From Chance to Serendipity: Knowledge Workers’ Experiences of Serendipitous Social Encounters
Table 2
Online survey structure and verbatim questions.
I. General information regarding serendipitous experiences
Q1. Overall, how many serendipitous encounters do you think you have experienced? Q2. What portion of these was somehow successful and led to positive results in your work?
II. Most memorable experience
Q3. Please shortly describe what kinds of experiences or moments they were. Did they have something in common? Q4. Now, think of your personally most important experience or moment. If it is hard to decide between a few alternatives, it might be best to concentrate on the one that you remember the best. For the selected experience, we would like you to verbalize the first encounter from your perspective in as much detail as possible. Feel free to write a short story of the moment in your own way.
III. Context
Q5. The place where we met was to me: (1) very unfamiliar–(7) very familiar. Q6. The other surrounding people around were to me: (1) very unfamiliar–(7) very familiar. Q7. What were your first feelings or impressions after the meeting? Q8. Your willingness to socialize at that moment: (1) very unsocial–(7) very social. Q9. Busyness: (1) I was in a great hurry–(7) I was not busy at all. Q10. Energy level: (1) I was very tired–(7) I was full of energy.
IV. Attitude, follow-up, and valuable outcome
Q11. Please rate how different your interests were from the person you met: (1) very different–(7) very similar. Q12. If you identified common interests with the person you met, please briefly describe what they were about. Q13. Please rate how different your personality is from the person you met: (1) very different–(7) very similar. Q14. Please describe how comfortable you were while interacting with the person you met: (1) very awkward–(7) very comfortable. Q15. What were the long-term results of this encounter? How has this encounter been valuable to you and your work? Q16. How and when did you realize that this encounter or new connection was valuable? Q17. In your opinion, what made it possible to take advantage of this encounter or new connection?
V. Ideation on ICT-enhanced serendipity
Q18. How do you think information technology (e.g., mobile applications, online services, and social media) could support serendipitous encounters? Q19. What kind of technical features could help people discover each other or help people meet?
