Serendipity seems to happen in business much more than it used to.  Why?  There are folks like you and I using social media tools that have increased the frequency of serendipity.

Yet it’s still one of the hardest things to explain to business folks.  There’s no “serendipity metric.”  There probably never will be either.

Sometimes things just happen.  Right place.  Right people.  Right time.  Right action.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

[This conversation happened last week and took place between four people - Pam Makowski, an attorney who runs her business out of Qwirk Columbus; my friend Chris Adams; and another Columbus native who I don't know personally (yet), Chrissy Bell.]

How Serendipity Works

1. Chrissy was looking for an attorney.  She tweeted that out to her network.
2. Christian, being in Chrissy’s network, decided to be helpful and spread the word of her need to his network.
3. Being in Chris’s network, and having his stream set up in my “Cbus Cool Kids” column on Hootsuite, I picked it up.
4. Knowing that Pam works 5 steps down the hall and does that type of work, I got up out of my seat and mentioned the tweets.
5. I replied to Chrissy (@thepinkwoobie) and mentioned Pam as a possible resource.
6. Pam and Chrissy hooked up online and started talking.

Looks kind of like a referral system, huh?  Referrals are usually the best and easiest business to get.  There’s already trust built into those types of transactions.  What Twitter provided was the radar and channel where the transaction took place.

And guess what?  The whole thing took less than 5 minutes.

Serendipity seems to happen a lot more often than it used to in business.  What’s your story of serendipity?  Care to share it in the comments?

nateriggs

I advise mid-sized & large organizations on how to adopt and use social media to market through organizational culture and better serve their clients. I'm also a blended family dad who enjoys music, photography and distance racing. When I'm not writing here, you can find me writing over at the Content Marketing Institute. Like what you've read so far? Then why not subscribe HERE?

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