Ian Leslie has penned a lovely piece for Intelligent Life about serendipity, and why it matters in the digital age.\u00a0 As a serendipity architect it’s tempting to repost the entire piece, but I’ve pulled the highlights out below:<\/p>\n
Google can answer almost anything you ask it, but it can\u2019t tell you what you ought to be asking. Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Centre for Civic Media at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a long-time evangelist for the internet, points out that it doesn\u2019t match the ability of the printed media to bring you information you didn\u2019t know you wanted to know. He calls the front page of a newspaper a \u201cdiscovery engine\u201d: the lead story tells you something you\u2019re almost certain to be interested in\u2014the imminent collapse of the global economy, or Lady Gaga\u2019s latest choice of outfit\u2014and elsewhere on the page you learn that revolution has broken out in a country of whose existence you were barely aware. Editors with an eye for such things, what Zuckerman calls \u201ccurators\u201d, are being superseded by \u201cfriends\u201d\u2014people like you, who probably already share your interests and world view\u2014delivered by Facebook. Twitter is better at leading us to the interests of people beyond our social circle, but our tendency to associate with others who think in similar ways\u2014what sociologists call our \u201cvalue homophily\u201d\u2014means most of us end up with a feed that feels like an extended dinner party.<\/em><\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
…But when everyone can get the same information in more or less the same way, it becomes harder to be original; innovation thrives on the serendipitous collision of ideas. Zuckerman told me about a speech on serendipity he recently gave to an audience of investment managers. As he started on his theme he feared he might lose their attention, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that they hung on every word. It soon became clear why. \u201cIn finance, everyone reads Bloomberg, so everyone sees the same information.\u201d Zuckerman said. \u201cWhat they\u2019re looking for are strategies for finding inspiration from outside the information orbit.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n