by Wim Soens

Serendipity is sometimes described as ‘an accidental invention’. Wrong, if you ask me, because an invention is never purely coincidental. Clever people with a vision have a good chance to make these supposedly accidental discoveries more often. Or as Louis Pasteur once put it: "Fortune favors the prepared mind." Before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the observation that has lead to the discovery was probably already done by dozens of others. But Alexander Fleming was the first to really notice it. His vision was the trigger to actually observe and analyze this new phenomenon.

If you observe nature and society from the right mindset, they form an inexhaustible source of inspiration for new discoveries. But achieving real innovation also requires people with the ambition to actually do something with these discoveries. Only until ten years after Fleming’s discovery a group of researchers began to isolate small amounts of penicillin, purifying them and obtaining sufficient quantities for bringing the medicine to the market. And the ‘failed’ adhesive Dr. Spence Silver invented was not applied until Art Fry came up with the idea to use Silver's adhesive to make the famous Post-it bookmarks with it.

Hence it is essential to share our vision and ambition with as many people we can inside and outside the company. The more we are aware of each other's ideas, the better we can make associations, synchronize and cooperate. Intense social interactions not only enrich the outcome, but also the persons who have contributed. New opportunities will float to the surface naturally, as well as the right people to successfully achieve them.

So let me share my vision with you:
I am convinced that the new wave of innovation revolves around efficiently harnessing the creative potential of people, and I believe that the innovation of social processes, using social software and supporting technologies, will be crucial to detect and exploit new markets faster and more efficiently.

Take it from me, enterprises need a smart collaborative system to make certain people are poised to exploit their discoveries. True innovation is the result of collaboration, sharing visions and ambitions, merging and clustering ideas and insights, and shaping high value concepts for the market.

And as far as our ambition concerns, we have plenty here at Indie Group. With our CogniStreamer® team and technology, we are definitely planning to play an important role in this social revolution. Anybody in for some collaboration?