We talk a lot about Serendipity on Twitter.

In his classic book, Austin (1978) distinguished four levels of serendipity or chance. They can apply to individuals, but a team provides more opportunities for them to happen - look for the similarities with what happens on social networks. How do you leverage your networks to improve opportunity?

Chance 1 – ‘blind chance’ or accident. By sheer luck you just
happen to find yourself in the right place at the right time.
Nothing to do with your lifestyle, though you had the presence
of mind to take the opportunity when it appeared.

Chance 2 – wide-ranging exploration. A wide-ranging,
energetic, enquiring lifestyle will tend to generate opportunities
for useful chances to happen (though it can also result in lack
of focus – you have to achieve a balance). As Charles Kettering,
the engineer, put it: ‘Keep on going and the chances are you
will stumble on something, perhaps when you least expect it.
I’ve never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting
down’ (quoted in Austin, 1978).

Chance 3 – the prepared mind. ‘In observation, chance
favours the prepared mind’ (Louis Pasteur). Specific, highly
developed interests and background make you more likely to
notice chance events relevant to that background. 3M’s Arthur
Fry had been looking for uses for Spence Silver’s semi-sticky
glue, so when the bookmarks in his choir-book kept falling out,
his ‘prepared mind’ made the link to the idea of the now
ubiquitous Post-it note

Chance 4 – individualised action. This combines Chance III
with an enhanced version of Chance II – you not only have a
‘prepared mind’, ready to respond to relevant opportunities that
emerge, but also have a lifestyle that makes ‘relevant opportunities’
more likely to happen. This may be, for example, because you
increase your networking and communication, or put yourself in
more places where you are likely to be exposed to input you
can use.

(Thanks to the Open University Business School).