Can You Create Coincidences in Business?-#kaizenblog recap

Have you ever thought about coincidences? It would seem that they are around us all of the time. You’re thinking of someone and they call you or you were wondering about a particular topic and you discover an article about that very same topic. So, what is this anyway?

As a basis for conversation, we used Creating Coincidence, a post by Gavin Heaton (@servantofchaos) which described the story of how a letting go of a balloon with a note introduced two girls named Laura Buxton to one another and how details of a story are included and excluded to create a pattern of information which we call coincidence. A little background scientific information for you…the human brain is wired to seek out patterns, causality, and correlations. So, even if there is no actual relationship between two events, we create a story of coincidence. (Of course, there are times when humans do come up with some wacky stories to explain things that happen to them.)

Diane Court (@dc2fla) contributed to the conversation by sharing an article, Enterprise 2.0: Infrastructure for Synchronicity written by Paula Thornton (@rotkapchen). How does Jung’s idea of synchronicity add to the discussion of coincidence and is there a place for all of this in business?

You can find the whole transcript for the chat-Transcript for #kaizenblog – Coincidence in Business

People seemed very engaged with this topic as the conversation started within seconds of people joining the chat when Bruno Coelho (@bcoelho2000) remarked, “I believe the best way to create Coincidence in Business is to plan for it.” Dana Meyer (@QuantFun) gave his summation with “Creating Coincidence=Collaboration +lots of INCIDENTS=try stuff+share stuff”

So with those articles in the background and people anticipating where this conversation would be going, we started with the first question. Are we co-creating the stories we think are coincidences. If yes, why? If no, what instead?

Not sure if it was a genuine coincidence or not but stories were brought up it in the first few minutes of the chat before I asked the question.

• John Reddish (@GetResults) gave his answer to the overall topic question- “From framing doc-All storytelling-campfire, marketing, branding – are episodic – designed to sell – yes you can create it!”
• Stephen Denny (@Note_To_CMO) “Interesting reading abt brain science why we gravitate towards stories. We shut down our motor systems + believe what we see.”

After I asked the first question, people just jumped right in with how stories do correlate with the phenomenom of coincidence.

• Stephen Denny- “Q1 When we “consume” stories, we know we dont have to act, makes us open. Yes, we help it along + fill in gaps”
• Tom Asacker (@tomasacker)- “In ‘How Pleasure Works,’ Bloom writes: ‘What matters most is not the world as it appears to our senses.’ “
• John Reddish- “Every branding initiative should reinforce “good stories” & coincidence among aspects so market can accept”

These tweets seemed to reflect Heaton’s point that we screen out information that doesn’t fit the pattern we consider a coincidence. There may very well be a way to manipulate the experience of coincidence since we are more likely to believe our perceptions.

The concept of synchronicity was woven into the conversation at this point.

• Rayna Fagen (@RaynaNyc)- “Seeing coincidences means u r present in those moments.”
• John Reddish- “synchronicity (particularly Yungian) is more “universe” intentional, conveyed coincidence more a creation.”
• Kay Whitaker (@KayWhitaker)- “We are absolutely co-creating these stories with our intentions.”
• Diane Court- “…synchronicity shares qualities w/ so-called coincidence.”

Overall, it seems that coincidence and synchronicity were not entirely exclusive of one another in this chat.

The idea of intention continued to pop up in other tweets. While it was not always framed as such, the idea of a focused idea and plan seemed to our participants to lead to fortunate coincidences.

• Andrew Mueller (@andrewmueller)- “Recently heard Philip Kahn Speak (borland) say he was very lucky..’the harder he works, the more luck he has.’ ” In fact, Andrew Mueller seemed to sum up this part of the chat when he tweeted, “hard work focuses energy and puts one on a path when unexpected connections happen.”

With the general stage set, it was time to get specific with how one might create specific coincidences in business. Are there consequences for this?  If we focus on marketing, what consequences are possible when creating coincidences?

• Rayna Fagen- “I believe behavioral targeting falls into that ‘Marketing manipulated coincidence.’ “
• Dana Meyer- “Coincidence breeds familiarity = stronger brain connections = more top-of-mind. Good gets better.”
• Bruno Coehlo- “A coincidence occurs when the unexpected happens. In Marketing this happens if you let your customers experience your product”
• Stephen Denny- “Comes down to letting your customers see themselves in your branding/experience. Let them fill in their own gaps.”
• Amber Cleveland (@ambercleveland)- “Specifically related to Twitter, sharing that really takes hold on subconscious level, that can result in biz relationships.”

For the most part, it seems that coincidence is in the eye of the customer. There seemed to be responses that were mainly positive but some tweets seemed to reflect some uneasiness with manipulating customers.

So, to see if coincidence plays a part in another aspect of business, there was a sub-question, Where is coincidence in strategic planning?

• Andrew Mueller- “It doesn’t exist. it is perception every connection is manipulated by your every action.”
• Bruno Coehl0- “Coincidence in strategic planning when you’re designing your dream Customer Experience.”

There seemed to be a lot of passion about marketing, coincidence, storytelling, and customer experience. This is worth looking at in the transcript!

We came to the final question for this chat, What role does synchronicity play in coincidence?

• Dana Meyer- “dictionary: coincidence almost = synchronicity. Synchronicity is time-focused; coincidence can be pattern match”

So, maybe there isn’t a role for synchroncity in coincidence as they seem to be very different experiences. And did we determine that you can create coincidence in business? It seems that the answer is yes. There is the role of planning with intention and taking action. This appears to lead to opportunities that might be experienced as coincidences. As for marketing, there seems to be ways to tell stories that encourage customers to view how they experience our products and services as coincidences.