A process called "serendipity"

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Tue Aug 2 14:30:18 UTC 2011


In an interview on Boston radio this morning about the new method of
creating innovative technologies at MIT (see subtitle of his book),
with its new, open floorplans allowing teachers, students, and
"sponsors" to mix freely and observe each other's ... innovations,
Frank Moss said "... it's [or "in"] a process we call "serendipity' ...".

I don't suppose they were able to patent it, however.  And they
probably can't trademark it either -- perhaps 5 different uses in
Google Books, the earliest 1965.  So I'm somewhat behind the times in
not recognizing serendipity as a process, rather than a happenstance.

Moss is author of "The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices (2011) and
former director of MIT's Media Lab, but now "managing partner of
Strategic Software Ventures, LLC, and a part-time professor of the
practice at the MIT Media Lab, where he heads the New Media Medicine
group", according to his biography on an MIT Media Lab site.

Joel

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