"Last night,I had a dream. I dreamt that I had brought together the best and brightest minds in the world and made a company that was as benevolent as it was powerful. When I awoke, I smiled, because the morning paper told me that dream was reality."

Mitchel Bender looked out at the auditorium, every seat filled by a member of his company. Some of them had been rivals as recently as last week, working on competing projects. The approval of the merger changed all of that. Now they were all united under the banner of British Implimentations, the company that Mitch's dear old dad Samuel had founded some seventy years earlier. If he could only see it now, Mitch thought frequently, he wouldn't recognize it, but he'd be proud.

Now it was Mitch's turn to be proud. Proud that the transition from two disparate parts to a coherent whole had gone so well. He had worked hard to bring most of these people on board and felt the pain of every severence check he had to write for those whos services were too redundant. The board had criticized the size of those packages, but hadn't dared to fight him too hard on the matter. After all, he'd never been wrong before about how public opinon could make or break their business.

"Now the hard work begins," he said as the screen behind him changed from the BI logo to it's motto: scientia, misericordia et pertinacia. "Now we must become better. We must become greater. And most of all we must remember to use our position for the betterment of everyone." He paused until the applause died down. "Both British Implimentations and Diversified Research Engineering had a long history of serving the public trust. With that history now combined and the amassed resources to support our initiatives, there is nothing we can't do." More applause. "Over the coming weeks, as the lawyers and accountants sort out the arcane details that allow us to function in the modern world," there was a slight chuckle from various places in the audience as those who knew too well his dislike for the vagaries of what he called the legal mumbo jumbo required to keep other people vaguely honest took note of his wry smile, "we will be announcing a number of new programs. There will be ones on local, national and international levels... and every one of them will work to make our world a better place."

He smiled as the gathered employees, old and new, offered a standing ovation. Then he waved them down. "Now, now... don't get too excited yet. You haven't even heard the best news yet." The room quieted down quickly to some perplexed murmers. When it was again silent, he continued, slightly more serious than before. "I know this transition has been difficult for some of you. You've lost friends and colleagues to the reorganization. Some of you have recieved notice that you'll be changing departments or divisions or given the option to relocate. I know how stressful that can be. When I was growing up and my dad was running BI, we moved a dozen times in three years, just so he could be where the action was happening. I learned from him that the best way to lead is from the front, with your own hands dirty with the work of your people. A lot has changed at BI since then, but one thing remains true: I will always be working just as hard as any of you. I don't think I've been doing that as much as I should. There's some corners of BI that I haven't visited in well over a year. The merger has brought more of those nooks and crannies that I want to become familiar with. And that's why I'm stepping down as CEO."

There was a shared gasp followed by a stunned vacuum of silence. Mitch let that sit for a few beats before he continued. "I know that may not make much sense to you right now, but I promise that in a week, a month, or a year, it will. The bottom line is, I need to get to know you all again... and that's no small task." The image behind him changed, now it was of a woman most in the audience recognized. "I'm turning the day to day operations over to our long-time operations officer, Deborah Lambert. Deb's going to make sure the money keeps coming in so your paychecks keep clearing." He smiled and winked at the audience, eliciting a slight, somewhat nervous, chuckle. "I trust her dedication to our base principles and her ability to keep BI moving forward in a good direction. Heck, she may even do so well you won't want me back after my year in the trenches is over. Now I'll get out of her way and let Deb announce the really big news."

Mitch stepped aside as Deborah Lambert enetered from the side of the stage. With the two of them standing next to one another, Mitch couldn't help but notice just how shabby his own suit looked and how much more "business like" she seemed. The one thing they had in common--the thing they had always had in common, and the only reason he felt he was able to do this--was that personable glow in her eye. That spark that showed a deep knowledge of and belief in the whole being greater than the sum of its parts and of the ability of any part to greatly improve the state of the whole.

"Thank you, Mitch, I certainly hope I'm up to the task. You leave some pretty big shoes to fill."

"Oh, those... don't worry, I'll have the office closet cleaned out by the time you get back from your three hour lunch meeting with the lawyers," Mitch smiled. The crowd laughed, as did Deb.

