What place does serendipity have in a market intelligence?

Serendipity: Ability, art of making a discovery, particularly scientific, by chance; the discovery thus made.

The Importance of Serendipity in Scientific Discoveries

On September 3, 1928, while returning from summer vacation, Alexander Fleming discovered an invasion of fungal colonies in his petri dishes where he was cultivating staphylococci (bacteria). The source of contamination came from his neighbor at the bench, whose object of study was Penicillium notatum, a microscopic fungus. As he was about to get rid of it, he took a last look and noticed that the bacteria he was cultivating on these dishes had not managed to develop around the fungal colonies. He concluded that a certain substance secreted by the fungus was preventing its development. This is how penicillin was first discovered...

A little over 10 years later, with the help of Howard Walter Florey, it would become a formidable weapon in medicine against bacterial infections.

In this same spirit of serendipity, in 2022 a team of researchers from the Pasteur Institute succeeded in isolating a new therapeutic target for multiple myeloma. Initially, the research focused on Buruli ulcer, a bacterium that causes skin lesions by secreting a toxin, mycolactone. It was by understanding the mechanism of action of this toxin that they discovered a therapeutic target for multiple myeloma and carried out conclusive in vitro tests. This is excellent news, because to date, no treatment exists for this cancer!

Integrating serendipity into market intelligence

If in the field of science, serendipity and the “undirected” nature of research are a source of wealth and discoveries, in the field of information research, it can be put to the service of watchdogs, and more generally of a dynamic of collective economic intelligence.

Dominique Cardon, a leading sociologist in the digital world and professor at SciencePo Paris, offers an extremely interesting definition of Serendipity, which perfectly illustrates its importance in the context of a monitoring dynamic.Derived from the name of Prince Serendip, a character in a Ceylonese tale [...] serendipity refers to the possibility of making a discovery involuntarily, by a sort of happy chance. Nothing to do [however] with drawing a white marble from a bag of black marbles: serendipity supposes that one organizes the environment in order to bring together the best conditions for a good surprise. On social networks, it is by [carefully] choosing one's relationships that one can make discoveries that interest us [...] The climate around social networks [and more generally the major players on the Web] has changed compared to the euphoria of the beginnings. We no longer hear the argument that the news feed [and by extension the Web] is an enriching information system thanks to the virtuous effects of serendipity. Today's discourse is concerned that Internet users are being manipulated by platform algorithms [...] However, these navigation systems do indeed produce diversity, novelty and surprise. They rely [on the other hand] on the ability of Internet users to build the right information ecosystem themselves [...] on their ability to make the best choices, rather than letting journalists and gatekeepers [i.e.: platform algorithms] choose for them." (Culture Numérique, Domonique Cardon, SciencesPo presses, 2019).

Thus, two complementary dimensions condition and promote serendipity in market intelligence dynamics:

• The algorithmic dimension

"We are entering a new world that digital technology enriches, transforms, and monitors. It is important to have a variety of interdisciplinary knowledge to live in it with agility and prudence, because if we create digital technology, digital technology also creates us [...] Digital technology requires understanding by doing and doing by understanding; never have the two facets of learning been so closely linked as in digital technologies." - (Culture Numérique, Dominique Cardon, SciencesPo presses, 2019).

As publishers of the Curebot business intelligence platform, we share these beliefs and are actively working to develop interfaces, a user experience, and information processing algorithms that are, on the one hand, explainable and understandable, and on the other hand, configurable according to the objectives and needs of the intelligence teams, but also of all the company's business lines. For example, the operation of our clustering module is popularized in the support area, made available to our users, so that they understand how it works. Then, a simple configuration interface offers them the possibility of adapting its operation to their needs (choice of clustering algorithms, cluster size, parameters of the processed corpus, etc.). In this way, the module offers users the possibility of viewing informational contents whose distribution differs from the distribution of contents within a given corpus, because the latter do not belong to a cluster or because certain clusters go beyond the themes, concepts, keywords usually represented - Who knows, by serendipity, perhaps they will discover new informational horizons or identify weak signals!

• The human and collective dimension

At EspritsCollaboratifs, we have always believed that collective intelligence offers an extremely relevant response to the information challenges faced by information professionals and all professions. For almost 10 years now, we have been supporting and equipping various monitoring approaches; this is no longer just a conviction; it is a certainty. In the collaborative monitoring systems developed by our clients, different professions come together in communities of monitors who share similar interests and information territories, whether overlapping or converging.

In these communities, sourcing, reading grids, and analysis complement each other, sometimes enrich each other, and confront each other. There are many opportunities, through serendipity, to discover new information spaces, new ways of analyzing information, and to detect value in it, for another profession, that one had not suspected!

Let yourself be carried away by Serendipity and discover Curebot!