Harnessing serendipity –

the role of emergent competence platforms

Ilkka Kakko @Serendipitor

Seats2Meet, Utrecht 23.3.2015

The benefits of coworking

© Lee Fleming 2004 /HBR November 2004

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen

and thinking what nobody has thought

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

”Postnormal Era” is emerging

• The “Big Shift”

- The most useful information is flowing

- The most dynamic way to motivate is “movement”

- The most effective way to organize resources is based on competence platforms

- The driving force is passion

- The success of new ventures is decided by the social capital involved

- The ultimate happiness is achieved with Work – Learn – Play integration

• Pull instead of push

- “Access is more important than ownership”

- The era of antifragile ecosystems which gain from VUCA – volatility, uncertainty,

complexity and ambiguity

*) Ref: “Postnormal era” was coined by Stowe Boyd, Big Shift is a term by John Hagel et al presented in a book

“The Power of Pull”, “Antifragile” is a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Access vs. ownership – platform economy

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface/

Big Shift ?http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2013/03/13/sxsw-austin-workplace-trends-serendipity-is-the-new-synergy/

Serendipity

Definition:

• Serendipity is a quality of mind, which throughawareness, sagacity and good fortune allows one to frequently discover somethinggood while looking for something else

• It illustrates also the processleading to serendipitousfindings

Background:

• The Persian fable from 6th century ”The Travels and Adventures of Three Princesof Serendip”

• Horace Walpole coined the word 1754 in his letter to Horace Mann

Work

Learn Play

Examples of serendipity

Science:

Archimedes

Columbus

Penicillin

X-rays

Teflon

…more than 200 examples in the book (1989)

and after 1989 in business:

• Post It

• Viagra

• SMS messaging

• Bitcoin

• Graphene

• ……..

Work

Learn Play

Elements of Serendipity

Elements:

• Unexpected (event, encounter, use), surprisingand odd finding, contradictions

• Insight, discovery, act of noticing

• Value created

• Prepared (mind, community, organization)

The challenge :

• To understand it

• To create environments for it

• To harness it

The picture, Stephann Makri / SerenA project

The benefits of coworking

© Lee Fleming 2004 /HBR November 2004

Discovery consist of seeing what everybody has seen

and thinking what nobody has thought

Anabel Quas- Haase presentation / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxMPvTjB3uA#!

Plan, design, engineer, manage, harness…..

There are several ways to describe the purpose of gaining from serendipity :

”Planned serendipity”, Muller&Becker

”Design for serendipity”, Hagel&Seely Brown&Davison

”Maximize serendipity around you”, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

”Engineering serendipity”

”Cultivating serendipity”

… also serendipity engines (Google), serendipity machines (Seats2Meet)

are mentioned

Coincidensity – diversity and density (Stowe Boyd / Matt Biddulph)

Synchronicity – Joseph Jaworski et al. (Jung….)

My terminology:

> ”Harnessing serendipity” on individual and community level and

> ”Serendipity management” on institutional and organizational level

Luck vs. preparedness

”If an unexpected event or encounter will turn out to be

fruitful and create some value, will depend largely on

one’s ability to discover and be insightful. Therefore,

”getting lucky” is in most cases a matter of preparedness

and not a result of pure luck”.

Definition of Serendipity Management

“Serendipity management is a comprehensive set of

tools and facilitation methodologies, which through:

* workspace design-both physical and virtual - and

* facilitation of unexpected encounters and

collective insight

will support the emergence of new combinations of

competences and the generation of breakthrough ideas.”

(http://karostech.fi/services/#serendipity)

Three types of serendipitous findings

© Lee Fleming 2004 /HBR November 2004

Platforms

Exchange platforms:

Enablers

Huge value creation for

platform provider

Agora - principle

Development platforms:

More like ecosystems

Apple, Android, Linux,

Ubuntu

Competence platforms

only emerging

http://karostech.fi/category/blog/

Virtual collaboration platform-GLOW 2006

Work

Learn Play

GLOW; netWork Oasis, Joensuu Science Park

Competence platforms

Successful competence platform:

• supports to find and create topics (”swarms”) of mutual interests

• creates a real ecosystem => Skills and Wills properly documented

• have the ability of the best learning platforms (ref. John Hagel) --- the competence levels of all engaged will improve => the possibility to createunique combinations of competences

• uses the elements of gamification in an encouraging way

• creates trust by blending social and business activities

- the cohesive power is both bonding and identity –a balanced mix is needed

• is able to measure and evaluate the performance of individuals and teams => inheritance respected and required => VBE practices applied (see more: Camarinha-Matos&Afsarmanesh ”Collaborative Networks: ReferenceModeling”; Springer 2008)

Competence platforms: challenges

The mistakes to avoid / to learn in building a competence platform:

• not able to create a critical mass => NOTE: an exponential growthcurve

• not enough critical success stories and testimonials from the verybeginning!

• ontological challenges when describing and classifying the competences

• self-assesment vs. peer evaluation

• psychological barriers especially in internal company platforms

• too much focus on coincidensity --- diversity and density

• integration to project management and documentation software is missing – or is on the poor level

Critical success factor

Y

X

VALUE

NUMBEROF USERS

The future

Competence platforms are a lucrative business, yet in its infancy:

• many development projects are running at the moment

• there will be a rush of competence platform launches in 2015

• the big players might dominate the field on the long run – at least when

acquiring some of the promising first runners

• competence platform will be an integral part of any ambitious

innovation ecosystem

The main beneficiaries will be freelancer communities, innovation

intermediaries (like STPs and regional and national development

companies), coworking chains and consortiums and those big companies

which follow extended enterprise practises

What it takes?

”There is no more powerful way to attract new ideas and

interesting and inspiring people to you, than leading a

meaningful life!”

Muller&Becker 2012

Thank you!

For further information:

Ilkka Kakko

+ 358 50 536 2941

Twitter: @Serendipitor

ilkka.kakko@karostech.fi

www.karostech.fi

www.respectserendipity.com