"I'm sure you will. And since I do have that meeting coming up shortly, I'll get right to the point. My first act as CEO of British Implimentations is to announce the creation of a new project." The image of her face faded and an animation began to run. "We live in an increasingly complex world." A map appeared, dots popping up over major cities, images flying out of each showing a multitude of activities. "Everything is interrelated and can deeply effect other aspects of the whole." Lines began linking the still scrolling images, soon obscuring the map. "Those interreations are so complex that they often obscure the big picture. We get caught up in either the details or the complexity. We forget about what's important: the results, the causes, the people who have to deal with both. We miss what's really going on... we lost site of the forest because of all the trees." The images stopped scrolling, the interconnecting lines grew thicker and brighter, washing out everything on the screen. Then the whole field of white began to turn in on itself, warping and rolling into a spinning sphere, individual pictures of people--some employees of BI--clearly cycling through. "Our new project will help manage that complexity by gathering it all together, distilling it down, and feeding it back out to the public at large. Our new project will help bring what's important back into focus: the overall experience of life." The sphere began to change shape. a whole opened in the top, the edge rolled out and the main body became a bit more wide than tall. Its color changed to black and it tilted down to reveal a boiling sea of images and data, swirling around in a stew that was then served out by a hovering ladel to a series of stick figures carrying bowls. "Project Cauldron will strive to do two things: Collect as much available information as possible on how the world around us works and allow the public to access all that information in order to make informed decisions about anything. collect and preserve as many of the parts that make up the whole as possible, creating the first every comprehensive interrealted storehouse of cultural and personal experience. It will be a return to time when everyone in the tribe would gather together and tell their stories. It will be food for the mind and soul--a community fare that can easily connect disparate parties who share common goals."

There was some chatter in the crowd, snippets of questions regarding the feasability of the idea and musings of the overlap with already existing systems drifted to the podium.

"Trust me, I was just as skeptical as you are that this could be done. But I've seen the preliminary data and believe that not only can it be done, but that it must be done.  if BI and the world in general are going to thrive over the next century. We face a coming crisis. It is not impending doom by any means, but already the complexity of the world causes many to just segment themselves from the whole. Attempting as best they can to reamin sequestered in their own bubble of safety, security and understanding. So far, this has worked. But recent studies conducted by both BI and DRE have indicated a breaking point where such willful segmentation will deteriorate into pure chaos. It may be hundreds of years away, it may be thousands, but if the world continues to grow as it has been, the point will be reached and, at best, all progress will come to a halt. Every day, thousands of valuable life stories pass into oblivion as the people who lived them die. Imagine, if you will, what could be accomplished if that knowledge and experience could be better captured, preserved and shared with those in need, all around the world. Imagine if Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Ben Franklin could all come together to work on problems--each with todays knowledge at their disposal. The possiblities are endless."

The chatter quieted down slightly. Some employees nervously ran what numbers they knew about the situation through their head. Others knitted their brows as they considered what "pure chaos" on a global scale would be like. There were some murmers of questions about privacy or the wiseness of this act itsef. The scope of the project boggled many minds, Mitch could see it on their faces, something he couldn't often do when he was the one giving the speeches.

"Because this project is unique, it will require individual to build it. As CEO I am proud to introduce you to the head of Project Cauldron: Mr. Mitchel Bender." A picture of Mitch, standing next to a cauldron sitting atop a campfire, somewhere in the wilderness, came up on the screen. "I can't think of anyone more suited for the job." After the slightly confused and uneven applause died down, the screen behind her changed to again display the BI logo. "I'm sure you all have questions, and I promise they will be answered. But right now, I ask that you have a little faith and give us some time to work out the rest of the details. As the project gets up and running, I'm sure Mitch will keep you all informed in much more sensible terms than I could. With that in mind, I thank you all for coming out today and have approved additional leave for anyone who wants to take a day or two for this all to settle in."

As Deb left the stage, Mitch watched the auditorium seats empty. How many people did it seat? he wondered. Three, four hundred people? How many had been watching the telecast, the webcast? Another five hundred, maybe thousands? The news was sure to be all over the web by now. He'd have a lot of questions to answer, as would Deb. For a moment--just a moment--he envied the fact she'd be locked in a room with a bunch of laywers and accountants for the next few hours.