THE GREEKS WERE ON TO SOMETHING

The youngest son of Zeus was named Caerus (aka Kairos). The image above is a painting of this Greek god. You

may be wondering ‘what’s up with the odd hairstyle?’ Well, Caerus was the god of opportunity or luck. He is

often depicted with wings on his back and feet. The reason? Opportunity is fleeting, it’s here today and gone

tomorrow, and the only way to grab it/him is when it’s in front of you…in this case by the tail of hair over his

face, from the front; once past there's nothing to grab onto.

I’ve always believed opportunity is something that can be engineered. There’s an old adage that when preparation meets opportunity it creates the offspring called luck. But, this only tells us that opportunity is still just out there somewhere unknown to be found and that you must go find it. So, we’re supposed to prepare - get better at things - improve our skills, intelligence, abilities, experience, build networks, etc…Eventually, we will meet Caerus (opportunity). While correct to a degree, the other side of the opportunity coin (apologies for dull analogies) is something called Zeitgeist.

Zeitgeist is a german word. In English, it means the prevailing mood of the moment or spirit of the time. What is the prevailing mood of the moment? This question can tend to get a bit philosophical and is arguably debatable. I’ve always loved to debate the different sides of an idea, perspective, or thought; to me, it's fun to exercise the mind and stress test or “steel-man” test notions.

Zeitgeist isn’t necessarily singular, a better model for thinking about Zeitgeist might be something hierarchical or multidimensional. We can ask questions like what is the Zeitgeist in computing? What is the Zeitgeist of a generation?....of an industry?...of a country? The answers to these questions increase the probability of manufacturing serendipity.

The reason all this stuff should be interesting is that in business and within our enterprises we should be wrestling with these things on a regular basis. When trying to find the next big thing or even simply the next best step, starting with Zeitgeist can lead to a rendezvous with Caerus.

I hope that this short random stream of thought provokes some new ideas. I leave you with a link to an excellent talk by D'Arcy Coolican, a partner at Andreesen Horowitz. His insights on what he calls "product zeitgeist fit" are gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uztjCqIgzsI