Serendipity:
the art of finding out the right information by chance

Extract from the "Intelligence CD-Rom" by Egideria

Serendipity is a word invented by the English philosopher, Sir Horace Walpole, in 1754 to describe some people's faculty of chancing on the right information, without really looking. The word is taken from a novel of the time "The Three Princes of Serendip" (Ceylon), where chance produced the solution to the tricky situations in which they found themselves.

Serendipity identifies a strategy's blind spots, or commonly-held but unfounded beliefs, that can help a competitor or newcomer to create havoc in a market.

Take the example of a university student.

• He will often find interesting works when strolling up and down the shelves in a library or bookshop, despite them having little to do with his immediate concerns. Years later he will appreciate that this type of work has been the most useful to him. In the world of the Internet, it is possible to stroll profitably through the various categories of www.yahoo.com and come across several unexpected finds.
• The student under stress, however, rushing to hand in a paper in a few days time, is happy to request assistance from the specialist documentalist who will quickly direct him to the most relevant publications. In the world of the Internet, it is better to use a robot like www.google.com if you know exactly what you are looking for.

We recommend that anyone wishing to practice serendipity without wasting too much time stores interesting addresses found by chance in a special file, to be consulted later.