In my curiousity about happenstance and how we can create the circumstances for its more common occurrence in business, I have stumbled across some academic investigations into serendipity. I have just read an earlyish paper by an authority on the topic called Pek van Andel. He is rather well-known in these circles, it transpires.
He analysed a somewhat large body of reports of serendipitous events by the scientists to whom they occurred, and came up with 17 different “patterns”. These were the types of ways in which “unsought findings” occurred in his analysis. He then goes on the define “findings” as being “when two or more elements (observations, hypotheses, ideas, facts, relations or insights) are combined originally, for the finder or anybody, to something new and true (science), new and useful (technology), or new and fascinating (arts)” I like the use of the qualifiers true, useful, or fascinating. As an aside, I think they make rather excellent media filters for my incoming daily stream: If it is is not true, useful, or fascinating, is it good food for my mind or use of my (scarce) time?
He concludes his paper (which is engagingly written so worth reading if the topic is of interest) by saying two things that reinforce some of my beliefs:
- “Serendipitous luck may come unexpectedly, but it does so only in a mind ‘prepared’ by previous interest, thought and/or experience”
- “Like all intuitive operating, pure serendipity is not amenable to generation by a computer. The very moment I can plan or programme ‘serendipity’ it cannot be called serendipity anymore.”
The paper was authored in 1994 and predates machine learning so “programming” was the means by which Van Andel would have understood computer operation at the time and he uses this as part of his argument as to why computers cannot produce serendipity. But I think the idea that intuitive operating is beyond the capabilities of a machine nevertheless still hold true and still differentiates us from the machines. I also tend to instinctively agree that laying a proper knowledge foundation for better intuition can improve our serendipity odds.
The personal and corporate challenge, then, is how to master the ability to go deep in our preparation so fortune favours us, and also to carve out what Cal Newport calls “pursuits of serendipitous encounters”. While the former may be an area where computers will excel in their ability to absorb knowledge, I believe the latter is still a domain for humans.