Serendipity. Serendipity means a "fortunate happenstance" or "pleasant surprise".
It was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. In a letter he wrote to a friend Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made by reference to a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. The princes, he told his correspondent, were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of”. The notion of serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of scientific innovation such as Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin in 1928 and the invention of the microwave oven by Percy Spencer in 1945, the invention of the Post-it note by Spencer Silver in 1968.
The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company.[1] However, due to its sociological use, the word has been exported into many other languages.[2] Etymology[edit] The structure of serendipity[edit] Business and strategy[edit] M. Sérendipité / Serendipity. Sérendipité. Serendipity Apps: Apps for Networked Cities & Citizens. Apps. Serendipity City Challen ge. Urgent Evoke A crash course in changing the world.
The Serendipity City Challenge started prepping for a live! Serendipity trip reacting to FutureEverythings first GloNet, a prototype for a new kind of globally networked event, on Thur 13 May. FutureEverything is shifting from a single city event to one taking place simultaneously at venues around the globe. for starters kicked in a small Ning vid Find more videos like this on Urgent Evoke video taken at You can follow me live! Views: 34 Tags: LEARN10, bliin, challenge, city, futureeverything, glonet, pearltrees, serendipity, tools Share Twitter Facebook Comment by Alex Peake on May 13, 2010 at 8:03am This is really interesting and I'd like to check it out in more detail when I'm less tired and have more time. Comment by Turil Cronburg on May 13, 2010 at 12:53pm Alas, I don't speak this techno-geek-language you speak.
Comment by Gordon Freeman on May 13, 2010 at 8:22pm Comment by Gordon Freeman on May 17, 2010 at 10:21am Comment Join Urgent Evoke. Serendipity versus Spam. My EVOKE inbox has 79 messages. All of these go to my regular email address too (I know, I can change that setting, but then I'll miss the ones I DO want to see). I understand, and patiently tolerate, people's need to drive others to their posts by sending out messages to their entire friends network, or worse, to the the wh*** community -- I know I get messages from people not on my friends list.
I want to speak up for the value of personal connection, but even more, for the value of serendipity. Chances are, if you email me some spam asking me to go look at your post, I won't. I do sometimes, but only if I know you and I've already read your posts and I'm intrigued by your description of what you wrote. There are many serendipitous paths through the community. And very often, I follow a meandering path that may start with one of those, but that then leads me to look at posts by people who commented on posts I've read, or things they link to and call out.