The Myth of Water Cooler Innovation: Time to Reinvent Work A September 2021 New York Times article, When Chance Encounters at the Water Cooler Are Most Useful, documents the myth of the water cooler conversation as a driver of innovation. What is true about water cooler conversations is that they help establish new relationships or reinforce existing ones. These … [Read more...] about The Myth of Water Cooler Innovation: Time to Reinvent Work
Serendipity Economy
Serendipity and Milton’s First Folio: Discovering Milton’s Annotated Copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio
Serendipity and Milton's First Folio The First Folio of Shakespeare's work ranks among the rarest of books. Only about 230 copies survive. One copy of the Folios donated to the Free Library of Philadelphia included long ignored marginalia. It turns out that serendipity had a role to play in rediscovering Milton's First Folio copy hundreds of years after the author's death. By … [Read more...] about Serendipity and Milton’s First Folio: Discovering Milton’s Annotated Copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio
Welcome to the Serendipity Economy
Industrial age economics obscures economic activity that doesn’t fit neatly into its models of productivity and efficiency. In an ever more connected world, a new framework is required that accounts for the value derived from seemingly random and unanticipated encounters and interactions. The Serendipity Economy framework posits six attributes that identify faults in our … [Read more...] about Welcome to the Serendipity Economy
Desperately Seeking A New Natural Satellite or Renew the Space Race and Find Our Adventurer’s Soul
Concept of Spacecraft with Asteroid Capture Mechanism Deployed-By leveraging capabilities across all of NASA, the agency is developing a first-ever mission to identify, rendezvous with, capture and redirect a small asteroid into a stable orbit in the lunar vicinity, and then send humans to visit it using the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. This mission … [Read more...] about Desperately Seeking A New Natural Satellite or Renew the Space Race and Find Our Adventurer’s Soul
Facebook Social Media Study Reinforces Ideas of Serendipity in Social Networks
A Facebook social media study belies the idea that social networks grow through what has been known as "viral" connections. What appears to be happening is that different groups like to be exposed through a network node, as in, you. If a number of like-minded people like the same thing, it isn't nearly as powerful as a number of different people liking the same thing. That, … [Read more...] about Facebook Social Media Study Reinforces Ideas of Serendipity in Social Networks
