The brilliant book #
In his book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, author Steven Johnson cites serendipity as being a rich source of breakthroughs.
Johnson states:
“For a hunch to blossom into something more substantial, it has to connect with other ideas. The hunch requires an environment where surprising new connections can be forged: the neurons and synapses of the brain itself, and the larger cultural environment that the brain occupies.”
If this connection with other ideas is to take place, the brain seems to require regular periods of electrical chaos, where neurons are completely out of sync with each other.
From chaos comes serendipity #
Out of this chaos and out of these random connections comes serendipity. Out of serendipity come breakthroughs.
However, might a little bit of electrical chaos help when looking at any other type of connections in life?
If we take a look at the world of commerce. Active business owners build their professional networks and client bases to extend their influence, win more work and keep their teams happy.
Good use of marketing allows them to inform, educate and (perhaps) entertain people they wish to bounce ideas off and work with.
Having a presence across several platforms and consistently reaching out to new business connections, creates spinoffs.
I experienced this last week for a client. A phone conversation was had on their behalf and; all being well, the “bolt out of the blue” experience will be for my client’s future benefit.
Tap into bigger markets to create serendipity #
In this Information Age, our target markets are often bigger than we think and never has it been so cost-effective to reach thousands of people and communicate with them on a 1-2-1 basis. This can be implemented across several platforms, using a number of techniques: email, messaging, blogs, letters, posts, tweets and; of course, the phone.
The greater our forging of new connections, the higher the probability of serendipitous outcomes.
Now, isn’t that something to put a smile on our faces for a job well done?
“Serendipity. You don’t have to understand it, you just have to have faith.”
Thank you for reading.
