BlogDay 2007: Serendipity is the new Geography

In the good old days, geography was the biggest factor that controlled what you can ‘find’ and access. Even with the advent of faster, cheaper, easier communication methods, the tight coupling between serendipity and geography remained. Mainly due to the the view that communication merely shrinks distances and enlarges the geographic scope as evident from the cliche Location!, Location!, Location! Add faster and cheaper computing to the equation, the game changes drastically. First, the distances are sufficiently shrunk leading to the rhetoric: Geography is History.
Though the distances are shrunk, the vastness remains unconquered. Just like how motorized transportation helped conquer the distance, computing power(with vast persistence i.e., memory) in increasingly employed to conquer the vastness. Google is a good example of a service that combines communication and computing to make geography history and also attempt conquer the vastness simultaneously. Increased reliance on such services has once again starting to control what you can ‘find’ and access. Thus the serendipity offered Google like services becoming the new Geography. Indeed, when Geography is History, Serendipity is the New Geography.

Now if you are a business, especially a small business, you must be curious on how to improve your Location in the new Geography. In other words how to improve your small business serendipity? Simple, Live Your Business Aloud! Embrace Social media. Just record the Zeitgeist of your (small)business in a social medium convenient/suitable for you/your biz. Engage in the conversation. The rest is natural and automatic. Spreading link love is a good way to engage in a conversation.

Today being blogday, let me spread some link love and enrich the geography – serendipity I mean! From my Zeitgeist (mostly)from Blogline subscription.

Angela Thomas aka Anya Ixchel I teach English Education and my research interests include digital cultures, new media literacies, multimodal semiotics and digital narratives. In Second Life, where I teach and conduct auto-ethnographic research, I am known as Anya Ixchel.

Sudha Jamthe I am a Tech Enterprenuer. Love trying all new technologies, especially digital media and hosted play of all sorts. I love the speed of innovation by entreprenuers and the energy of building great teams. I had great advisors and am trying to give it back as a starup advisor.

Rand Leeb-du Toit – Rand is the Chief Executive Officer of Yoick. Prior to that he was most recently an Entrepreneur in Residence and Director, Business Development at NICTA, an Australian ICT research institute. He was the CEO of an early stage venture capital company, Australian head of the first social networking phenomenon, First Tuesday and Executive Chairman of Tribalweave Capital.In addition to his board level experience with numerous high tech companies around the world he has a background in publishing and law.

Srini G – I’m a Linux user.I give at least one hour every morning to conscious yogic excercises and I get the rest of the day for myself.I love Mother Earth.I believe spirituality is the one thing that will save the world.“Zero expectancy, 100% acceptancy” — that’s what I’m upto. Let go the past. Have no expectations about the future, know that right things fall in right places at the right time. And joyfully accept the present, everything is just as perfect as it is .

Sig Seattle, Washington, United States: I am a foodie at heart, stuck in the techie world in Seattle, WA with my darling husband Siv where we, along with some dear friends spend a lot of time around food -eating it, talking about it, cooking it etc… I got inspired by some foodie blogs and started my own to share with you some recipes (own and borrowed) and reviews about the restaurants I visit. [This one I got by googling ‘Eggplant Now’ :)]

In conclusion, when Geography is History, Serendipity is the New Geography. Your Zeitgeist is your Location.