Is 10 year old Port Wine an Expansion Discovery? 

Serendipity

This is a term learned a long time ago and I learned the meaning incorrectly.  For some reason I thought it meant one thing was supportive of another thing.  If I read a story and then asked to tell a story, I could then recall the story, so it was serendipitous for me.  But that is not the meaning at all, it really means discovering accidentally or while trying to discover or invent something else.  I say invent because that is a blog post I wrote about, then serendipity invention of plastic.

Error

This type of discovery or invention is like serendipity but with a slight shift in the “ah ha” moment.  The error discovery would be easier to explain with an example (or two).  I’ve read that George Crum is the inventor of the first potato chip. Hey don’t have to eat them, I don’t, but I love Frito scoops. The story I read is that a customer kept sending back their plate of fired potatoes so many times that Crum lost is temper and over cooked the thin potato slices to prevent the customer from asking for them to be fried again and again. Other example I read is Silly Putty was invented by error.  I read that James Wright was trying to invent a rubber substitute during World War II.  His silicon gooey became a fun distraction for kids and adults. I can’t tell you how many times I used Silly Putty to take a picture off the newspaper comic section and stretch it to make me laugh.  What’s the comic section you ask? 

Expansion

This discovery process took me some time to research, it doesn’t just flow off the tongue during a conversation at the opera. My definition is that there is an invention but society, or business, or the market (to make money) is not ready, so later in years the invention is exactly what was needed. One of the examples I read was the discovery of ground radar, it was around a long time before it could be used to locate underground pipes, cables or buried treasure. OK, not buried treasure, I made that one up

I read many stories of how Port Wine was discovered and might be considered an Expansion discovery. The British would fortify wine with grape brandy to help presser its quality during the journey.  The fortified wine and brandy went down the Duoro River through the city of Opporto.  The name ‘vinho do porto’ or Port Wine was invented. OK maybe this is a discovery by error but it did take me a long time to learn to like really sweet wine and 10-year-old PORT is perfect. 

 

Reference

  De Sordi, J. O., Reed, E. N., Meireles, M., Hashimoto, M., & Rigato, C. (2019). Exaptation in management: beyond technological innovations. European Business Review, 31(1), 64-91. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-01-2018-0020

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