It was just a handful of words, spoken by the last of eight speakers on a monumental day last week in New Brunswick: The ground-breaking of Nokia Bell Labs new headquarters at the HELIX.
“Collaboration is not a transaction.”
Here’s hoping the ‘Who’s Who’ list of business leaders and elected officials at the event took in these words from Thierry Klein, the president of Bell Labs Solutions Research.
Klein was explaining why Nokia Bell Labs was so excited to be coming to the HELIX innovation district in New Brunswick — so excited about the opportunity to work with academic institutions such as Rutgers, Princeton, NJIT and Stevens, innovative startups that will be launched in nurtured by Portal Innovations, and business leaders and elected officials in the area and around the state.
Klein kept going.
“Collaboration is a mindset and a belief,” he told the crowd. “It’s a belief that you can do better when you work together.”
No one knows this better than Bell Labs, Klein said.
Sure, the famed lab has won 11 Noble Prizes among a host of other important awards. But those awards have little value unless they were the result of working with others to solve a problem, Klein said.
Simply put, if you invent something that no one can use — something that doesn’t impact society — then what have you really accomplished? Klein often asks.
That’s what Nokia Bell Labs is all about, Klein said. That’s why its famous scientists and researchers are just as glad to be coming to New Brunswick (in 2028) as leaders in the city, county and state are to have them.
“We’re really bringing that spirit of collaboration to New Brunswick, and hope to learn from all of you,” he said.
Who knows what great discovery will come next.
The only certainty is that it will come easier if everyone follows Klein’s words of wisdom: Collaboration is not a transaction — it’s the best way to do business.
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