Surfing serendipity
January 31st, 2007 by Nadja
I just read a great post ‘Creating Passionate Users’ wrote on serendipity. The introduction to the very long post that is full of examples and advice to work on goes as follows:
You know the feeling: You follow a near-random trail of blog links and land on the post that solves your big business problem. You randomly flip through a physics book and find next week’s sermon. You’re shopping for discount dog food when you find your dream date. It’s the powerful charm of the iPod Shuffle (”How did it KNOW that’s just the song I needed to hear right now…”). It’s serendipity. And maybe we should build more opportunities for it into our products, services, and lives.
They conclude by asking “So… what are YOU doing to keep random input in your life and/or the lives of your users?”
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Serendipity (with a little help from the RSS-technology) made me stumble upon that post. And I guess that my answer to their final question would be that SHARE A BRAINWAVE is one of my ways to keep random input and serendipity flowing.
Seredipity decides how the notion of the SHARE A BRAINWAVE-experiment will spread throughout the world. Serendipity controls the chronology of the posts, views and insights and thereby shuffles the points in unexpected ways. Serendipity triggers what new meanings and brainwaves emerge from the intersection of the former posts.
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P.S. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that serendipity is spelled serenDIPity - surfing serendipity is thrilling, but it’s important to really let go every once in while and take the plunge into the unexpected and unknown…to see what serendipity had in mind for you…
5 Responses to “Surfing serendipity”
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Finding something seemingly irrelevant yet indeed needed is truly serendipitous!
Stumbling upon a place called Serendipity is most certainly serendipitous when walking the streets of Manhattan. (Bonus info: I found it on E 60th St.)
Did you know that among inventions that were really serendipitous by origin we can find Teflon, by Roy J. Plunkett, who invented it by accident as he was trying to develop a new gas for refrigeration and instead got a slick substance. Well, well, well. So let the waves keep rolling and let’s keep playing together :-)
By the way, my favorite quote trying to define what serendipity is all about is this one: “Serendipity is looking in a haystack for a needle and discovering a farmer’s daughter.” Julius Comroe Jr.
Actually - I’ve just returned from winterholidays in Cambodia. On of the beautiful beaches in coastal Sihanouxville was called Serendipity Beach. That was the place where everyone wanted to stay - several funky guesthouses with beautiful bungalows on a dramatic cliff overlooking the beach.
But you couldn’t reserve a bungalow in advance. You had to take the chance - and let serendipity decide your accomodations…
Well - I guess Columbus discovered the Americas with the help from serendipity as well…
That’s what I call a radical booking philosophy. And of course, I like that! (being someone who takes life sometimes a little too personal and thus radicalizes thoughts as they are turned into real life actions - such as removing the idiotic CAPS LOCK key on the keyboard because it gives nothing but trouble ;-) )
Oh and talking of who discovered America, when Leif Eriksson set foot on American soil (Newfoundland that was), it was only because he tried to escape a storm.
Maybe the waves of the sea made him feel nauseous?
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