The Emotional Shift

To foster the conditions for serendipity, we're called on not just to express ourselves but to become more receptive to each other's contributions. It's not enough to encounter a serendipitous occurrence; we must also be primed to receive and act on it. Fortunately, we can activate a collective ability to hear and respond to each other by making an emotional shift in our environment.

The basic mechanism for receptivity is the feedback loop: if one person is expressing, others need to be hearing and responding. Twitter, Facebook, and Get Satisfaction all bake feedback loops into the way they work in order to keep the flow of conversation moving along. Twitter allows people to support others by “following” their tweets; Facebook ...

Get Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work for You and Your Business now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.