Harnessing serendipity - the role of the emergent competence platforms

1. Harnessing serendipity –
the role of emergent competence platforms
Ilkka Kakko @Serendipitor
Seats2Meet, Utrecht 23.3.2015

2. 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

3. ”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

4. Access vs. ownership – platform economy
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface/

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

6. Serendipity
Definition:
• Serendipity is a quality of
mind, which through
awareness, sagacity and
good fortune allows one to
frequently discover something
good while looking for
something else
• It illustrates also the process
leading to serendipitous
findings
Background:
• The Persian fable from 6th
century ”The Travels and
Adventures of Three Princes
of Serendip”
• Horace Walpole coined the
word 1754 in his letter to
Horace Mann
Work
Learn Play

7. 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

8. Elements of Serendipity
Elements:
• Unexpected (event,
encounter, use), surprising
and 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

9. 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#!

10. 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

11. 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”.

12. 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)

13. Three types of serendipitous findings
© Lee Fleming 2004 /HBR November 2004

14. 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/

15. Virtual collaboration platform-GLOW 2006
Work
Learn Play
GLOW; netWork Oasis, Joensuu Science Park

16. 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 create
unique 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: Reference
Modeling”; Springer 2008)

17. Competence platforms: challenges
The mistakes to avoid / to learn in building a competence platform:
• not able to create a critical mass => NOTE: an exponential growth
curve
• not enough critical success stories and testimonials from the very
beginning!
• 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

18. Critical success factor
Y
X
VALUE
NUMBER
OF USERS

19. 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

20. 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

21. Thank you!
For further information:
Ilkka Kakko
+ 358 50 536 2941
Twitter: @Serendipitor
ilkka.kakko@karostech.fi
www.karostech.fi
www.respectserendipity.com