Researching Serendipity in Digital Information Environments. Lori McCay-Peet
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individual involved must have the human cognitive capacity and ability or knowledge and experience to make that observation—the prepared mind—which is often an observation that many have failed to notice, recognize, or even consider. From penicillin to dynamite, and microwave ovens to Post-it notes and Velcro, the “know-how” of the person making the observation is integral to the discovery. Chemist Paul Flory, on receiving the 1977 Perkin Medal, noted,
Significant inventions are not mere accidents. The erroneous view [that they are] is widely held, and it is one that the scientific and technical community, unfortunately, has done little to dispel. Happenstance usually plays a part, to be sure, but there is much more to invention than the popular notion of a bolt out of the blue. Knowledge in depth and in breadth are virtual prerequisites. Unless the mind is thoroughly charged beforehand, the proverbial spark of genius, if it should manifest itself, probably will find nothing to ignite (Flory, 1977, p. 4).
Similarly, medieval historian, Julian Luxford (2009) was researching two topics at once (sources for his book on medieval drawings and decoration in Carthusiasn manuscripts) when he stumbled upon a rare negative reference to Robin Hood in the marginalia of a 13th century medieval manuscript in the Eton school library. Even though other medieval scholars had examined the same manuscript, only he both recognized the find, and went on to write about the out-of-the-ordinary discovery. His knowledge of the era and context enabled him to recognize the value of the scribble. Pasteur astutely reached the same conclusion illustrated above a century earlier; it is not about luck and chance, but also about knowledge and experience. In a 1854 speech to the Faculté des Sciences at Lille, Pasteur made his now famous quote in describing the discovery of the technology underlying the telegraph. As he relayed it, Orsted observed the movement of a magnetic needle “suddenly by chance, you might say, but remember, that in the sciences of observation, chance favors the mind which is prepared.”1
In all of these cases there was an “intellectual preparedness” (Fine and Deegan, 1996) that enabled the researcher to understand the value of the observation, and then to allow for the “ah ha” moment to occur. If a person only sees what one is looking for, then one may miss the chance discovery.
3. While the individual needs the ability based on knowledge and experience to sense the anomaly and its import, the individual also must have the human mental space at that time to absorb it, and recognize its value, and the perseverance to then act on it. Fleming (1964) in his 1945 Nobel speech described his discovery:
…I prefer to tell the truth, that penicillin started as a chance observation. My only merit is that I did not neglect the observation and that I pursued the subject as a bacteriologist (p. 83).
It takes a person in the right “mental space” to observe, interpret and seize the opportunity.
Surprises and accidents and incidental information encountering occur every day to everyone. But not everyone can turn that surprise or accident or new piece of information into a significant outcome. From the examples mentioned earlier, how many other people were exposed to the same or similar set of circumstances but failed to see the relevance? “The “natural tendency of the unprepared mind is to discard the unusual” (Rosenau as quoted in Merton and Barber, 2004, p. 179).
Perhaps the most fitting example is the case of the floppy rabbit ears (Barber and Fox, 1958). Two eminent medical research groups separately and nearly simultaneously noticed that the normally stiff upright ears of rabbits flopped when the rabbits were injected with a particular enzyme. Both considered it abnormal and anomalous, and initially put the observation aside. Five years later, one of the researchers, Lewis Thomas, followed up on his curiosity noting that the enzyme also attacked the cartilage in bones and joints and led him to connect the observation to his interest in human disease and its relevance to rheumatoid arthritis and emphysema (Bashyam, 2007). One researcher followed up on the observation, while the other ignored it. Both were equally capable and had the knowledge to pursue it.
4. Incubation, consumption, and follow-up time is a factor in all phenomena described as serendipitous, and it is this factor which exacerbates our ability to research serendipity. While we often delight in Archimedes “Eureka!” it is a rarity that an observation is made and a discovery is realized in the blink of an eye. There is a gestation period so that the anomaly or surprise can be explored, interpreted, and analyzed, as the case of the floppy ears attests; this aspect is typically attributed to the creative process (Herrmann, 1989). Pasteur was purported to have said “Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.”
5. There is a valuable outcome. In the sciences, it may have global ramifications such as the discovery of penicillin, radioactivity and smart dust. But at the individual level, it may lead to a change in direction, or personal problem solved. It is in the outcome that the relationship between serendipity and creativity become apparent: “creativity involves coming up with something novel, something different. And, in order to be interesting, it must be something intelligible and must relate to that which we know before” (Boden, 1996, p. 165), but it most likely will be something that no one has thought of before (Shaprio, 1986). However, serendipity is not a mirror image of the creative process; serendipity is a divergent process that may also discover a problem (Campos and de Figueiredo, 2002) that does not fit the usual creative process.
In summary, for an event, outcome or process to be serendipitous, it is initiated with an anomalous observation by a person who has the requisite skills to observe its irregularity, and the mental space to follow through on the observation, taking whatever requisite time is required to turn it into an unexpected finding. This is a time-tested process well documented in the physical world in science, medicine and technology in particular. This now serves as a basis for our examination of serendipity in digital information environments. Table 3.1 illustrates how five research groups who have studied serendipity in digital information environments have conceptualized the elements of serendipity primarily as a linear process, but influenced by additional elements. Chapter 4 shows how we have adapted the physical world perspective described above to the digital information environment.
1.3 HOW SERENDIPITY HAPPENS
From the origins and use of the concept to date, three potential interpretations of how serendipity unfolds have emerged. They serve as a useful approach in understanding and deconstructing the process. Rather than enter that debate (e.g., is pseudo serendipity really serendipity?), we instead associate all three with serendipity although each has its supporters and naysayers. The three types are described below and illustrated in Figure 1.1. Examples are provided for each, all drawn from the sciences because they provide concrete illustrations of the three ways serendipity has been described to date. These types will be further explored specifically in relation to digital information environments in Chapter 4.
• Type A. From Observations to Solution
An individual makes an observation that leads to the discovery of something novel; neither the observation nor the outcome is the objective of the investigation. This was the basis on which Walpole created the concept. In his description of the tale, the three princes were not looking for anything; they were able to solve a problem once they were presented with the clues. This has been described as abduction—“a form of reasoning to discover something new” (as discussed in Van Andel, 1994, p. 636), but regardless of the reasoning process, Type A meets the five conditions discussed in Section 1.2.
Examples:
° When Spencer stood near a magnetron, a vacuum tube that generates microwaves to boost the sensitivity of radar, he noted an odd sensation; the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted, and a bag of popcorn popped. A year later he had patented the technology for a microwave oven (e.g., Leslie, 2012);
° George de Mestral was out walking his dog when he noted the prickly seeds from shrubs that got caught in the fabric of his clothes, which led him to wonder why which they stick, and after