top quality and fresh. Immo-yeast innovated here in 1980′s made the second fermentation last from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 days making sure the supply of the country’s favorite alcoholic beverage is always ready for a sunny days increase in consumption.

2. We research, a lot!

In total about 8 million hours worth a year, in years that is 913 years of research a year. But then again it’s nowhere near the numbers of Farmville – but then again I guess your virtual eggplant really does need harvesting?

3. We set the time around here!

The official time of Finland is set in Otaniemi – MIKES, The centre for metrology and accreditation makes sure everybody stays on time over here, so next time your fifteen minutes late, check your watch when you pass Mike at Tekniikantie 1 from the outside clock, or online.

4. We have our own Nature reserve!

If you see people walking around with binoculars and rubber boots, no they are not lost or delusional. Our very own Laajalahti Nature Reserve in the northern part of Otaniemi is one of the best places in the metropolitan area to go bird watching. If you like that sort of things…

5. We have zero Elephants! And clean water…

True, there are no elephants in Otaniemi, but Finland’s fresh water reserves are clean and we get drinkable water more pure than the fancy bottle water from the Alps straight out of the tap. But to elaborate on the importance of elephants to the fresh water situation I’ll let Mauri do the explanation (video below)

It’s the same way I feel about the approaching World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. 100 days to go (or 99 to be precise), and it’s of course a bit foggy – not everything is ready yet with any of the national pavilions – but almost everything is and will be ready when the fun starts 1st of May.

Our focus is on 5 May 2010 when Kirnu, the Finland Pavillion VIP floor hosts City of Espoo day – the hometown of Otaniemi technology hub. We will be presenting what innovative and interesting things there are in Otaniemi – and why it makes sense for a world class innovation player to be involved in Otaniemi developments in form of R&D projects, other collaboration or simply as an excellent location for a European HQ.

European HQ in Otaniemi is an excellent choice for any Chinese or other Asian hitech and innovative corporation. Why? I tell you why; not only would you be right inside one of the world’s hotspots in innovation (if you read Harvard Business Review, or if you believe what they write in The Economist Intelligence Unit), you would also be in the most Asia-friendly country in Europe, you would have access to apply one part of the hundreds of millions of R&D financing available from Finnish government and you would also be within the shortest direct flight to Europe from places like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo and many other Asian cities. First stop Europe.

I believe the Shanghai World Expo 2010 will live up to its slogan “Better City – Better Life”. Looking forward to it!

 BTW; remember to visit KIRNU

Personally, I’m more inclined to say that by nature, instead of wanting to constantly be exposed to unfamiliar circumstances, people have a strong need to feel safe. This is accomplished by creating daily routines around livelihood, building a circle of trust through meaningful relationships and ensuring not only a sense of belonging but also of an opportunity to contribute to the community. After all, hasn’t reservation for things that are different, new and strange been an important mechanism to ensure the survival of our species?

Other components of successful entrepreneurship mentioned by Marko was serendipity, lucky coincidences, which usually takes place in the context of informal networking. Whenever going to a new place, the first thing one should do is to find out where people gather to eat. Now this is something I like: the satisfaction humans have experienced since the Stone Ages in gathering around a fireplace to share a meal is something I believe is embedded somewhere deep in our DNA.

At a first glance “organizing serendipity” is an oxymoron but in the light of the above comments, it actually isn’t. During the past three weeks, every Tuesday and Thursday morning the coffee room at Design Factory has been buzzing with people enjoying breakfast together. The €2 breakfast has been well received and even described as a “hotel-type breakfast” with porridge, buns, eggs and the lot. Breakfast at DFfany’s proves that “organizing serendipity” can be done: “organizing” simply means someone taking the responsibility of setting the table (ie. doing the groceries, making the coffee and baking the buns) and “serendipity” is guaranteed to follow.

To ride one wave of serendipity, join us for breakfast Tuesday and Thursday mornings 8-10 am at Design Factory (Betonimiehenkuja 5, Otaniemi)!

Onnivatively yours,

Melissa
ps. you can find my definition for “ONNIVATION” in my previous blog posting “OIN and the Meaning of Life.

During yet another inspiring visit to Design Factory last week, around the coffe table I claimed that Otaniemi International Network will make Otaniemi and the Greater Helsinki Region the world’s best place to live, work and play by the end of year 2011. The confidence boost to make this kind of a claim came with the signatures put on papers just minutes before. Over 1,5 years of persistent work became worthwhile and EU-funding finally secured with a swift stroke of a pen. That felt so good and made me very happy.

So what was the reaction to this not-so-modest claim of mine? Eetu’s (see his background info at http://aaltodesignfactory.fi/wiki/index.php?title=Kalevi_Ekman) comment was that sure, one can always claim to be the world’s best but in the end, everything comes down to the meaning of life.

