I assert that serendiptious discovery is hugely valuable. An unexpected learning is far more important than confirming something we already thought or verifying an assertion. Serendipity is where new ideas are born.
Wikipedia says "[[Stigmergy|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy]] is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions". The canonical example is of ants leaving trails of pheromones to guide other ants to a food source.
In the information world of humans, resources on the web act, whether we mean them to or not, as artifacts that indirectly coordinate action. While that action can be quite concrete (such as a project plan and task list) it can also be rather more abstract: learning and serendipitous discovery.
Information resources on a public network act as stigmergic structures for:
- Individuals (who need a reminder)
- Groups that need a pseudo-objective third party (the resources) to help guide activity.
- Nascent groups that are accreting around ideas.
For these structures to be any good, they need to be easy to create, easy to find and easy to use.
Networked information resources make explicit the cybernetic system in which a group (implicit or explicit) operates, making feedback more available and more transparent.
You've probably heard something like this before.