Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity in 1754 after reading Three Princes of Serendip. They “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” Today, we have tools at our disposal that allow us to manage serendipity or, at least, place ourselves strategically so that serendipity is possible.
What is serendipity? The traditionally accepted definition of serendipity is “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” Well then, if events are by chance, how is it possible to place ourselves where serendipity is likely?
In their book, The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion, Hagel, Brown, and Davison relate the value of our social networks (FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) as points of connection to friends and friends of friends who may have tacit knowledge we need and can grow from connecting with us gaining our tacit knowledge.
Imagine a chance reading of friends’ FaceBook wall posts that result in an opportunity to connect with another whom we share an interest. In this situation, we’ve experienced a “chance event in a happy and beneficial way.” What is the likelihood of this event happening had we not had a FaceBook profile, not been linked to our friend, and not been able to read that wall post?
We are not the Three Princes of Serendip making discoveries by accident. We create our opportunities for serendipitous events to evolve. We do not wait for it to come to us; we seek it, manage it, and benefit from it.
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