Wow. Meaning of Life. My favorite topic. My job is now about finding the Meaning of Life?!?!

How does one build and develop Otaniemi International Network so that it will enable us to get some kind of understanding of the Meaning of Life? Last autumn Eetu was moderating a panel discussion, the key topic of which I don’t remember anymore – surely there were important people representing business, technology and design talking about important stuff. What I do remember was that when Eetu invited the audience to the opening of Design Factory the next week, he said a visit there would be a life changing experience.

So, after this (also) very modest claim, I went to Design Factory with extremely high expectations and am now happy to say was not disappointed – quite on the contrary. Go and have a look for yourself.

During the past months I’ve had several chances to hear and learn about the way Design Factory works and how facilitating the creation of ideas into something concrete has been taken into consideration when planning the space. The choices that have been made are actually very simple, and the question of why these simple things are not applied everywhere comes to mind. As a side note: could it be so, that by making things complicated they seemingly become more important and the person who can multitask and handle the most complicated stuff is the hero of our age and time?

Ok, so Design Factory has walls and furniture that are easily adjusted to any kind of occasion and use. Also, boxes are filled with post-its, colored markers, legos, play-doh and the works. But what about the human factor? How do the people working at Design Factory create the soul of the place?

Last week I came across the DF Rules of Creation, which I think are an answer to the above question:

1. Never say NO or criticize any ideas
2. Get your hands dirty
3. Communicate your ideas
4. Document everything
5. Stay on topic
6. Build on others’ ideas
7. Keep up the pace
8. Have fun!

Heureka! These same principles are applicable in the creation of Otaniemi to be the best place for YOU and ME to live, work and play! In other words: let’s ask HOW and WHY instead of saying no and criticizing. Let’s take the extra step – or rather stop? – and listen to, share ideas with and help the individual persons that come our way. Let’s learn and build something new from these encounters. Let’s not multitask but rather take one thing at a time, from beginning to end, with the core idea jotted down or drawn on something: paper, napkin, coaster or the back of a matchbox.

In March, Harvard Business Review’s article referred to Otaniemi as the world’s #2 innovation hotspot. What do innovations and the Meaning of Life have to do with each other? Let’s play a little with the word INNOVATION – this buzzword we hear all the time “inno-this and inno-that…” To be INNOVATIVE it is safe to assume one is quite high on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? One is close to a state of realizing one’s own potential. From this it can be derived that HAPPINESS is to some extent a prerequisite for INNOVATION. In the Finnish language “HAPPINESS” translates to “ONNI”. Therefore I now declare that Otaniemi International Network’s will help us find the Meaning of Our Lives in the spirit of ONNIVATION. As the innovation sherpa John Kao stated: if innovation is the answer, what’s the question? The Meaning of Life?

Here is a link for you to Enigma’s Return to Innocence, hopefully it inspires you to start your search and share some of your findings along the way. Please enjoy – life is good! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_ALElMLpRA

CC Attribution: DavidDMuir@Flickr

A lot of startups think they are ready to receive venture capital, risk capital, or some sort of “real” financing. I recently had to count; how many rounds of financing have I “done?” (not solo, they are always teamwork) It took some plain old organic memory search, and if I have it right that would be a total of 9 rounds so far. (just as a remark: IRC-Galleria had zero rounds.)Based on that experience; When are you ready?

Here’s my take on that: 1. You have the right attitude. You and your startup need to be very good at what you are doing. You need to have your act together. Know your stuff. Know your competition. Already have plenty of things done instead of “just planned”. You need to be there to succeed and as part of that attitude you need to be humble enough, yet know that you are a “catch” for them to have; and that you are the client shopping for financing services for the price of equity.

CC Attribution: JustUptown@Flickr

2. Your materials are in good condition. Yesterday a highly competent venture capitalist (managing partner, none the less) said to me: “the good VCs know that the excellent companies probably don’t have time to prepare a 50+ page business plan and perfect materials”. Agreed. I think you do not and should not need a very long business plan and a beautiful polished power point. Many of the 9 rounds I have done have been done without the one of the other, sometimes without either.

What do you need then? You will need a very good executive summary. You will need to be ready to talk about your stuff at a “championship level”. Solid financials are needed. And a good representation of your overall plans and goals. Specific roadmaps and such should not be so important – because they will change anyways, and the good VCs know this extremely well. Many VCs don’t read plans. They only read summaries, 1 page or 2 pages. Even the legendary Sequoia Capital asks everyone to send a maximum of 15-20 slide summaries, as they say “all that’s needed”. What did Eran Davidson the CEO and Managing Partner of Hasso Plattner Ventures say on stage at SIME Helsinki? “I’m a VC and I don’t read business plans”. There you have it.

