Abstract
Author Stephen Covey has written “Synergy is everywhere in nature. If you plant two plants close together, the roots commingle and improve the quality of soil so that both plants will grow better than if they were separated. If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold much more weight than the total of the weight held by each separately. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three or more.”
This issue of JALA is an excellent example of how the Association for Laboratory Automation is “commingling its roots” with like-minded professionals. For several years, ALA has enjoyed a mutually beneficial working relationship with the Laboratory Robotics Interest Group (LRIG). As the 2005 ALA President, the ALA Board of Directors and I are committed to continuing and building upon this established precedent. We are actively working to expand and enrich meaningful alliances with related professional organizations such as other nonprofit societies and associations, commercial industry groups, colleges and universities, and government agencies including national labs and business development divisions.
For example, at our LabAutomation2005 conference in San Jose, ALA welcomed eight allied entities as part of its “Friends of ALA” program: LRIG; BayBio—Northern California's Life Science Association; Bio-Link—a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education Center; State of California; Connect—the University of California Program in Technology and Entrepre-neurship; IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering; the LIMS Institute; and the Society for Biomolecular Screening. We expect to welcome even more to LabAutomation2006 in Palm Springs.
The benefits of “commingling roots” with first class organizations like these are countless. For individual participants, the value of sharing ideas and insight with other experts is immeasurable. New and different perspectives can shed important new light on old problems, and open doors to new solutions and opportunities. As Bob Gaudreau once said in an interview with Fast Company magazine, “Everyone does one thing better than you. If you learn one good idea a thousand times, you will have a thousand good ideas.”
This philosophy was clearly demonstrated (and exceptionally well received) at two new educational events at LabAutomation2005. The first, our “Open Space Techno Jam on Translational Medicine,” provided lively discussion by representatives from the life science initiative of the State of California, the San Jose BioScience Incubator, the Women's Technology Cluster, and members of the audience. Likewise, ALA's “Session in the Round on the Laboratory Workforce” offered insight from representatives of San Jose State University, University of California San Diego, Bay Area Laboratory Robotics Interest Group, BayBio, BioLink, State of California, and Genentech.
Thanks to the success of exciting partnerships like these, ALA is on the move with a tremendous amount of positive momentum. As ALA members, we all have a lot to look forward to in 2005.
Sincerely,