CC Attribution: *Your Guide@Flickr

3. DD preparation is done or underway. Check my earlier post about the DD. Make sure that’s at least in progress and you can answer questions about IPR and such in a very competent level and detail.

4. You have an investor plan. You have mapped out multiple investors. Actually found out about their investment focus, criteria, space, latest deals, terms, etc. You have schedules for the whole thing to progress, your team has divided the responsibilities of preparing everything, and you have created the most important thing: a shortlist of investors most likely to realistically invest into your startup. Where to find VCs? Check my previous post for a few ideas.

CC Attribution: ToniVC@Flickr

5. You have time to raise capital. It takes a while. In this economic climate it takes a while and then some. You need to have that time, no hurry. Sizeable startup rounds (a few Big MOs) can go through in as little as 2 months, but that is an extraordinary accomplishment that does not happen often – there needs to be a real match between the startup and the investor for a deal to move so fast. Angel rounds can be faster. Typically it takes at least 6 months, and now quite possibly more than that. This old comic from the Dot-Com era sums it up nicely.

6. You have already engaged customers and partners. One thing that will greatly speed up your VC deal will be real commercial traction. Especially if you are in a space like “Web 2.0″ that’s sort of the requirement before you get any VC money. It helps significantly if you are already on a path towards growth and expansion, but would grow a lot faster with additional capital. One way to get there is to talk to your customers, partners, consumers etc as soon as possible, as much as possible. Hammer out your thing, what ever it is, in such a way that it is desired in the marketplace and has clear evidence of showing commercial traction. Score the deals. Close and sign them in. Then talk to VCs. Try to go for LOIs, non-binding contracts, MoUs, or even try to get upfront payments from the customers. Every name on the paper is tangible proof and will help you out. Try to get permissions to reference them and their interest when they sign.

7. You require money for growth. VCs don’t really want to fund things like; proof of concept, product development, prototypes, “stage 1 development”, “hiring a team”, etc. The earlier in the game you are, the harder time you will have raising any VC money. They like to fund companies that need the financing for growth, not to build something risky that might quite likely fail. If you happen to be very early, then go for Angels or “Friends, Family and Fools”.

8. Have a fallback plan. One indication of your readiness is your ability to come up with a fallback plan. If everything drags out and your startup is not picking up any interest (or just not enough of interest) from the VCs, then you need to have the famous plan B. And in this case I don’t mean buying 5 years worth of green beans and a big gun.. You need to plan for extended periods without outside money, getting the company risk level and burn rate right etc. If its not VCs maybe its angels? or maybe its your own pockets? maybe its one good pilot customer? What ever it is, have the plan in place and expect having to go for it.

CC Attribution: mringlein@Flickr

9. Have your own term sheet ready. It speeds things up and ends up in your benefit if you make your own term sheet before the VC gives you one. it helps you to have a clear sense of the kind of stuff that goes into it. You might not end up actually using it for anything else than comparing, but there might be situations where you can offer to propose the first set of terms to the VC. This is probably way more common with Angels, since most VCs have their “standard” terms sheet (with nothing really being standard or fixed in them). Preparing your own set of terms mainly helps you to think and that comes in rather handy when you actually have to negotiate the stuff – you’ll understand it better and have thought through the meaning of different terms. Actually the smart VCs prefer this as well: they would rather have an entrepreneur signing with them who knows exactly what he signed, instead of a one that has no clue at all. VC terms can vary a lot. There’s also a bit of a Gap between what the VCs say is “standard” and what they actually sign in the end. For example: many VCs claim liquidation preferences to be a standard term. Yet out of the 9 rounds of financing I have seen only two have actually had that term included. So in my book it’s rather rare to be seen. Same goes for another classic “strict term”: anti-dilution clause for the VC. Out of the 9 deals only one has had that. There’s actually enough substance regarding this matter that I might write a separate blog entry on this alone..

CC Attribution: Márcio Cabral de Moura@Flickr

10. Finally: know what you are doing, and research the investors. Partially this is a repeat of number 4 above there, but I want to separately underline this one. It is vitally important for your “VC readiness” to research the investors, really find out about them, use your contacts, talks to people etc. Talk to other VCs, talk to startups that have done deals with the VC, talk to angels, to Tekes, to who ever. Find out all the classic and generic details: “sweet spot” for investments, typical deal size, typical exit, typical terms, the likes and dislikes (and the backgrounds) of their partners, etc. Finding out this stuff will mostly help you to figure out are they the right investor for your. And if they are the info will help you in the talks. What to do if despite all of this you don’t raise attention from the VCs? Then calm down. Leave it be for about 6 months. Get back in touch (with a revenge) and update them on all the fantastic progress you should have been making by then. Meanwhile go for the angels, or the FFF, or what ever keeps you focused on the Big Plan. Don’t dwell too far into project services and selling the skin off your back, that may be a living, but its not going to be a venture backed startup any time soon. (sorry, it just rarely happens that way).

As the summer draws to a close, and we get ready to launch into the new academic year, the words of an unknown thinker written a long ago on a wall in Kruunuhaka come to mind: ‘Why the rush?’ I certainly do not have an answer to that one, but the question itself is very thought-provoking. Despite the rush, hopefully all of you will have a nice and peaceful autumn.

Early in the summer, the National Union of University Students in Finland published its most recent report on the Finnish universities as seen through the eyes of the students (In Finnish, ‘Opiskelijan yliopisto 2008’, available in Finnish at www.syl.fi, under asiakirjat – julkaisut). In the very near future, we will go through the report together with the faculties and students as usual.

The report ranked TKK rather low: we were awarded an average grade for many areas and rated above average in others. The poorest areas included, for instance, guiding international students and collecting of feedback from them, recognising previous studies, evaluating study attainments and our dedication to teaching. Granted, all universities have some – and often similar – aspects that need improvement, but I would still rather see TKK ranked high by students, too.

On a related note, I attended the annual SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education) conference in Aalborg, Denmark this summer. The themes addressed by the guest keynote speakers and discussed in the parallel sessions and workshops can by summarised as follows: it is worth doing research on engineering education in order to find out how we can best reach learning objectives, broaden the students’ expertise and give them the skills and knowledge they need as professionals.

In the sessions, we discussed problem- and project-based teaching as well as the organisation of multidisciplinary cooperation. Those interested in the development of teaching would probably like to read the conference programme at www.sefi.be and also to know that the following conference will take place in Rotterdam on 1 to 4 July 2009.

For a variety of reasons, the poor coping of new students has raised concerns at TKK. For instance, they have earned credits at a much slower pace than we had hoped. Furthermore, when problems accumulate, the general wellbeing of the students is suddenly at risk.

To ease the situation, the Rector and the TKK committee on academic affairs have allocated additional resources for projects focused on problems arising during the first years of studies. So far, changes have been made to the teaching methods used for courses of mathematics and computer science, but we will see similar projects launched by other departments in the future. While some of the planned improvements will be implemented later and take effect in the long run, we aim to notably improve many areas as early as during this autumn.

In addition to these measures, it is also important to simply care about the new students. I am sure all of us commit to our work and feel well, provided we understand the nature and purpose of our work and feel that our contribution is respected by the rest of the community. All in all, we want to have a sense of being in control of our lives. Dear teacher colleagues and others, in the spirit of the University of Love and Education (* enjoy life, constantly learn new things and work hard to care about others, like they care about you.

Eetu

*) A name that was suggested for the new university but did not get selected..

Rob Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation is certain that the way for turbocharged growth is in “innovation economics”. “Innovation is what is driving growth, and there a policies one could employ to support innovation” Atkinson says. According to Atkinson the US should use tax incentives and spending on R&D, patent generation and increase the number of science and engineering graduates. There is also data to support these claims, from 1980 to 2001, all net growth in the U.S. came from firms 5 years old or less, while older companies actually lost jobs.

Lower taxes, new infrastructure and balancing the budget might be a way to wrestle the beast of trade depression, but according to Atkinson you would have go all twelve rounds instead of going for a KO in the first. To upgrade living standards government must support technological innovation. For example, government spending led to the invention of the internet, says Atkinson.

“The way you drive innovation is when the public and private sectors work together,” he said. “An R&D tax credit does distort the economy, but the growth vastly outweighs the costs.”

Why this matters in Finland is because the future of our economy is no longer local, but global and at the heart of Finland’s keys to success today and in the future is in R&D and innovation done in the 23 science parks in Finland, the largest being Otaniemi.

The formation on the Aalto University is a clear step toward an approach to create a platform for future innovation. A collision of future technology engineers, designers and economist could be the hotspot for interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. With world class research in nanotechnology, wireless technologies and mobile technology among others, Finland has the opportunity to be an “innovation economy” and generate new growth in the economy with a star trekkian approach to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Pekka Front, Otaniemi Marketing

(Source: statesman.com: Innovation is key to economic growth, analyst argues by Marilyn Geewax)

Summer holidays in Finland have started and so has Ari’s and Melissa’s holiday. Both will be returning on the 4th of August.

For urgent matters you can contact Pekka Front pekka.front@otaniemi.fi or by telephone +358 400 730 039

Enjoy the Summer!

Tomorrow I will start my summer holiday in Province, France and then leap to maternity leave again…

From Monday, June 30th all Otaniemi Marketing related marketing communications issues will be taken care of by my substitute Pekka Front, pekka.front@otaniemi.fi, or telephone +358 400 730039.

I thank you all for your cooperation and wish you a sunny and relaxing summer. See you later!

Cheers,
Elina

Marketta Kokkonen, Mayor of Espoo